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Visible Spirit
The Art of
Gianlorenzo Bernini
Vol. I
Irving Lavin
The Pindar Press

London 2007
Published by The Pindar Press

40 Narcissus Road
London NW6 1TH UK
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-1-899828-39-5 (hb)

ISBN 978-1-904597-54-4 (pb)
Printed by
Estudios Grficos ZURE
48950 Erandio
Spain
This book is printed on acid-free paper
Contents
Foreword
Review of Rudolf Wittkower, Gian Lorenzo Bernini. The

Sculptor of the Roman Baroque
II
Bernini and the Theater
15
III

Bozzetti and Modelli. Notes on sculptural Procedure

from the Early Renaissance through Bernini
33
IV
Bernini and the Crossing of Saint Peters
62
Five New Youthful Sculptures by Gianlorenzo Bernini

and a revised Chronology of his Early Works
186
VI
Berninis Death
287
VII

VIII

Afterthoughts on Berninis Death
354
Letter to the Editor on a review by Howard Hibbard of

Bernini and the Crossing of St. Peters
371
IX

Calculated Spontaneity. Bernini and the Terracotta

Sketch
376
On the Pedestal of Berninis Bust of the Savior
393
XI

High and Low before their Time: Bernini and

the Art of Social Satire
397
XII
Berninis Memorial Plaque for Carlo Barberini
469
XIII
Berninis Baldachin: Considering a Reconsideration
480
XIV
Berninis Bust of Cardinal Montalto
496
XV
Berninis Cosmic Eagle
509
XVI
Berninis Image of the Sun King
524
Lavin I. Revised:CHAPTER 24
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Review of Rudolf Wittkower, Gian Lorenzo

Bernini, The Sculptor of the Roman Baroque*
HE modern Bernini revival may be said to date from a great exhibition

of his work held in Rome at the turn of the present century. On that
occasion Stanislau Fraschetti, a Venturi disciple, produced the weighty
volume which has remained fundamental to Bernini research ever since.
The quantities of documentary and broadly historical data the work contains, however, do not disguise a pervasive flaw; Fraschetti rather
disapproved of Berninis art, or at least his perception of it was obscured by
the lingering theoretical prejudices of an earlier age. This was the objection
raised, and probably somewhat overstated, by the great Riegl, whose
lectures on Baldinuccis Vita, published posthumously, reflect a much
deeper and more sympathetic insight.
In the rich bibliography on Bernini which has accumulated since that
time, two contributions are outstanding. Years of meticulous labour in the
labyrinthine archives of Rome, actually only begun and never wholly published, resulted ultimately (1927, 1931) in the Kunstttigkeit unter Urban
VIII of Oskar Pollak. Devoted entirely to the documents of artistic production in Rome under Urban VIII, these two volumes provided the historian
of Roman Baroque art, and of Bernini in particular, with a foundation in
fact of paradigmatic breadth and reliability. The second major event was the
joint publication in 1931 by Professor Wittkower, who had participated in
the edition of Pollaks material, and Heinrich Brauer, of Berninis sizeable
*
Review of Rudolf Wittkower, Gian Lorenzo Bernini: The Sculptor of the Roman Baroque,
New York, Phaidon, 1955, pp. 255, 107, Figs., 122 Pls.
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legacy of drawings. In addition to presenting much new material, both

visual and documentary, this was the first really comprehensive attempt to
understand Berninis art through the medium of his preparatory studies.
Professor Wittkowers new monograph on Berninis sculpture thus
appears against a somewhat lopsided historiographical setting. For while
considerable development was taking place on the Continent, Bernini had
hardly been introduced to the English-speaking public, scholarly or otherwise. One cause of this situation, and a formidable obstacle in the way of
its correction, was the traditional Anglo-Saxon penchant for reticence and
understatement in aesthetic matters; a laudable sentiment in some respects
perhaps, but profoundly unberninesque. To meet the challenge, a neat summary and sound exposition, in English, was very much in order. It required
however, an author possessing at least one very special characteristic
absolute mastery of the truly formidable body of available information.
Needless to say, such individuals are exceedingly rare; indeed, Wittkower
may well be the only living example. Publication of any work by Wittkower
has come to be recognized as an important event in the realm of art
history. All factors have combined to make this especially true on the
present occasion.
The books arrangement follows a pattern by now well-established in the
Phaidon monographs. There is a brief text, a more elaborate catalogue
raisonn, and a copious body of illustrations which includes large plates as
well as smaller supplementary figures.
The text is barely forty-three pages long; when we consider that it has to
interpret the sculptural production of an artist whose career covered two
generations, the extraordinary difficulties of the undertaking become apparent. The author has chosen to divide the material into typological
groups, such as religious imagery; tombs and chapels, etc., which are discussed in a total of seven chapters. The reader is thereby spared the flood of
monuments with which he would be faced in a purely chronological treatment; such a treatment would only mislead him in any case, since
simultaneous undertakings, often widely divergent in character, were the
rule rather than the exception in Berninis studio. But most important, the
typological plan illustrates the constancy of certain kinds of problems
throughout Berninis development. And since Wittkower conceives of
Bernini as the great revolutionary, the destroyer of barriers par excellence, he
can the more readily describe which barriers were destroyed in each category, and by what means. His formal analyses are confined mainly to the first
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THE SCULPTURES OF GIAN LORENZO BERNINI
level of visual experience, dipping only when necessary into the infinite
subtleties that lie beneath. He is thus ever-cognizant of the uninitiated, for
whom he also defines with refreshing lucidity the peculiar visual and
ideological terms in which Berninis art must be understood.
The first chapter concerns Berninis juvenilia. Discussion of these works
is always crucial, since in them Bernini perpetrated his very first revolution;
namely, that of resurrecting, before he was twenty-five, the entire moribund
tradition of Roman sculpture. The need for a new general account of
Berninis youthful development has been rendered urgent in recent years by
the researches of Italo Faldi, in the Borghese collection of the Vaticans
Archivio Segreto; these findings have necessitated several conspicuous modifications in the canonical chronology of the Borghese figures. The most
notable change involves the David; instead of 1619, as had been thought
since Venturis day, it must actually have been made ca. 1623, and thus
comes after rather than before the Rape of Proserpine. The Apollo and
Daphne, moreover, is not several years after the David, but contemporary
with it, begun before and finished afterward. Once the point has been
made, it becomes difficult to see how the Pluto and Proserpine could ever
have been considered later than the David, so natural is the development in
the opposite direction. Indeed, the entire evolution represented by the
Borghese sculptures becomes much more meaningful, a fact which emerges
clearly from Professor Wittkowers account.
Bernini advanced during this period with prodigious rapidity. In the few
years that separate the Aeneas and Anchises from the Rape of Proserpine, he had
already fought and won a major engagement. Accurate realistic observation and
genuine classical influence subordinated to Annibales disciplined interpretation
of the antique that was the formula by which Bernini rid his style of the last
vestiges of Mannerism. A certain optimum is reached almost immediately thereafter in the David, where the thin but impenetrable veil of consciousness that had
separated representation from reality falls, and the two worlds freely intermingle.
This quality is less pronounced in the Apollo and Daphne, (initiated, be it
remembered, before the David ), but is replaced by a keener penetration of
psychophysical dynamics which contrasts with the classicizing abstraction of the
whole, and points unmistakably into the future. Wittkower summarizes Berninis
achievements in these early works in one splendid sentence which bespeaks the
essence of his own contributions during a lifetime of thought, as well as the
insights gained by a major segment of art-historical endeavour during the past
fifty years (p. 8).
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Berninis figures of religious subjects are considered in the following

chapter. His effort in this area involved primarily an adaptation of the
dynamic energy and external focus attained earlier to the problems of spiritual expressiveness. At first individually, as in the St. Bibiana and St.
Longinus, and then in complementary pairs, like Daniel and Habakkuk,
Mary Magdalene and St. Jerome, Bernini contrasts the varieties of religious
experience that were as categories inherent in the Baroque mentality.
Herein seems to lie the secret of Berninis spectacular success: it is through
emotional identification with the mood symbolized in a figure that the
faithful are led to submit to the ethos of the triumphant CounterReformation. In every case Wittkower explores the means whereby this effect of empathetical association is produced. He also demonstrates, in
discussing the Beata Lodovica Albertoni, the changes that took place with
Berninis late development. Whereas the mature works are constructed
primarily with diagonals, the dominating system here is one of verticals and
horizontals. This principle Wittkower considers to be essentially classical,
and he connects it with a general turn toward the austere and classical in
several of the major Baroque artists around 1660.
The chapter on Berninis portraits, together with the related entries in
the catalogue, may easily constitute the most enduring scholarly contribution in the book. Nowhere better than in his portraits did Bernini reveal
himself the archenemy of traditions injunctions. Yet, the subject has long
cried for adequate treatment. Wittkower discusses incisively the critical
development that occurs at the period of the Longinus, in the portraits of
Scipione Borghese and Costanze Bonarelli. Here Bernini formulates that
expansive, extroverted type which astounds by the immediacy of its contact,
and catches the entire age in a moment unawares. Once achieved, this uncanny spontaneity was never lost, animating the Baker and Orsini busts in
the teeth of studio assistance and a certain tendency to abstraction and
planar simplication. Even these were but an overture to the concerti grossi
Bernini fashioned in the portraits of Francesco I dEste and Louis XIV. Less
momentary perhaps, but more monumental and grandiose, they fully
realize Berninis unique conception of the general cause vested in a great
and powerful personality.
The basic problem arising in connection with Berninis work for St.
Peters, discussed in the next chapter, is the extent to which the ultimate results were the product of a unified preconceived plan. Probably there will
never be a precise answer to this question, since available evidence is con-
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flicting. Two things are certain, however: that a complete transformation of

the whole complex was envisaged from the outset, and that Bernini
succeeded in harmonizing the disparate contributions of a host of enterprises which date back as far as the fifteenth century. To convey a sense of
this unity, Wittkower turns cicerone and takes the reader on a tour that
begins at the east side of the Tiber and ends before the vast, culminating
spectacle of the Cattedra Petri. He creates a series of images filled with
nostalgia for those who have been there, and envy for those who may have
tried to verbalize their impressions in a few short sentences. The Cattedra
Petri climaxes the whole, he emphasizes, through a complete fusion of
colours, materials, and levels of relief; this fusion serves one overwhelming
purpose, that of drawing the observer inexorably into a world which he
shares with saints and angels.
In his chapels, which are treated in the fifth chapter, Berninis primary
effort again was to eliminate arbitrary visual and spiritual impediments that
hinder the spectators participation in the event portrayed. In the Cornaro
chapel, for example, he establishes at least three realms of existence:
members of the Cornaro family who appear in loges at the chapels sides, a
very literal depiction of St. Theresas vision as she herself described it, and
the glory of angels above. Bernini then proceeds by every possible means,
including a concealed source of light, to interrelate these three realities so
that the worshiper can communicate directly with personages whose orders
of being are higher than his own. Naturally, the experience would be most
effective when all the attendant circumstances could be controlled. And
Wittkower points out that in each of the three churches which Bernini
designed in their entirety (S. Tommaso at Castelgandolfo, the Assumption
at Ariccia, and S. Andrea al Quirinale), the entire structure, including its
decoration, is subordinated to a single religio-dramatic event.
In another remarkable paragraph Wittkower definitively annihilates the
banal connotation of theatricalism which often accompanies the
traditional association of Berninis style with the Baroque stage. He explains
the community of means, the community of effects and above all, the
community of purpose that properly define a relationship to the theatre (in
which field Bernini was no less astonishing a creator than in sculpture).
With certain exceptions, the contributions of Mannerist principles are
most strongly felt in the fountains and monuments, which are the subject
of the following chapter. The naturalistic bizzarerie of sixteenth century garden sculpture supplied the essential freedom and even some of the motifs
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which Bernini monumentalized and placed on public view in the streets

and piazzas of Rome. The real achievement, however, Wittkower once more
finds in the reconciliation of elements normally incompatible. He shows
how the movement, even the sound, of water unites in an integral whole
with solid travertine and marble; and how, in the Four Rivers fountain, extremely naturalistic forms are used to represent a seemingly impossible
static situation, creating thereby an impression which has at once the reality and unreality of a dream.
The last chapter deals with three of the broader problems that help to
complete the outline of Berninis development. The story of Bernini and his
period is ultimately a simple one by and large he created the period in
his own image. Throughout his life, outside influences were more a matter
of convenience than of necessity. Even the brief fall from favour during the
early years of Innocent Xs reign brought, as Wittkower observes, many of
the purest expressions of Berninis personal artistic manifesto. Analysis of
the functional composition of Berninis studio reveals his administrative
genius and the extent of advanced preparation which he lavished on those
commissions that called for it. Nearly every member of the shop lent a hand
in the tomb of Alexander VII, for instance; yet it has all the cohesion of a
personally executed work. And unless he chose to relax his grip, Bernini was
able to maintain this homogeneity despite the diversity of talent he
employed. A separate study would be very useful here: as an aid in distinguishing the work of Berninis own hand from that of his assistants, as a
clarification of the channels through which Berninis style was transmitted
throughout Europe, and for an understanding of the progressive dissolution
of the unity which Bernini created into the basic tendencies that evolved in
the eighteenth century. Berninis theory, such as it is, generally shows him
steeped in the traditions of the Renaissance; yet elements of a more personal
view also appear here and there in the sources. Wittkower rightly stresses
that it is an error to consider the two attitudes incompatible. On the contrary, they complement one another, and both are indispensable in the
procedure that underlay the final product.
The catalogue raisonn, finally, gives a complete picture of Berninis work
in sculpture. Considering the wealth of material at hand, it is a model of
abridgement and clarity, and will provide an ideal point of reference for
those who wish to delve further into Berninis art. A great deal of new
information is included, as are several new monuments, while a number of
works receive more accurate dates than heretofore. The whole is supple-
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mented by a chronological chart, which allows a most welcome birds-eye

view of the full range of Berninis production.
A publication of this sort must discharge two obligations before all
others. The brief text should be palatable to a very wide audience, while the
catalogue, although longer, must deal with the minutiae of the subject. The
region that lies between, which is the natural purview of interpretive art
history, suffers perforce from neglect. Certainly no space can be given over
to controversy or conjecture, which to many will seem little enough cause
for regret. Besides, the work already wears two hats; a third would hardly be
appropriate.
The condition is aggravated, however, by the very organization of the
text. The typological plan, although it has the important advantages we
noted above, inevitably sacrifices a sense of over-all developmental
continuity. The reader must build a synthesis from isolated remarks
dispersed here and there in the text. A summary does run through pp.
3739; but as it is very brief, the author regrettably was forced to stint on
several problems and to omit others altogether. Accordingly, the remarks
which follow are offered to orient those who are not fully acquainted with
the implications of some of Wittkowers views, and to recommend caution
at certain points where the line between simplification and oversimplification may seem perilously tenuous.
We suspect, for example, that Berninis art did not develop in quite so
complete a vacuum with respect to his contemporaries and immediate
predecessors as Wittkowers account might suggest. It is true that Mariani,
Maderna, even Mochi, and others, are of interest now only to specialists in
the field of Baroque sculpture; yet Bernini was certainly a specialist in the
field, if nothing else. We mention only artists who were active at one time
or another in Rome; those working in other centres may also have been
significant, as Longhi suggested long ago. In the past, Wittkower himself
has contributed much to our knowledge of these individuals, and he does
make generic references to Giovanni Bologna and Mannerism here; but the
maze of sixteenth and early seventeenth century traditions, in and out of
Rome, is still far from sufficiently explored to permit final conclusions. The
same is largely true of painting. Wittkower recognizes, along with
antiquity, the importance of Annibale Carracci, Guido Reni and
Caravaggio for the early work; on the other hand, Berninis continuing
relationship to the painting of his own and previous generations receives
little or no consideration. Such a relationship must have existed, although
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here again it might be premature to attempt a conclusive definition. Great

things were going on in this sphere throughout Berninis lifetime. It would
be misleading to imply that he was unaware of them as regards his technique, his decorative schemes, and even certain of his individual figures.
Caravaggio poses a further problem. His influence evidently goes much beyond the early physiognomical studies. While the two artists of course
achieve very different results, the intense realism directed toward inducing
an immediate emotional rapport between the spectator and the subject
represented is common to them both. Moreover, the extremely suggestive
religious associations which Walter Friedlaender has recently found in
Caravaggios art may indicate that considerable refinement is possible in our
understanding of Berninis response to the fervent mysticism of Loyola and
the Jesuits.
In any case it is certain that Berninis development was exceedingly complex. And the addition to his earliest oeuvre of the St. Sebastian in Lugano
and the St. Lawrence in Florence occasions a curious situation which
Wittkower does not discuss. In certain important respects these works contain fewer Mannerist or Maniera features than do the Aeneas and Anchises
or even the Pluto and Proserpine which come later in Wittkowers chronology. The question has at least enough substance for one recent critic to
postulate, indeed, that Bernini fell under his fathers influence in the Aeneas
and Anchises, after he had already broken away from it in the St. Sebastian
and St. Lawrence; 1 not an impossible arrangement, but rather uncomfortable and in need of elucidation. Although elimination or even redating of
the works may not be justified, we should wish to have Wittkowers views
on the topic.
A kindred difficulty occurs with the decidedly classical trend in
Berninis development during the 1630s, witnessed by such monuments as
that of Countess Matilda and the early stage of the Pasce Oves Meas. Bernini
may indeed have been making certain concessions to a prevailing taste for
classicism (p. 37), but whether this alone suffices as an explanation of the
phenomenon appears open to debate. In the first place there is the indubitable fact that classical (antique) art never ceased to be an inspiration.
Moreover, it will be recalled that a work of such another stamp as the
Bonarelli bust was executed during precisely the same period. Evidently, the
Faldi, Galleria Borghese, Le sculture dal secolo XVI al XIX, Rome, 1954, p. 28.
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interpretation of Berninis entire development is involved, rather than

merely a single phase having political implications. Perhaps it is only a
matter of degree; in which case, however, it would seem all the more important to evaluate other hypotheses, such as those suggested by Berninis
conception of the appropriateness of form to content (to which the sources
testify andWittkower himself alludes when analysing the St. Bibiana, p. 9).
Arguments could be found, for example, for an alternative of styles, or even
a kind of stylistic continuum different aspects of which could be
emphasized for different purposes. Probably the subject cannot be resolved
apart from a consideration of Berninis architecture, in itself and as it relates
to his sculpture; but here we begin to detect a vicious circle.
Discussion seems warranted by Wittkowers designation of Berninis late
style, i.e. after 1660, as classical and related to a similar development in the
production of other artists of the period. To begin with, we fear that some
confusion may arise from using the same word to describe a work like the
Beata Lodovica Albertoni, as the Countess Matilda monument, for example.
Superficially at least, quite dissimilar styles are represented. There is of
course a common ground; and it is sufficiently evident to reveal
Wittkowers meaning to a trained art historian, whether or not he agrees
that one name is applicable in both contexts. But we must sympathize with
the consternation of the general reader, who may not share with us the
benefits of an imprecise vocabulary.
Vocabulary aside, however, the author aptly stresses the basic differences between mature works and late works such as the busts of
Francesco I and Louis XIV, the St. Theresa and the Beata Lodovica; he
has utterly absolved them from the taint of repetitiousness with which
they have too often been slandered. And doubtless a tendency toward
horizontals and verticals is among the more important distinctions. Yet
it seems intended to provide a stabilizing element beneath other
changes in the treatment of form itself which are possibly more important, and surely less susceptible to the term classical. For the increased
geometry of the underlying system was the necessary complement in
the late style to a more radical dissolution of mass, wherein the marble
is valued less for its volume than as the creator of patterns of light and
dark. The question becomes one of determining which constituent of
the style merits greater emphasis, and the decision we make is of some
consequence. Pevsner also has found a marked turn around the same
period in Italian painting, akin to this dissolution of form, however,
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rather than Wittkowers change in structure, and moving in a very different direction from that of classicism.2
In the catalogue, as we have noted, the detailed entries on portraits are
particularly valuable. The multitude of objects of this type blessed with
Berninis name in museums and collections throughout the world make
for a perplexing state of affairs, which Wittkower has done much to
clarify. Indeed, a number of recent efforts to connect existing monuments
with statements in the sources have yielded gratifying results. We should
maintain only a few reservations as to the extent of the masters participation. For example, the animated countenance of the early bust of Urban
VIII in the Barberini collection (cat. no. 19, I, Pl. 32) indicates that
Bernini was in the vicinity; but the expression itself has a trace of fatuousness, hardly compatible with his later conception of that magnificent
Pope. Moreover, the somewhat textureless skin and vapid eyes recall the
portrait of Urban without cap in S. Lorenzo in Fonte (cat. no. 19, 1a, Fig.
16), where Wittkower recognizes the hand of Giulio Finelli. The bust of
Francesco Barberini now in Washington (cat. no. 24a, Fig. 27), while it
has a finely structured head, is uneven technically and somehow lacks the
expressive imaginativeness of works entirely by Bernini. The Doria
portrait of Innocent X (cat. no., 51, 2, Pl. 79) employs one of Berninis
devices for vitalizing the lower portions of his busts. He may therefore
have been responsible for the basic design, and perhaps certain areas of
the surface as well. Otherwise, the effect seems too bland, especially for a
product of the later 1640s. Works such as these, despite unusual qualities
and excellent references, cannot be equated with Berninis best portrayals.
It must be said in general, however, that a liberal policy in this realm is
probably much the wisest until more extensive studies have been made of
the individual members of Berninis studio.
A later bust of Urban VIII in the Barberini collection (cat. no. 19, 2a,
Pl. 35, Fig. 17), on the other hand, is an extremely moving characterization,
though here exception may be taken to Wittkowers suggested dating (about
1630). One of the two related bronze casts (in Camerino) is documented
1643; and since the execution, the mood and age of the sitter are all closely linked to the bust of Urban in Spoleto (16401642), there is no
Wiener Jahrbuch fr Kunstgeschichte, VIII, 1932, pp. 69 ff.
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compelling reason to assume that the marble original and the other bronze
(Vatican Library) were produced more than a decade before.3
Concerning the composition of Time discovering Truth, of which only
the figure of Truth was executed, it is often overlooked that the two descriptions we have of Berninis intentions directly contradict each other. The
earlier, and evidently the correct version, is contained in a letter of
November 30, 1652, from Gemignano Poggi to Francesco I of Modena,
where it is reported that Time was to be flying above to unveil Truth, who
lay upon a rock (Fraschetti, p. 172). Years later, on the other hand, Bernini
himself told Louis XIV that Time was to carry Truth up to the heavens
(Chantelou, ed. Lalanne, p. 116). The former situation is found, roughly,
in a sketch in Leipzig (Brauer-Wittkower, Pl. 20) and is implied in the work
that has come down to us, though that particular drawing may not
actually be a study for it. The arrangement Bernini describes, however, reverts essentially to the way in which the subject had been represented by
painters in the first half of the century. In this fashion, for example,
Domenichino had depicted Time unveiling Truth on the Apollo ceiling of
the Palazzo Costaguti (ca. 1615, cf. L. Serra, Domenichino, Fig. 43). Also
interesting is the canvas for a ceiling in Richelieus palace executed by
Poussin shortly before he left Paris in 1642 (cf. Grautoff, Poussin, II, Pl.
106). Presumably Bernini knew of the composition, and it may well have
influenced the false and rather fantastic account of his own work that he
gave to the French king.
Wittkowers interpretation of the documents pertaining to the Ponte
SantAngelo is ingenious. The problem centres upon four statues, two now
in S. Andrea delle Fratte by Bernini himself, and two copies which stand
on the bridge. Wittkower makes a virtue of necessity in reconciling the usually reliable sources (Baldinucci and Domenico Bernini) which report that
Bernini was surreptitiously responsible for a second version of the Angel
with the Inscription, with the preserved payment to Giulio Cartari for that
figure. We must assume that on two occasions artists were paid the full
complement of 700 scudi (which the other sculptors received for their figures entire) for merely preparing the marble, which Bernini then finished.
Yet this hypothesis does less violence than most to a perverse group of facts
for which no consistent theory seems able to give a fully satisfying
Cf. V. Martintelli, Studi romani, III, I, 1955, p. 46; further to Bernini portraiture, idem,
I busti berniniani di Paolo V, Gregorio XV e Clemente X, III, 6, 1955, pp. 647666.
3
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explanation. Moreover, the main conclusion of Wittkowers argument, that

the Angel with the Inscription now on the bridge is ultimately a separate
creation of Bernini himself, is undoubtedly true. However, the basic
chronology presents a problem which should be considered.
I would find it hard to believe that the Angel with the Inscription on the
bridge is actually a later conception than the one in S. Andrea. The
similarity to its partner in disposition of both drapery and legs is inimical
to the fundamental principles of differentiation that Bernini arrived at in
the S. Andrea figures only after much experimentation. The design seems
rather to be an offshoot from an earlier stage in the development, analogous
to the composition which Bernini had provided for Lazzaro Morellis Angel
with the Scourge. It may be questioned whether any light can be shed on this
paradoxical relation between first and second versions. The essential data
are as follows:
1. November 11, 1667. Funds are set aside for redecoration of the
bridge.
2. July, 28, 1668. The Pope inspects the angels in Berninis studio.
3. July 12, 1669. Paolo Naldini is paid for his copy of the Angel with the
Crown.
4. September 11, 1669. Bernini is paid for one of his angels (Fraschetti,
p. 370, no. 11, a document not mentioned by Wittkower).
5. November 13, 1669. Giulio Cartari is paid for his copy of the Angel
with the Inscription (Wittkower considers that he only prepared the
marble).
6. December 1, 1669. Paolo Bernini is referred to as having executed
one of the original angels now in S. Andrea.
7. September 11, 1670, Paolo Bernini is paid, presumably for the same
angel as in no. 6 (also preparation of the marble in Wittkowers
view).
8. October 28, 1671. Bernini is reported as having finally resolved to
finish his angel.
Perhaps the most puzzling document is no. 7, which, granting
Wittkowers assumptions, would suggest that Paolo Bernini prepared the
marble for an original angel as one of the latest steps in the operations. If,
as seems most likely for a number of reasons, this payment refers to the
original Angel with the Inscription, it would follow that the preparation of
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that figure was completed only after both the copy (doc. no. 3) and the original (doc. no, 4) of the Angel with the Crown had been finished, and even
after Cartari had prepared the second version of Angel with the Inscription
(doc. no. 5). This would make it entirely understandable, chronologically
speaking, that the Cartari-Bernini substitute should include features which
are antecedent to Berninis final solution for the pair. In any case, it appears
that both substitutes were begun before their respective originals were finished. Indeed one begins to wonder how seriously it was ever intended to
mount Berninis angels on the bridge, at least in their present form. They
are so highly finished, much more so than the other figures on the bridge,
as to raise a priori the doubt that Bernini would have gone so far at a time
when he was still expecting them to be placed in the open.
The book is practically free of minor errors or omissions, as far as this
reviewer can judge. Worth mentioning perhaps are only the fact that the
fragmentary terracotta head in a Roman private collection (cat. no. 18, p.
184), originally published as being for the Daphne (Colasanti, Bollettino
darte, III, 1923/4, pp. 416 ff.), is actually related to the head of Proserpine
(indicated by the tears, ibid., Fig. p. 418, printed in reverse; E. Zocca, Arti
figurative, 1, 1945, p. 158); and that Berninis designs for the fountains at
Sassuolo, carried out by Raggi in part, are rather precisely datable, August
1652 (cat. no. 8o, 6, p. 243; cf. Fraschetti, p. 229, n. 2 and 3).
A word must be said concerning the illustrations. With 122 full-size plates
and 98 supporting illustrations inserted into the catalogue, the work gives
one of the richest visual documentations of Berninis sculpture presently
available. The publishers rendered noble service by having made a goodly
number of new photograph; these on the whole are excellent, and contribute
substantially to an illustrational problem which, as everybody recognizes,
only a corpus of several volumes could adequately solve. The details
especially are striking (e.g. Pls. 6, 39, 53, 88, 114), and exploit with real
sensitivity Berninis textural and chiaroscuro nuances. Unfortunately,
however, the whole series appears to have been subjected to a process of
reproduction which fairly pulverizes the surfaces and eliminates plastic
modulations. The effects in many cases are hardly noticeable, but in others
they are very damaging indeed (e.g. Pls. 3, 9, 35, 61). Reproductions are
never perfect, and a certain amount of touching-up was unavoidable, even
excusable; except in one instance where, surely through an oversight, the
restorers pencil marks were left blatantly in evidence (Pl. 8, around the
eyes). The publishers might have taken greater care to maintain their own
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14
high standards and do justice to the photographs themselves, as well as to the

text.
These blemishes are all but overshadowed, however, by the authors
choice of plates for juxtaposition and comparison. Words being extremely
precious, it is not surprising to find photographic comparisons used to
supplement the text, to suggest to the reader special points for meditation,
and to serve as silent witnesses to the authors arguments. Wittkowers
selections are often particularly evocative; if nothing of Berninis whole
oeuvre were preserved except the two photographs of the head of
Constantines horse and that of Gabriele Fonseca (Pls. 111 and 112), proof
would yet be ample that here was one of the greatest artists of all
Christendom.
In the last analysis, some of our considerations, although pertinent to
Wittkowers subject, may reach beyond its scope. Even so, perhaps they will
suggest the magnitude of our loss in the authors decision to abandon his
plan for a definitive treatment of Berninis art. But also, they should indicate the complexity of the problems with which he has dealt in so concise
and orderly a fashion. Fortunate indeed are those who see Berninis
sculpture for the first time through Wittkowers eyes.
Lavin II:Lavin 2 Chap VII
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II
Bernini and the Theater
HERE was one art form in which the use of a variety of media and the
effect of unity were, as we tend to assume, inherent that is, the
theater.1 For anyone wishing to understand Berninis artistic personality as
a whole, his activity in the theater presents one of the most beguiling problems. From all accounts, and there are many, it is clear that he spent much
time and energy throughout his life producing, writing and acting in plays,
designing sets and inventing ingenious scenic effects. Beginning in the early
1630s, during Carnival season, he would either stage something for one of
his patrons or, more regularly, put on a comedy of his own.2 John Evelyn
was awed during his visit to Rome in 1644, when he learned and noted in
his diary that shortly before his arrival Bernini had given a Publique Opera
. . . where in he painted the seanes, cut the Statues, invented the Engines,
composed the Musique, writ the Comedy & built the Theater all himselfe.3 These efforts were extremely successful and to judge from the
1 What follows is a somewhat revised and enlarged version of a review of DOnofrio,

Fontana, in The Art Bulletin, LXVI, 1964, 56872.
2 In a letter of 1634 Fulvio Testi speaks as if Bernini had been giving comedies for some
time (conforme al solito degli altri anni; Fraschetta, Bernini, 261, n. 3). The earliest notice
we have of a play by him is in February 1633 (ibid., 261, n. 1); Domenico Bernini states
(47f., 53) that his father began writing plays during an illness that occurred when he was
approaching the age of thirty-seven, i.e., in 1635.
3. Diary, ed. E. S. de Beer, 6 vols., Oxford, 1955, II, 261; repeated by Evelyn in the preface to his translation of Frarts Idea of the Perfection of Painting, 1668: . . . not many years
since, he is reported to have built a theatre at Rome, for the adornment whereof he not only
cut the figures, and painted the scenes, but writ the play, and composd the musick which
was all in recitativo (Miscellaneous Writings, ed. W. Upcott, London, 1825, 562).
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16
artists conversations in Paris in 1665, which are full of anecdotes about his
productions he was ingenuously proud of his accomplishments. Bernini
was passionately involved in the world of the stage.
From a broader historical point of view, as well, Berninis theatrical
activities are of extraordinary importance. He lived through a decisive
period in the creation of the opera, not only as a musical and dramatic but
also as a visual art form. Although he had had many predecessors as artistscenographer (not so many as artist-playwright and artist-actor), it is with
Bernini that the relationship between art and theater becomes a critical
question. The epithet Baroque theatricality has often been leveled at his
work in general and the Teresa chapel in particular, implying a kind of
meretricious stagecraftiness that transfers formal and expressive devices
from the domain of ephemeral and artificial to that of permanent and serious arts, where they have no proper business. It might almost be said that
our view of the whole period, as well as of the artist himself, has been colored by Berninis activity in the theater.4
Yet, it is evident from our analysis that there is not a single device in the
chapel which can be explained only by reference to the theater; every detail
the so-called audience in boxes, the so-called hidden lighting, the socalled stage-space of the altarpiece, the so-called dramatic actions of the
figures, the mixture of media every detail has roots in the prior development of the permanent visual arts. Nevertheless, the very conception of the
Teresa chapel involves a reference to the theater, and this is what chiefly distinguishes it from Berninis other works. The reference is not in the form of
borrowed scenic devices, however, but in the form of a deliberate evocation
of Berninis own very special conception of what occurred in the theater.
It must be borne in mind that we actually know very little about
Berninis productions. Historians have generally been content to repeat the
more spectacular instances of his scenographic wizardry, while neglecting
many other references and descriptions in the sources.5 It is also unfortu4 The
monograph of Fagiolo dellArco, Bernini, is the most recent attempt to interpret

virtually the whole of Berninis art under the aspect of the theater.
5 The sources for Berninis theatrical activities are conveniently gathered in C.
DOnofrio, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Fontana di Trevi: Commedia inedita, Rome, n.d. [1963],
91ff., except for the letters describing his comedy of 1635 about academies of painting and
sculpture in Naples (A. Saviotti, Peste e spettacoli nel seicento, Giornale storico della letteratura italiana, XLI, 1903, 71ff.), the accounts of the Fiera di Farfa intermezzo of 1639 (see
p. 18 below), and the unpublished documents of 1641 cited below, p. 18, n. 9.
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BERNINI AND THE THEATER
17
nately true that until recently nothing Bernini created for the theater had
been known at first hand. A drawing once thought to be a design by him
for a stage set is now generally ascribed to Juvarra.6 Bernini was long credited with the sets for the famous Barberini operatic production of the early
1630s, SantAlessio, recorded in a group of eight engravings by Collignon
(cf. Fig. 1); but from the documents in the Barberini archive in the Vatican,
it appears that Bernini had no share in this production.7 Nevertheless,
because of the astonishment expressed by contemporaries and his association willy-nilly with this and other Barberini extravaganzas, Bernini
came to be regarded as a major figure in the development of the Baroque
machine spectacle.
This was surely not the case. To begin with, Berninis name can be
attached firmly to only two of the important Barberini operas during Urban
For a recent general treatment, see C. Molinari, Le nozze degli di: Un saggio sul grande
spettacolo italiano nel seicento, Rome, 1968, 10520.
6 Brauer and Wittkower, Zeichnungen, 33f., pl. 15. Cf. A. E. Brinckmann, I disegni,
in Comitato per le onoranze a Filippo Juvarra, Filippo Juvarra, 1, Turin, 1937, 146, 162;
Battaglia, Cattedra, 119, n. 2; L. Grassi, Bernini pittore, Rome, 1945, 48, 59, n. 1.
7 The attribution to Bernini (which seems to occur first in G. Martucci, Salvator Rosa
nel personaggio di Formica, Nuova antologia di scienze, lettere ed arti, LXXXIII, 1885, 648)
never had any basis in fact. To begin with, a monogram that appears in the corner of one
state of the Collignon engravings (Il S. Alessio: Dramma musicale . . ., Rome, 1634, BV,
Stamp. Barb. N. XIII. 199) was misconstrued as referring to Bernini (by F. Clementi, Il carnevale romano, 2 vols., Citt di Castello, 19389 [first ed. 1899], 1, 473, and again by A.
Schiavo, A proposito dei Disegni inediti di G. L. Bernini e di L. Vanvitelli di A. Schiavo,
Palladio, N.S., IV, 1954, 90). Then Fraschetti (Bernini, 261) quite gratuitously interpolated
Berninis name into the account of the performance given in Giacinto Giglis Diario romano
(ed. G. Ricciotti, Rome, 1958, 140); no such reference occurs in the manuscripts of the
diary (Rome, Bibl. Vittorio Emanuele, MS.811, fol. 139v [autograph]; BV, MS. Vat. lat.
8717, 141; San Pietro in Vincoli, MS.147).
The monogram, by analogy with Franois Collignons own initials as they appear in the
opposite corner of the engravings, should probably be read as F.B.; payment was made to
the painter Francesco Buonamici for unspecified work on the production of 1634 (BV, AB,
Armadio 100, Giustificazioni Nos. 17512000, Card. Francesco Barberini, 16324, No.
1907; cf. Arm. 86, Libro Mastro B, Card. Francesco, 16304, 346).
A possible reading is P.B.; Pietro Berrettini da Cortona made some small pieces of
scenery and the Eye of the Demon for the 1632 production (ibid., Arm. 155, Alfabeto di
entrata e uscita della guardarobba, Card. Antonio, 1632, fol. I45r: A di 18 feb.ro 1632.
Lenzoli portati p. servitio della Representatione . . . Dati al Sig.r Pietro Cor.na lenzoli due
. . . E pi dato al Sig.r pietro lenzole n.o 1 . . . E Pi dati al Sig.r Pietro p. servitio della
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VIIIs reign. In the famous Fiera di Farfa intermezzo of the 1639 version of
Chi soffre speri, he recreated on stage a bustling country fair with live
animals, the garden of the Barberini palace itself with passing carriages and
a ball game, and a sunrise and sunset.8 In the 1641 production of
Linnocenza difesa, for which Bernini was indirectly responsible, the sunset
was repeated, and one scene included a fireworks display over a view of
Castel SantAngelo.9
Rep.ne due lenzoli . . . E pi dato al Sig.re Pietro tre Canne di tela di fare impanate cio se
ne servi per li lanternoni ch segnevano Ochi Ca.ne 3; fol. 44.v: A di 28 detto [February]
1632. Lenzoli usate uscite da Ga.ba p. ser.tio della Rep.ne date al Sig.r Pietro da Cortona n.o
cinque ... de quali ne fu fatto alcuni pezzi di scene piccole . . . Tela quatretto uscita di Gar.ba
per servitio della Rep.ne di S. Alesio Canne tre cio date al Sig.r Pietro da Cortona de che
ne fece li Ochio del Demonio); but the style of the sets in the engravings scarcely supports
an attribution to Cortona (proposed by M. Fagiolo dellArco, Lo spettacolo barocco, Storia
dellarte, Nos. 12, 1969, 229).
8 An important breakthrough, which confirms the attribution of the Fiera di Farfa
intermezzo to Bernini, was the discovery of his record of accounts for the work among the
documents of Cardinal Francesco Barberini, by F. Hammond, Girolamo Frescobaldi and a
Decade of Music in the Casa Barberini: 16341643, Analecta musicologica, XIX, 1979, 94124.
On Chi soffre speri, see A. Ademollo, I teatri di Roma nel secolo decimosettimo, Rome,
1888, 28ff. Subsequent bibliography will be found in S. Reiner, Collaboration in Chi soffre
speri, The Music Review, XXII, 1961, 26582; additional sources in Clementi, Carnevale, 1,
483f; M. L. Pietrangeli Chanaz, Il teatro barberiniano, unpub. diss., University of Rome,
1968, 11428 and unpaginated appendix of documents; M. K. Murata, Operas for the Papal
Court with Texts by Giulio Rospigliosi, unpub. diss., University of Chicago, 1975, 3168. The
sunrise and sunset are mentioned by H. Tetius, Aedes barberinae ad Quirinalem, Rome,
1642, 35; on this motif, see p. 151, n. 17 below.
It is tempting but probably incorrect to identify the Fiera di Farfa with the comedy
called La fiera staged by Bernini for Cardinal Antonio Barberini (Bernini, 55; cf. Baldinucci,
150), since neither the text nor the descriptions of the former mention the false fire that
highlighted the latter (see below).
9 Berninis role in the 1641 production of Linnocenza difesa emerges from several as yet
unpublished sources. A questa comedia h fatte due vedute di lontan.za il nipote di Mon.re
fausto gi diventato ingegniere di machine sceniche in pochi giorni, e sono luna, il sole
cadente del Bernino, quale si p[...?] da tutti allem.o non haverci parte nessuna ben che visibilm.te ci assista, e la seconda la ved.ta della girandola presa da monte cavallo creduta da
S. em.a p. inventione del s.r nipote: alla quale credenza il linguacciuto dice haver cooperato
che in d.e machine tutta la spesa h fatto mons.re fausto (from a letter by Ottaviano Castelli
to Mazarin, February 1, 1641, Paris, Ministre des affaires trangres, Archives diplomatiques, Correspondance politique, Rome, MS.73, fol. 187v, from which another passage was
excerpted by H. Prunires, Lopera italien en France avant Lulli, Paris, 1913, 26, n. 2). La
comedia . . . riusc isquisitam.te; massime nelle scene, che allusanza del Cav.r Bernino fecero
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For the most part, the scenes of the Barberini productions were not
done by stage designers at all, but by artists, mainly painters, who were primarily employed by the family in other tasks: Andrea Camassei, Giovanni
Francesco Romanelli, Giovanni Francesco Grimaldi, Andrea Sacchi. Apart
from the Medici court spectacles in Florence staged by Giulio Parigi and his
son Alfonso, the main line of evolution of Italian scenography was North
Italian. There a great tradition emerged in the early seventeenth century, in
Ferrara and Bologna with Giovanni Battista Aleotti and his successors
Francesco Guitti and Alfonso Chenda, in Venice with Giuseppe Alabardi
and Giovanni Burnacini, culminating in the work of the grande stregone
of High Baroque stage design, Giacomo Torelli.10 These men made stage
design and theater architecture a full-time, professional occupation, and it
is nave to ascribe to Bernini rather than to them the leading role in the
development of Baroque stage technology.
The truth is that Bernini did not really have much use for elaborate
contraptions. He ridiculed them as too slow and cumbersome. The secret,
he said, is to avoid doing things that will not succeed perfectly. He recommended a stage no more than twenty-four feet deep, and advised against
scenes that could be seen from only one point. What pleased him was that
his successes had been achieved with productions staged in his own house,
vedere lontananze maravigliose (Avviso di Roma, February 2, 1641, Rome, Bibl. Corsini,
MS.1733, fol. 109, found and transcribed by Pietrangeli Chanaz, Teatro, unpaginated documents; also Murata, Operas, 362); . . . con Intermedij apparenti et specialmente questo
Castello SantAngelo tutto circondato di lumi, facendo la Girandola, come si f la Festa de
Santi Pietro, et Paolo Apostoli (Avviso, February 2, 1641, ibid., MS.1735, fols. 15v and f.,
Pietrangeli Chanaz, Teatro, Murata, Operas, 362). See now also M. K. Murata,
Rospigliosiana ovvero: Gli equivoci innocenti, Studi musicali, IV, 1975 (publ. 1978),
13143. On the Castel Sant Angelo fireworks, see p. 151, n. 17 below.
The sets of II palazzo dAtlante, 1642, attributed to Bernini by Baldinucci and
Domenico Bernini, were actually by Andrea Sacchi; cf. the letters of the eyewitness
Ottaviano Castelli to Mazarin (H. Prunires, Les rpresentations du Palazzo dAtlante
Rome [1642], Sammelbnde der internationalen Musik-Gesellschaft, XIV, 19123, 219ff.),
the Avvisi di Roma (G. Canevazzi, Di tre melodrammi del secolo XVII, Modena, 1904, 44ff.),
and payments to Sacchi in March 1642 in conto delle spese p. le scene della comedia (BV,
AB, Arm. 76, Libro Mastro C, Card. Antonio Barberini, 163644, p. 342).
10 The picture of this whole period has been very much enlarged and enriched in recent
years by the pioneering researches of Elena Povoledo, in many publications, including
numerous articles in the Enciclopedia dello spettacolo, and by Per Bjurstrms monograph
Giacomo Torelli and Baroque Stage Design, Stockholm, 1961 (Nationalmusei Skriftserie, 7).
On Guittis work as a theater architect, see Lavin, Lettres.
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20
at his own expense and costing no more than tre baiocchi.

Characteristically, he said that the important thing is to have ideas, in which
case one can hire someone who knows how to paint scenes, and someone
who understands machines, to carry them out.11 In some respects, it is evident, Berninis principles were diametrically opposed to those underlying
the vast machine productions that were the hallmark of the period.
What is essential is a more balanced assessment of the character and
underlying motivation of Berninis scenographic technique. Far too much
emphasis has been placed on the sheer mechanics of stage engineering, and
this has obscured the real nature of Berninis achievements in the theater. It
is significant that Berninis own productions were comedies and farces in
the informal tradition of the commedia dellarte, and the sources leave no
doubt that one of the reasons for his success in this field, especially at the
outset, were his daring satires of important people. It is very unlikely that
ordinary commedia dellarte troupes could have had an immunity from
reprisal such as Bernini, darling of the Barberini, enjoyed. He could poke
fun in public at anyone, including the Barberini themselves and in their
very presence! One can well imagine that nothing of the kind had been seen
on stage before. These direct references to highly placed people and their
doings should not be thought of merely as reflections of Berninis privileged
position. They were also a device that helped Bernini break through theatrical convention and establish links with the real world.12
An analogous point may be made about Berninis use of illusionistic
devices, the second and perhaps chief source of his renown. In the great
court spectacles and to some extent also in the regular theater, more or less
elaborate stage effects had a long history. By contrast, the commedia dellarte, to which Berninis own private productions belong, was above all the
domain of the performer, with scenic elements secondary and largely stereotyped. Actual practice varied considerably, needless to say, and the great
actor-dramatist Giovanni Battista Andreini, Berninis predecessor in more
ways than one, introduced considerable visual interest into some of his
commedia dellarte plays.13 He seems to have done so, however, mainly
11 Chantelou,
68, 69, 115, 116f., 213.

There is a close and obvious parallel in Berninis caricature drawings of important
people, which begin at exactly the same period (cf. I. Lavin, Duquesnoys Nano di Crqui
and Two Busts by Francesco Mochi, The Art Bulletin, LII, 1970, 144, n. 75).
13 Cf. K. M. Lea, Italian Popular Comedy, 2 vols., Oxford, 1934, I, 320ff.
12
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BERNINI AND THE THEATRE
21
through lavish settings and costumes which were probably rare in

Berninis own productions with no hint of the surprising special effects
for which Bernini was acclaimed.
It can be shown that none of the methods Bernini used was actually
invented by him. In 1638, after a disastrous flood of the Tiber at Rome the
year before, Bernini staged his celebrated Inundation of the Tiber.14 In the
play, boats passed across the stage on real water, retained by embankments.
Suddenly the levee broke and water spilled out toward the audience, whereupon a barrier rose just in time to stop it. As background to this trick of
stage hydraulics, we need only mention that Giovanni Battista Aleotti, in
addition to being an important stage designer and theater architect, had
been one of the founders of modern hydraulic engineering; he wrote several
treatises on the subject with experience gained from such projects as the regulation of the waters of the Po at Ferrara and land reclamation in the
Polesine region of northeast Italy. In 1628 Francesco Guitti, Aleottis successor, had arranged to flood the huge Teatro Farnese on the second story
of the Palazzo della Pilotta in Parma for a marine spectacle involving a mock
naval battle; Guitti, indeed, was the one professional stage designer who
worked for the Barberini, on productions in 1633 and 1634.
In 1637 and 1638 Bernini produced a comedy that involved two audiences and two theaters. The spectators saw an actor on stage reciting a prologue; behind him they saw the back side of another actor facing another
audience and also reciting a prologue. At the end of the prologue a curtain
was raised between the two actors and the play began. At the end of the play
the curtain dropped, and the audience saw the other audience leaving the
other theater in splendid coaches by the light of torches and the moon shining through clouds. This conceit was certainly related to the play-within-aplay tradition, familiar to us from Shakespeare, in which there had recently
been significant developments. A comedy of 1623 by Andreini, titled The
Two Comedies in Comedy, even included two successive performances as part
of the plot.15
14 Cf. the title of a treatise on the technical problems of controlling the river, O.
Castelli, Della inondatione del Tevere, Rome, 1608.
15 Lea, Comedy, I, pp. 322ff.; cf. F. Neri, La commedia in commedia, Mlanges dhistoire littraire gnrale et compare offerts Fernand Baldensperger, 2 vols., Paris, 1930, II, pp.
l30ff. See further below, p. 29, n. 27.
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22
In Berninis comedy called The Fair (before 1645), a Carnival float was
shown returning from the celebration.16 One of the revelers carrying a torch
accidentally set fire to the scenery. The audience, thinking the theater was
about to burn down, scrambled for the exit. At the height of the confusion
the scene suddenly changed, and when the spectators looked, the fire had
disappeared and the stage had become a delightful garden. Here, Bernini
profited from the sophisticated devices of theatrical pyrotechnics that had
been developed especially for hell scenes, long a part of great court spectacles (Fig. 1).17
One certainly must not underestimate the significance of pure
spectacle for Bernini. It is essential to realize, however, that his secret lay not
in lavishness or complex engineering, but in the way he used the techniques
of illusion. When Francesco Guitti flooded the Farnese theater, it was for a
marine performance in the middle of the arena; when Bernini did his trick,
the water was on stage and threatened to spill out over the spectators.
(Guittis was no doubt a far more ambitious engineering feat.) When
Bernini adopted the play-within-a-play formula, he created the impression
that the two plays were going on simultaneously, confronting the audience
with duplicate actors and a duplicate theater and audience as well. Berninis
fire was not presented as part of the play in a scene of hell; in a feigned
accident with the torch held by the actor, it threatened to burn down the
theater itself. Clearly, it was by means of these sudden thrusts into the mind
and heart of the spectator accomplished without elaborate machinery
that Bernini created his wonderful effects.
16
See p. 18, n. 8 above. A terminus ad quem is provided by the fact that when Bernini
described the production in Paris in 1665, the Abbot Francesco Buti says he had been present; by 1645 Buti, who was secretary to Cardinal Antonio Barberini, had left Rome for Paris
(cf. Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 15 vols., Kassel, etc., 194973, II, cols. 532f.).
The comedies previously mentioned are dated by contemporary descriptions.
17 Fig. 1 is the hell scene from Il S. Alessio, 1634, pl. 2. On hell scenes generally, cf.
Bemmann, Bhnenbeleuchtung, 24ff., 92ff., I07ff. The treatise of Nicola Sabbattini, which
certainly does not represent the most advanced technique of its day, even contains a chapter
titled Come si possa dimostrare che tutta la scena arda. Another of Sabbattinis chapters,
Come si possa fare apparire che tutta la scena si demolisca, shows that Bernini did not
invent the trick for his comedy (1638) in which a house collapsed on stage (N. Sabbattini,
Pratica di fabricar scene, e machine ne teatri, Ravenna, 1638, ed. E. Povoledo, Rome, 1955,
70f.).
For the depiction on stage of the Castel SantAngelo fireworks display, which Bernini
evidently introduced in 1641 (p. 18 and n. 9 above), see the comments on Giovanni
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23
1. Stage set from Il S. Alessio, 1634, pl. 2, engraving.
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24
Immediacy of effect and simplicity of technique are also the keys to an

understanding of the one direct trace of Berninis work for the theater that
has come down to us, a fragmentary manuscript of a comedy published
only a few years ago. The text is incomplete, and it is not certain that the
play was ever performed probably not, since it seems to be identical with
an idea for a comedy that Bernini later described, commenting that it had
never been carried out (see below). The play is especially important in our
context for two reasons: first, there is compelling evidence that it was
intended for the Carnival season of 1644, barely three years before the
Teresa chapel was begun; second, its plot contains an autobiographical element that makes it an explicit statement of Berninis own ideas.18
The story, briefly, is as follows: Cinthio, a young, gentleman in the service of a prince, is in love with Angelica, the daughter of Dottor Gratiano,
an aging and famous master of scenography, who also writes and acts in his
own plays. Cinthio has no money and Coviello, his charming and scheming Neapolitan valet, proposes a stratagem that will net enough at least to
Francesco Grimaldis replica for the 1656 production of La vita humana, in W. Witzenmann,
Die rmische Barockoper La Vita humana ovvero il trionfo della piet, Analecta musicologica, XV, 1975, I75f. On Berninis pyrotechnical style, see E. Povoledo, Gian Lorenzo
Bernini, lelefante e i fuochi artificiali, Rivista italiana di musicologia, X, 1975, 499518.
Berninis sunrises and sunsets (see p. 18 above) belonged in a tradition that went back
at least to Serlio (Architettura, Venice, 1566, bk. II, 64; cf. Bemmann, Bhnenbeleuchtung,
71ff, 99f., 110f.). The sunrise mentioned by Baldinucci (151) and Domenico Bernini (56f.;
cf. also Chantelou, 116) must date before 1643, since Louis XIII, who died in that year,
requested a model.
The treatise of Sabbattini and the relevant portion of that of Serlio have been translated
in B. Hewitt, ed., The Renaissance Stage: Documents of Serlio, Sabbattini and Furttenbach,
Coral Gables, Fla., 1958.
18 The text, preserved in a manuscript in the Bibliothque Nationale, Paris, was published by DOnofrio, Fontana. The play is written in a scribes hand, without title, in a fascicule inscribed, Fontana di Trevi MDCXLII, originally intended as a ledger of accounts for
work on the fountain. Only a few entries were made, however, the latest of which dates from
April 1643 (DOnofrio [28] through a lapsus gives August 1643 for the last entry in the
ledger). Scene two of the second act contains an anti-Spanish jibe that DOnofrio feels
would not have been written under the Hispanophile Innocent X; and since Urban VIII died
in July of 1644, the most plausible assumption is that the play was intended for the Carnival
season of that year. The manuscript copy cannot have been used for performance, since it
contains a number of lacunae and errors; moreover, the third act is exceedingly short (only
two scenes) and the ending seems not a proper denouement at all.
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make a show of wealth. The plan is to obtain 1000 scudi from a mysterious
stranger, Alidoro, who will pay that amount to see Gratianos marvelous
stage effects. Cinthio tells Gratiano that the prince has ordered him to do a
comedy. Gratiano resists, but is finally persuaded by his maidservant
Rosetta (with whom he has a flirtation). Gratiano tells Rosetta the plot he
has devised: a certain Dottor Gratiano is enamored of his maidservant,
named Rosetta. Gratiano is married, but his wife is un pezz de carnaccia
vecchia che s di rancido che appesta.19 Gratiano will try to accommodate
the situation by making use of Rosetta, in anticipation of his wifes demise,
to have a child. In a remarkable conversation between the real Dottor
Gratiano and his imaginary self, the latter scolds the former roundly for
having such dirty thoughts (sporchi pensieri). The second act includes a
brilliant scene in which, at a trial lowering of the cielo (sky), the mechanism fails to perform adequately. Gratiano expresses his dissatisfaction
vehemently, making two canonically Baroque esthetic pronouncements:
that stage machines are supposed to amaze people, not amuse them; and
that invention, design (linzegn, el desegn) is the magic art that fools the
eye so as to cause astonishment. Alidoro, we learn in the third act, is himself a producer of plays who also acts in them and paints the scenes. With
Zanni, Dottor Gratianos manservant, as an accomplice, he dons a disguise
in which he will be employed to assist with the preparations and thus learn
Gratianos techniques. The manuscript comes to an end as Cochetto, a
French scene painter, is about to put Alidoro to work.
The play, thus, is basically a conventional commedia dellarte farce,
with conventional commedia dellarte characters who speak informally and
often spicily in conventional commedia dellarte dialects. Dottor Gratiano
is certainly Bernini himself, a man of genius and fame, from whom jealous
competitors would seek to pilfer what they imagine to be the secrets of his
success. He is reluctant to do the comedy because of the taxing creative
effort and time involved: These are things that require the whole man, and
much time, he says (sien cos che rezercan tutt lhom e molto tempo).20
In a funny but touching moment, Gratiano even refers to the agony of
19 Compare Berninis description, reported by Baldinucci (145), of a painting of una

rancida e schifosa vecchia, che viva e vera ci apporterebbe nausea, e ci offenderebbe.
20 Bernini used similar phraseology concerning the various steps in the creative process:
ciascheduna di quelle operazioni ricercava tutto luomo (Baldinucci, 145).
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26
artistic creation, confessing that the hardest thing is to find a subject (la
mazzor difficult l l trovar un sozzet). He also wants people kept away
from the preparations, not in order to prevent his ideas from being stolen,
but because advance knowledge will spoil their effects (e si quand si sann
non son pi belle).
The plot again evidendy refers to the play-within-a-play motif, but here
Bernini forsakes the normal convention by not showing the inner play at
all, only the preparations for it. Thus Berninis is not strictly a play that contains a play, but a play about the creation of a play. The inner play, therefore, instead of being merely an episode within the main plot, becomes itself
part of the subject of the comedy, or rather the preparations for it do; the
levels of illusion completely interpenetrate. When the characters being created for the inner play turn out to be, in part, duplicates of those in the
main plot the chief character of the main play actually holding a conversation with his fictitious self still further links are added to the
chain.21
If all this seems very literary, it should be emphasized that the ultimate
point of the play was visual. Its chief purpose, surely, was to give scope to
the beautiful notion of having Gratiano try out stage devices that do not
perform to his satisfaction. Thus a scene that functions badly becomes the
perfect illusion. Moreover, since the sets need only fail, the trick could be
done with tre baiocchi and it also fulfilled Berninis requirement not to try
anything that could not be done convincingly. One is very tempted to see
in this plot the bella idea for a comedy, mentioned by Baldinucci and
Domenico Bernini, in which Bernini would have shown all the errors that
occur in manipulating stage machinery, together with the means for their
correction.22
The comedy permits two further observations that are of interest. It has
been assumed that Bernini did not really write plays, but that his comedies
were improvised in the pure commedia dellarte tradition.23 The topicality
21
Compare Andreinis Lo schiavetto (eds. Milan, 1612, Venice, 1620), in which one of
the characters proposes his own love intrigue, retaining the real names of the participants,
as the theme for a comedy (ed. Venice, 1620, 197f.; cf. Lea, Comedy, I, 323).
22 Baldinucci, 151; Bernini, 57.
23 I. Balboni, Le commedie di Gian Lorenzo Bernini e un diario francese del seicento,
Rivista di cultura, III, 1922, 231ff.; but see the remarks of C. Molinari, Note in margine
allattivit teatrale di G. L. Bernini, Critica darte, IX, No. 52, 1962, 57ff.
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of the wit, the repetition of successful tricks in different contexts, and above
all the impression one gets from the sources of an extraordinary liveliness in
the recitation, all seem to point in this direction. The conclusion is, however, profoundly misconceived. We know Bernini worked his assistants
mercilessly in preparing his productions, and that he would himself act out
all the parts for them, so as to make sure they performed exactly as he
wished. We know from the very gist of the play about Dottor Gratiano that
Bernini was a perfectionist in the matter of scenic effects. Finally, the manuscript itself distinguishes Berninis method from pure commedia dellarte,
where the plot was merely outlined in brief scenarios. Bernini wrote out the
parts completely. It could hardly be maintained that improvisation was forbidden in Berninis productions, but there can be no doubt that here, as in
his other works, the effect of immediacy and freedom was planned and calculated down to the last detail. A second, equally significant point is that
there is not the slightest hint from any source that Bernini ever intended to
put his theatrical activity into permanent form by publishing the texts of his
plays or prints of his sets. This fact alone would prevent our placing him in
a class with real hommes du mtier like Andreini or Torelli. The same fact
also makes it clear that his achievements in the theater were among the most
deeply rooted and spontaneous products of his creative spirit.
Considering the evidence as a whole, one is struck by the fact that,
without exception, the startling illusionistic conceits described in the
sources can be dated to the period of little more than a decade between the
early 1630s, when Bernini became interested in the theater, and the late
1640s (though his theatrical activity continued long afterward). Moreover,
the accounts suggest that the appeal of the earliest comedies was due primarily to their element of social satire, whereas in subsequent examples and
especially in the extant comedy, the overlapping spheres of reality are the
main fascination. There are important gaps in the evidence and, certainly,
pungent dialogue did not cease to lend spice to Berninis comedies. Yet the
shift in emphasis that seems to emerge from the sources probably does
reflect an actual development parallel to the increased complexity and
underlying unity of illusion we discerned in Berninis other work during the
same period, culminating in the Teresa chapel.
Perhaps Berninis secret will now have become clear. Upon the illusion
normally expected in the theater he superimposed another illusion that was
unexpected, and in which the audience was directly involved. The spectator, in an instant, became an actor, conscious of himself as an active, if dis-
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concerted, participant in the happening. The crucial thing is that when

he returned to his ordinary level of existence he became aware that someone
had created this response.
The relevance of this awareness lies in a series of interlocking conceits
which link the theater and art on a level that can only be described as metaphysical. It has repeatedly been observed that in the long and continuous
history of metaphors relating the theater on the one hand to real life and on
the other to abstract ideas, the early seventeenth century was of special
importance. A growing sense of the reality of the stage seems to have converged with a growing sense of the illusoriness of reality, to produce a paradoxical equation of the two. The equation became a leading topos of the
period in its most encompassing form as the theatrum mundi, or theater
of the world, whose producer is God; in its most concrete and circumscribed form, as the play-within-the-play.
Concerning the global theater, it can be observed that as the references
of the metaphor became more varied and enlarged, the notion of the theater itself did likewise.24 The word was applied in a vast range of contexts
a landscape, a palace courtyard, a garden fountain, a city, the sea, public
opinion, the art of writing, the art of memory whose connections with
the theater as a building or as a performance might be extremely tenuous.25
The applications are so disparate, in fact, that only one underlying idea is
discernible, although it is never part of any explicit definition of the term:
the idea of wholeness or totality. It is this quality that Berninis Teresa chapel
24 On the theatrum mundi, see the seminal chapter in E. R. Curtius, European Literature
and the Latin Middle Ages, New York and Evanston, 1953 (first ed. 1948), 13844, and the
article by R. Bernheimer, Theatrum Mundi, The Art Bulletin, XXXVIII, 1956, 22547; further, F. J. Warnke, The World as Theatre: Baroque Variations on a Traditional Topos, in
B. Fabian and U. Suerbaum, eds., Festschrift fr Edgar Mertner, Munich, 1969,185200; F.
A. Yates, Theatre of the World, London, 1969, esp. 164f. A vast collection of material will be
found in M. Costanzo, Il gran theatro del mondo: Schede per lo studio delliconografia letteraria nellet del manierismo, Milan, 1964, 746. The idea has been brought to bear in the
interpretation of Berninis St. Peters colonnade, by Kitao, Circle, 226.
25 The variety of uses is best gauged from the citations in Costanzo, Theatro; for some
applications in architecture, see K. Schwager, Kardinal Pietro Aldobrandinis Villa di
Belvedere in Frascati, Rmisches Jahrbuch fr Kunstgeschichte, IXX, 19612, 37982; Kitao,
Circle, 19ff. On the art of memory and the theater, Bernheimer, Theatrum, 22531; F. A.
Yates, The Art of Memory, Chicago, 1966, l29ff, 320ff.
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29
shares with the contemporary notion of the theater.26 What distinguishes

his work, on the stage as well as in chapel decoration, is his concern at once
to elicit the sense of unity un bel composto and to engulf the spectator in it.
Concerning the play-within-the-play, various devices had been adopted
to double the redundancy of the motive, and thus relate it to a larger context.27 The performers of the inner play may have the role of actors in the
main play; the characters of the main play may retain their identities in the
inner play; the plot of the inner play may reflect that of the main play. So
far as I can discover, however, Berninis comedy about Dottor Gratiano is
the first in which the chief character is an impresario and the very subject
of the main plot is the staging of a play in which the same characters and
plot are retained. The focal point of these mirror images is the impresario
himself, whose significance is revealed in a crucial exchange between Dottor
Gratiano and his alter ego:
Gratiano: . . . chi el quel Gratian . . . ?
Gratiano: Chi el? li la favola de sta comedia, li!
Gratiano: Sigur; sel mondo non l altr chuna Comedia, Gratian l
la favola del mond.28
(Gr: . . . who is that Gratiano . . . ? Gr: Who is he? Hes the
theme of this play, he is ! Gr : Indeed; if the world is nothing but a
play, Gratiano is the theme of the world.)
26 Corollaries in theater history for the kind of unity discussed here are the development of the box theater with proscenium arch (see p. 93 above) and the development of stage
sets with symmetrical, continuous andby the mid-seventeenth centuryclosed structures
(for a convenient survey, see Mancini et al., Illusione).
27 The literature on the play-within-a-play is vast, although there is still no comprehensive treatment of the theme; for recent studies and further bibliography, see besides Neri,
Commedia, R. J. Nelson, Play within a Play: The Dramatists Conception of His Art,
Shakespeare to Anouilh, New Haven, 1958; A. Brown, The Play within a Play: An
Elizabethan Dramatic Device, Essays and Studies, XIII, 1960, 3648; D. Mehl, Forms and
Functions of the Play within a Play, Renaissance Drama, VIII, 1965, 4161; R. W. Witt,
Mirror within a Mirror: Ben Jonson and the Play-within, Salzburg, 1975 (Salzburg Studies in
English Literature, No. 46); L. Maranini, ed., La commedia in commedia: Testi del seicento
francese, Rome, 1974.
28 DOnofrio, Fontana, 66.
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30
The play-within-the-play is thus related to the theater of the world

through the role of its creator.
In the case of the comedies it was all in fun; in the case of the Teresa
chapel it was utterly serious. The conventional, expected illusion in a chapel
was that the setting of the liturgy was symbolic; the unexpected illusion
Bernini superimposed is that the setting is real. Thus, the Teresa chapel does
suggest a prestidigitator; in fact, its point is that it suggests a prestidigitator
a sublime, metaphysical, theological prestidigitator who has consciously
and as if by magic created and labeled this world, the inhabitants of which,
namely we, act as though it were real. On one level the name of the prestidigitator is God; on another level, it is Bernini. This seems incredibly conceited. Bernini was an extremely conceited, but at the same time a most
thoughtful and pious man. The metaphor linking God and the artist was
also an ancient one, deeply ingrained in the Christian tradition. God the
painter, God the sculptor, God the architect of the universe are ideas that
occur frequently in medieval theological treatises to exemplify divine creativity. In the Renaissance the relationship became more than an analogy,
expressing a special bond between the supreme creator and the artist. The
reference underwent a fundamental shift: whereas before Gods creativity
was compared to the artists, in the flood of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century
literature on art the artists creativity came to be likened unto Gods.29 In
part, Bernini went beyond the Renaissance, yet he also recaptured an essential element of the medieval spirit. He was acutely conscious of his own
inventiveness and he acknowledged unabashedly that his inspiration was
supernatural. His relationship to divinity was not a motive for self-aggrandizement, however, but for self-abnegation. He attributed his ability to
God, and, while he was very proud of his talent, he was very humble indeed
about its source.30
29 For a reference to this process in another context, cf. I. Lavin, The Sculptors Last
Will and Testament, Allen Memorial Art Museum Bulletin, XXXV, 19778, 38f., with bibliography on the artist-God metaphor, to which should be added E. Zilsel, Die Entstehung
des Geniebegriffes: Ein Beitrag zur Ideengeschichte der Antike und Frhkapitalismus, Tubingen,
1926, 27680; and, recently, M. Kemp, From Mimesis to Fantasia: The Quattrocento
Vocabulary of Creation, Inspiration and Genius in the Visual Arts, Viator, VIII, 1977, 384ff.
30 For the foregoing, see the statements in Chantelous diary assembled by Schudt,
Schaffensweise, 76f.
A closely analogous relationship to tradition underlies Berninis attitude toward death
and the works he made in preparation for it (Lavin, Berninis Death).
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As the Teresa chapel itself was Berninis metaphor for heaven, so the
fusion of the arts and the unity of the whole were his metaphor for divine
creation.31 In the end, perhaps the great achievement of the Teresa chapel is
just this awareness of creation it provokes.
Abbreviations and Bibliography of Frequently Cited Works

AB: Archivio Barberini
BV: Biblioteca Vaticana, Rome
Baldinucci, F., Vita del Cavaliere Gio. Lorenzo Bernino, Florence, 1682, ed. S. S.
Ludovici, Milan, 1948.
Battaglia, R., La cattedra berniniana di San Pietro, Rome, 1943.
31 A comparable sense of the metaphysical and theological nature of verbal metaphor is
fundamental to the great mid-seventeenth-century manual of the subject, Emanuele
Tesauros Il Cannocchiale aristotelico: O sia idea delle argutezze heroiche vulgaramente chiamate
imprese, Venice, 1655; cf. the analyses by E. Donato, Tesauros Poetics : Through the
Looking Glass, Modern Language Notes, LXXVIII, 1963, 1530, esp. 23ff. on the importance
of visual perception in Tesauros thought, and J. A. Mazzeo, Metaphysical Poetry and the
Poetic of Correspondence, Journal of the History of Ideas, XIV, 1953, 22134; further, the
chapter Tesauro o dell ingannevole maraviglia, in M. Costanzo, Critica e poetica del primo
seicento, 3 vols., Rome, 196971, III, 91ff. Useful material on the seventeenth-century literary tradition of conceit will be found in the preface by A. Buck to a reprint of the 1670 Turin
edition of Tesauros work, Bad Homburg, Berlin, Zurich, 1968; aspects of Berninis imagery
have been discussed in this connection by Fagiolo dellArco, Bernini, 203ft, and Blunt,
Bernini.
Particularly interesting in our context is Tesauros concept of the metaphor of
Deception, or the Unexpected (referring to Aristotle, Rhetoric, III, 11); this he illustrates by
the prestidigitator (giocoliere), at the discovery of whose illusion the viewer is both pleased
and enlightened: Egli dunque vna segreta, & innata delitia dellIntelletto humano, lauuedersi di essere stato scherzeuolmente ingannato: peroche quel trapasso dallinganno al disinganno, vna maniera dimparamento, per via non aspettata; & perci piaceuolissima.
Questo piacer tu sperimenti nel vederti sorpreso da Giocolieri; che gabbano la tua credenza
con la destrezza della mano: onde tu ridi del tuo inganno dapoiche lhai conosciuto; hauendo
tu insperatamente appresa quella sperienza che non sapeui (Cannocchiale, ed. Turin, 1670,
460; cf. W. T. Elwert, Zur Charakteristik der italienischen Barocklyrik, Romanistisches
Jahrbuch, III, 1950, 460; E. Raimondi, Letteratura barocca: Studi sul seicento italiano,
Florence, 1961, 2).
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32
Bemmann, J., Die Bhnenbeleuchtung vom geistlichen Spiel bis zur frhen Oper als
Mittel knstlerischer Illusion, diss., Leipzig, 1933.
Bernheimer, R., Theatrum Mundi, The Art Bulletin, XXXVIII, 1956, 22547.
Bernini, D., Vita del Cavalier Gio. Lorenzo Bernino, Rome, 1713.
Blunt, A., Gianlorenzo Bernini: Illusionism and Mysticism, Art History, 1,1978,
6789.
Brauer, H., and R. Wittkower, Die Zeichnungen des Gianlorenzo Bernini, 2 vols.,
Berlin, 1931.
Chantelou, P. Frart de, Journal du voyage du Cavalier Bernin en France, ed. L.
Laianne, Paris, 1885.
Clementi, F., Il carnevale romano, 2 vols., Citt di Castello, 1938-9 (first ed. 1899).
DOnofrio, C, ed., Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Fontana di Trevi: Commedia inedita,
Rome, n.d.
Enciclopedia dello spettacolo, 10 vols., Rome, 1975.
Fagiolo dellArco, M., Bernini: Una introduzione al gran teatro del barocco, Rome,
1967.
Fraschetti, S., Il Bernini: La sua vita, la sua opera, il suo tempo, Milan, 1900.
Il S. Alessio. Dramma musicale dalleminentissimo et reverendissimo signore Card.
Barberino fatto rappresentare al serenissimo Principe Alessandro Carlo di Polonia
dedicato a sua eminenza e posto in musica da Stefano Landi romano musico della
cappella di N.S. e cherico beneftiato nella Basilica di S. Pietro in Roma, Rome,
1634.
Kitao, T. K., Berninis Church Faades: Method of Design and the Contrapposti
Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, XXIV, 1965,26384.
Lavin, I., Berninis Death, The Art Bulletin, LIV, 1972, 15886.
Lavin, I., Lettres de Parme (1618, 162728) et dbuts du thatre baroque, in J.
Jacquot, ed., Le lieu thatral la Renaissance (Colloques internationaux du
centre national de la recherche scientifique, Royaumont, March 1963), Paris,
1964, 10558.
Lea, K. M., Italian Popular Comedy, 2 vols., Oxford, 1934.
Mancini, F., et al, Illusione e pratica teatrale: Proposte per una lettura dello spazio scenico dagli intermedi fiorentini allopera comica veneziana, exhib. cat., Venice,
1975.
Murata, M. K., Operas for the Papal Court with Texts by Giulio Rospigliosi, unpub.
diss., University of Chicago, 1975.
Schudt, L., Berninis Schaffensweise und Kunstanschauungen nach den
Aufzeichnungen des Herrn von Chantelou, Zeitschrift fr Kunstgeschichte, XII,
1949, 7489.
Lavin III. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap VII
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III
Bozzetti and Modelli

Notes on Sculptural Procedure from the
Early Renaissance through Bernini*
Dedicated, with admiration and gratitude,
to Richard Krautheimer
NE of the problems that has most occupied historians of Italian

Renaissance art during recent years concerns the amount and kind of
preparation that lay behind the great mural decorations of the trecento.
Following the basic work of Robert Oertel, and especially since the discovery of sinopias (the monumental and often astonishingly sketchy preparatory drawings executed directly on the wall) the old view that the medieval
painter worked by a more or less mechanical method of copying from prescribed models and patterns can no longer be maintained. Indeed, the chief
controversy has been reduced at present to the question whether even smallscale compositional sketches were used.1 There has taken place what
* The observations presented here are in the way of prolegomena to a general survey of
sculptors models and bozzetti and related problems of working procedure; this will form
part of the introduction to a critical corpus of the bozzetti of Gianlorenzo Bernini, which I
am now preparing for publication.
1
R. Oertel, Wandmalerei und Zeichnung in Italien, Mitteilungen des kunsthistorischen
Instituts in Florenz, 5, 1940, pp. 217 ff. Recent bibliography: E. Borsook, The Mural Painters
of Tuscany, London 1960; U. Procacci, Sinopie e affreschi, Milan 1961 (review, with additional observations by Procacci, by M. Muraro, Art Bulletin, 45, 1963, pp. 154 ff.); L.
Tintori and M. Meiss, The Paintings of the Life of St. Francis in Assisi with Notes on the Arena
Chapel, New York 1962 (review by J. White, Art Bulletin, 45, 1963, pp. 383 ff.); now
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amounts to a fundamental reversal in our view of how works of art were

conceived. The medieval artist, formerly thought of as being bound by an
iron clad system of servile copying, now emerges as the paragon of direct
and unpremeditated creation. It was the Renaissance that sought to objectify and rationalize the artistic process into a fixed body of rules.
The problem has its counterpart in sculpture, though it has received far
less attention in this domain. And it is in this context that I shall offer some
rather loosely connected and tentative remarks on the history of the use of
bozzetti and modelli and Sculptural procedure in general.2
A useful point of departure is provided by the pioneering study by Carl
Bluemel on Greek sculptural technique, first published in 1927.3 On certain unfinished pieces of ancient statuary there is preserved a number of
small protuberances or knobs, with tiny holes in the center (Fig. 5, especially on the head and above the knees; Fig. 6, on the chest and knee). By
analogy with modern sculptural practice, it is evident that these knobs are
what are called points, fixed reference marks by means of which measurements are made in copying from a model or another sculpture. Such examples prove beyond question that a system of mechanical pointing-off was
known and used in antiquity.4 On this basis, Bluemel made an observation
that is of fundamental significance. It concerns an inherent difference in
procedure between sculpture that is executed free and directly in the
L. Tintori and M. Meiss, Additional Observations on Italian Mural Technique, Art
Bulletin, 46, 1964, p. 380. An important contribution is that of E. Kitzinger, The Mosaics of
Monreale, Palermo 1960, pp. 64 ff.
2
The reader should bear in mind that our attention will be focused on monumental
stone sculpture. Models for bronze and terracotta sculpture pose a special problem because,
unless there are external indications, it is practically impossible to determine with certainty
whether a given example is a study or the work itself in a pre-final stage. Sculptural models
for painting also form a category apart (J. von Schlosser, Aus der Bildnerwerkstatt der
Renaissance, Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen Sarnmlungen des allerhchsten Kaiserhauses, 31,
1913, pp. 111 ff.).
3
Griechische Bildhauerarbeit, Berlin 1927 (Jahrbuch des deutschen archologischen
Instituts. Ergnzungsheft XI), published independently thereafter (third edition, Berlin
1940) though omitting valuable documentation; English edition, Greek Sculptors at Work,
London 1955. Further observations by Bluemel appear in Archologischer Anzeiger, 54,
1939, cols. 302 ff.
4
Recent bibliography and examples: P. E. Corbett, Attic Pottery of the Late Fifth
Century from the Athenian Agora, Hesperia, 18, 1949, pp. 305 f, 341; G. M. A. Richter,
Ancient Italy, Ann Arbor, Michigan 1955, pp. 105 ff.; E. B. Harrison, New Sculpture from
the Athenian Agora, 1959, Hesperia, 29, 1960, pp. 370, 382; G. M. A. Richter, How were
the Roman Copies of Greek Portraits Made?, Rmische Mitteilungen, 69, 1962, pp. 52 ff.
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BOZZETTI AND MODELLI
35
stone, and sculpture produced by pointing off from a model. In the former
case, characteristic of archaic and classical Greece, the artist tends to carve
the statue uniformly in the round (Fig. 7). He removes, as it were, a series
of skins from the figure, and at any given stage in the execution it will show
a more or less uniform degree of finish. With the technique of pointing-off,
used particularly by the Romans for copying Greek statuary, the tendency
is to work the figure from one side at a time, and to bring some parts to a
state of relative completion before others.
These questions seem to be largely unexplored as regards 'medieval
sculpture.5 What little evidence there is comes mainly from the Gothic
period. But though limited the evidence is of great value because it speaks
with a single and unequivocal voice. Bluemel himself cited several unfinished sculptures, such as the small female figure, probably an allegory of
Fortitude, from the late fourteenth century in Orvieto (Fig. 10). The technique is basically similar to that of archaic Greek sculpture; indeed, all the
medieval examples show the characteristics of direct carving, without pointing from a model.6
Even more striking is the consistency of the documentary evidence,
which for the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, particularly in
Italy, is rather extensive. We have the abundant records of both Florence
5
An important extension of Bluemels analysis to the development of Egyptian sculpture
was made by R. Anthes, Werkverfahren gyptischer Bildhauer, Mitteilungen des deutschen
Instituts fr gyptische Altertumskunde in Kairo, 10, 1941, pp. 79 ff.
6
Cf. after Bluemel, T. Mller in Reallexikon zur deutschen Kunstgeschichte, Stuttgart 1937
ff, II, cols. 6o8 ff, s.v. Bildhauer; also F. V. Arens in ibid., cols.1062 ff, s.v. Bosse,
Bossenkapitell. On medieval sculptural procedure generally, see P. du Colombier, Les
chantiers des cathdrales, Paris 1953, pp. 83 ff, with bibliography, though much more study
is necessary.
Needless to say, considerable variation in degree of surface finish on a given work is possible within the general principle of uniform, in-the-round carving in medieval sculpture.
Yet, there are real exceptions. On certain incompleted Romanesque capitals, parts were
brought to a final finish before the rest of the carving was even roughed out (suggesting the
use of a repeated pattern?); cf. J. Trouvelot, Remarques sur la technique des sculpteurs du
moyen-ge, Bulletin monumental, 95, 1936, pp. 103 ff. J. White, in his exemplary study of
the Orvieto faade reliefs, showed that a uniform working technique was used only in the
initial stages of blocking-out; execution of the subsequent stages progressed at varying rates
(The Reliefs on the Faade of the Duomo at Orvieto, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld
Institutes, 22, 1959, pp. 254 ff ). In this case however, we are not dealing with an artists
creative procedure, but, as White concludes, with a workshop system in which specific
kinds of secondary tasks were assigned to specialists once the main forms had been established by the leading masters.
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and Milan cathedrals. And they show by repeated instances, and without
exceptions, that the monumental sculptures of these buildings were executed at this period not from models but from drawings. The drawings were
not provided by the executing sculptors themselves but by other artists; and
these other artists were usually not sculptors at all, but painters.7 The evidence concords perfectly with what the preserved examples suggested, for
sculpture executed exclusively from drawings is of necessity carved directly.
This then was the situation in the period immediately preceding the
emergence of the great masters of the early Renaissance, and it was the system under which they grew up. It is astonishing how rapidly and completely things changed. We cannot even remotely conceive of Ghiberti or
Donatello or Luca della Robbia executing sculpture as a general practice
after someone elses drawings, especially a painters. And as the sculptor
began to provide his own designs, the documents show with equal consistency that these designs now normally took the form of models.8 Drawings
7
On sculptors drawings generally cf. H. Keller, in Reallex. z. deut. Kunstg., II, cols.
625 ff, s. v. Bildhauerzeichnung. On the painters drawings for sculpture in Milan and
Florence, cf. Oertel, op. cit., pp. 267 ff (also, for Milan, U. Nebbia, La scultura del Duomo
di Milano, Milan, 1910, pp. 45 ff, 59 ff ). This suggests a link between the Milanese and
Florentine series of giganti as regards working procedure, as well as program (cf. R. and N.
Stang, Donatello e il Giosu per il Campanile di S. Maria del Fiore alla luce dei documenti,
Acta ad archaeologiam et artium historiam pertinentia. Institutum Romanum Norvegiae, 1,
1962, p. 119).
Needless to say, drawings by sculptors are documented in the trecento (cf. Nino Pisano,
Scherlatti tomb, Pisa, 1362, I. B. Supino, Arte Pisana, Florence, 1904, pp. 230 f.; wooden
choir-stall, Siena cathedral, 1377 ff, G. Milanesi, Documenti per la storia dellarte senese,
Siena, 1854-56, 1, pp. 332, 356, etc., R. Krautheimer, A drawing for the Fonte Gaia in
Siena, Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 10, 1952, p. 272).
It must be emphasized that, regardless of who made them, the question whether there
were true preparatory studies, as distinct from commission or working drawings, remains
open.
8
On models and bozzetti generally, cf. H. Keller and A. Ress, in Reallex. z. deut. Kunstg.,
II, cols. 1081. ff, s. v. Bozzetto, and Mller, ibid., cols. 600 ff.
This writer must report that so far he has encountered no certain example, either preserved or documented, of a model in whatever scale for monumental stone figural sculpture
before the fifteenth century. It should be emphasized, however, that there was an important
trecento practice of making models for architectural elements which may or may not have
included sculptured decorative details (documented at Prague, Xanten, Bremen, Milan,
Florence, and Bologna; cf. Keller, loc. cit., and L. H. Heydenreich, in idem, I, cols. 918 ff,
s.v. Architekturmodell); to this tradition presumably belongs the plaster model made by
Claus Sluter for the maonerie et faon of the fountain at Dijon (H. David, Claus Sluter,
Paris 1951, p. 86).
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continue to be used, of course, but they are no longer the distinctive basis
upon which works were commissioned or appraised.9
I suspect that the documentary notice of one of the key monuments in
this Florentine procedural revolution is still preserved to us. This is the
record referring to one of the famous series of colossal statues, or giganti,
commissioned for the cathedral of Florence, the series that resulted ultimately in the David of Michelangelo. It is a partial payment made in 1415
jointly to Donatello and Brunelleschi for a small figure of stone, draped
with gilt lead (una figuretta di pietra, vestita di piombo dorato); they were
to execute the figure for a test and illustration of the large figures that are
to be made upon the buttresses (per pruova e mostra delle figure grandi che
sanno a fare in su gli sproni).10 As far as I can discover this is the first reference to a model made in preparation for a piece of free-standing monumental sculpture since classical antiquity.
It is important to emphasize that the chief reason for making the model
was probably of a technical nature. We know that considerable difficulties
were experienced with the giant that Donatello had made a few years
earlier out of terracotta; it had to be repaired on several occasions within a
few years after it was completed.11 Chances are that Donatello and
Brunelleschi were trying out what would indeed have been a novel combi9
Jen Lnyi was apparently the first to draw attention to this fact, and stressed the
marked contrast between the Florentine masters on the one hand and on the other Jacopo
della Quercia, in whose work drawings play a leading role (Quercia-Studien, Jahrbuch fr
Kunstwissenschaft, 1930, pp. 25 ff.). But in this effort to establish Quercias originality, Lnyi
overlooked the fact that, in this respect at least, Quercia was carrying on a medieval tradition that was no less firmly rooted in trecento Siena than it had been in Florence and Milan
(cf. Oertel, op. cit., p. 263). Lnyi was right, however, in emphasizing Quercias departure,
along with the Florentines, from the late trecento tradition of monumental sculpture executed on the basis of drawings supplied by painters.
Lnyi (op. cit., pp. 53 f ) also misinterpreted the passage in which Vasari discusses
Quercias equestrian monument for the catafalque of Giovanni dAzzo Ubaldini (Le
vite . . ., ed. G. Milanesi, Florence 1906, II, pp. 110 f ) to mean that Vasari attributed to
Quercia the invention of the full-scale sculptors model. Vasari in fact is referring specifically
to the material construction of the piece, which in the sixteenth century was used for large
models. Quercias monument, however, was not a model in the sense of being preparatory
to execution in more permanent form, but belongs to the category of large scale decorations
executed in temporary materials for special occasions such as funerals and festivals.
10
C. Poggi, Il Duomo di Firenze, Berlin 1909, doc. no. 423.
11
Cf. H. W. Janson, Giovanni Chellinis Libro and Donatello, in Studien zur toskanischen Kunst. Festschrift fr Ludwig Heinrich Heydenreich, Munich 1964, p. 134.
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1. Benedetto da Maiano,
Confirmation of the
Order of St. Francis,
Terracotta,
Victoria and Albert
Museum, London.
2. Benedetto da Maiano,
Confirmation of the
Order of St. Francis,
Pulpit,
S. Croce, Florence.
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3. Luca della Robbia,

Crucifixion of St. Peter,
National Museum,
Florence.
4. Verrocchio,
Model for the
Forteguerri
monument,
Terracotta,
Victoria and Albert
Museum, London.
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5. Unfinished group, Dionysus and Satyr,

National Museum, Athens.
7. Unfinished archaic
Kouros,
National Museum,
Athens.
6. Unfinished statuette of a Youth,

Agora, Athens.
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8. Leonardo,
Drawing for a
mechanical pointing
device for sculpture,
Ms. A., Institut
de France,
Fol. 43 recto.
10. Unfinished statuette, Cathedral

Museum, Orvieto.
9. Michelangelo,
Bozzetto for a
two-figure group,
Terracotta,
Casa Buonarotti,
Florence.
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11. Michelangelo, David, Accademia, Florence.
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12. Michelangelo,
David, Detail,
Accademia,
Florence.
13. Verrocchio.
Resurrection, Detail,
Painted terracotta,
National Museum,
Florence.
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14. Michaelangelo,
Torso,
Terracotta,
British Museum,
London.
15. Michelangelo,
Model of a
River God,
Accademia,
Florence.
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16. Michaelangelo,
St. Matthew,
Accademia,
Florence.
17. Giambologna,
Cast model
for the Bologna
Neptune fountain,
Museo Civico,
Bologna.
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nation of stone with a protective cover of metal in the form of drapery. But
even if it was primarily a technical rather than an aesthetic experiment it
represents a radical new departure in the way of conceiving a work of
sculpture.12
What were the models of the early Renaissance like, and how were they
used? The evidence for the first question is entirely indirect; so far, at least,
I have not encountered a single Italian work from the first half of the quattrocento that is convincing as a model for sculpture.13 But since the designs,
wether drawings or models, mentioned in the documents were made as the
basis for commissions and were often intended to be kept as a standard
against which the completed work would be judged, it seems probable that
they were highly finished.14 This assumption receives some support from
examples from the second half of the century that have a better (though by
no means certain) claim to be regarded as authentic models. Such is the terracotta in the Victoria and Albert Museum, showing the Confirmation of
the Order of St. Francis, one of a series related to the reliefs on Benedetto
da Majanos Pulpit in S. Croce of around 1475; the executed sculptures
show only slight variations from the models (Figs. 1, 2).15
As to the way the models were used we have one important direct clue
for the early part of the century an unfinished relief by L. della Robbia
12
Brunelleschis participation and the fact that what was being planned was, after all, a
piece of architectural sculpture, may not be fortuitous. It is my feeling that this experiment,
and the development of the sculptors model generally was closely related to the earlier
tradition of architectural models (cf. above, n. 8).
13
For a convenient list of early terracottas, cf. C. von Fabriczy, Kritisches Verzeichnis
toskanischer Holz- und Tonstatuen bis zurn Beginn des Cinquecento, Jahrbuch der
Preuischen Kunstsammlungen, 30, 1909, Beiheft, pp. 1 ff.
In particular, I would reject as a Nachbildung the small plaque (with original paint and
gilding) in the museum at Arezzo first published by Fabriczy as a model by Bernardo
Rosellino for the relief of the Madonna della Misericordia (Ein Jugendwerk Bernardo
Rossellinos und sptere unbeachtete Schpfungen seines Meissels, Jb. d. Preu. Kunstslgn.,
21, 1900, pp. 99 ff ); similarly, the relief published by A. Marquand (A terracotta Sketch by
Lorenzo Ghiberti, American Journal of Archaeology, 9, 1894, pp. 206 ff; cf. R. Krautheimer
with T. Krautheimer-Hess, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Princeton 1956, p. 191), etc.
14
Cf., e.g., C. Guasti, Il pergamo di Donatello pel Duomo di Prato, Florence 1887,
p. 13; A. Marquand, Luca della Robbia, Princeton, etc., 1914, pp. 78, 197; Poggi, op. cit.,
doc. 1099.
15
See now, J. Pope-Hennessy, Catalogue of Italian Sculpture in the Victoria and Albert
Museum, London 1964, pp. 156 ff.
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in the Bargello, representing the Crucifixion of St. Peter (Fig. 3).

Together with its partner, which shows the Deliverance of St. Peter, it
formed part of an altar in the cathedral of Florence, commissioned in 1439,
for which a wooden model is recorded in the documents.16 The reliefs, however, give no evidence of having been worked from a model; there are no
pointing marks, and while the surfaces are not absolutely uniform the artist
certainly did not bring one part to completion before beginning another.
The technique is similar to that of the late medieval examples, and it would
appear that the introduction of models was not accompanied by a radical
change in procedure. In general we may say that the model was a kind of
preview of the final work; it was not really a study, and it did not play a
really integral role in the creative process.
The one literary source we have concerning the sculpture of this period,
Albertis Treatise on Sculpture, written probably in the 1430s gives the same
impression.17 It is, needless to say, one of the major documents in the
Renaissance tendency to codify artistic creation. Its chief technical contribution is that it provides a system whereby the measurements of a statue can
be taken and proportionally enlarged or reduced. But it is important to realize that Alberti does not actually give a method of pointing off. He tells you
how to obtain a given dimension on the prototype, but not how actually to
reproduce it in working the stone. The distinction is meaningful because it
is entirely possible to copy a model by taking its measurements, and yet to
work the stone directly without a true method of pointing-off. Such a procedure is exactly what the other evidence we have cited suggests for the early
quattrocento.18
In fact, the first instance of a mechanical pointing method comes only
at the end of the century. This is the famous perforated box of Leonardos
Trattato, for which a drawing appears in Ms. A of the Institut de France, of
A. Marquand, op. cit., pp. 41 ff. The wording of the document (ibid., p. 44) suggests
that the figural parts may not actually have been included on the model.
17
H. Janitschek, Leone Battista Albertis Kleinere Kunsttheoretische Schriften,Vienna 1877
(Quellenschriften fr Kunstgeschichte und Kunsttechnik des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit,
XI), pp. 165 ff.
18
A proportional enlarging method is alluded to by Ghiberti (J. von Schlosser, Lorenzo
Ghibertis Denkwrdigkeiten, Berlin 1912, 1, pp. 50 f, cf. II, p. 38), and Pomponius Gauricus
also includes one (H. Brochhaus, De sculptura von Pomponius Gauricus, Leipzig 1886, p. 26).
16
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about 1492 (Fig. 8).19 Leonardos device, it must be admitted, is very

crude. It would not allow for more than a relatively small number of points
to be taken, it would be cumbersome for work on a large scale, and would
not be very well suited for enlargements or reductions in scale. If in this
case, as in others, Leonardos invention was at the vanguard of its time, we
must conclude that pointing techniques were being experimented with, but
were not very highly developed by the end of the quattrocento.
If this assumption is correct we can perhaps gain some insight into the
peculiar facts surrounding that other famous giant commissioned for
Florence Cathedral from Agostino di Duccio in 1464. According to the
record the statue, which was to be 9 braccia high, was to correspond to a
model that Agostino had made in wax.20 It was to have been made of four
pieces of white marble, one for the head and neck, one for each arm, and
one for the rest of the body. Since so far as we know Donatellos and
Brunelleschis figure never got beyond the model stage, Agostinos would
have been the first colossal freestanding marble statue since antiquity. One
cannot but admire the boldness of his attempt, and I suspect that it was
based upon a pointing method of some kind. At least, a system of proportional measurement must have been involved if he expected to reproduce a
wax model on a colossal scale. We may recall, moreover, that Alberti had
specifically recommended his method both for executing sculpture in several pieces, and for enlargement to superhuman size.21
But Agostinos daring did not end there. In December of 1466 the
operai of the cathedral agreed to increase Agostinos fee for the figure,
because now he proposed to execute it from a single block of marble, rather
than four.22 Most remarkable is the fact that the document stipulates that
the increase in fee was determined not only by the great spendio et expensa,
but also by the greater intelleto involved in the new scheme. This extra
19
C. Ravaisson-Mollien, Les manuscrits de Lonard de Vinci. Le Manuscrit A de la bibliothque de linstitut, Paris 1881, fol. 43 recto; cf. J. P. Richter, The Literary Works of Leonardo
da Vinci, London, etc., 1939, II, no. 706 ; A. P. McMahon, Treatise on Painting, Princeton
1956, I, no. 556, II, fols. 160 verso, 161 recto. Another sketch of a similar device, in the
Codex Atlanticus (fol. 68 va), was kindly brought to my attention by Prof. Carlo Pedretti,
who dates it 150005 (Studi Vinciani, Geneva, 1957, p. 268).
20
Poggi, op. cit., doc. 441.
21
Alberti was no doubt in part following a literary convention from antiquity, as in
Diodorus Siculus story (I, 28) of two sculptors who made a statue in two sections and in separate locations; with the fundamental distinction, however, that Alberti is speaking in this con-
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intelleto might well refer to an improvement in his pointing system that

Agostino hoped would enable him to accomplish this unprecedented feat.
I submit the possibility that Agostinos notorious failure was due to some
miscalculation in his pointing system, as a result of which he was forced to
give up and leave the block male abozatum, This phrase, male abozatum,
occurs in the record of 1501 in which the operai of the cathedral ceded the
block to Michelangelo, who would in the next two years carve the David
from it (Figs. 11, 12).23 If the hypothesis about Agostinos abortive attempt
at pointing off his giant is correct, perhaps we can shed some light on
another part of the same entry, which is by all odds one of the most curious
notices in the whole history of Renaissance sculpture. In the margin next to
the main giving the block to Michelangelo the following note was added:
The said Michelangelo began to work on the said giant on the morning of 13 September 1501, although a few days earlier, on 9
September, he had with one or two blows of the chisel (uno vel duo
ictibus) removed a certain nodus (quoddam nodum) that it had on
its chest.
This nodus has been interpreted as a knot of drapery, on the assumption
that Agostinos figure was to be clothed.24 I wonder, however, whether the
nodus was not in fact a point, a knob of marble deliberately retained by
Agostino as a fixed reference for measuring off his colossus from the model.
The David is one of the vivid cases of Michelangelos phobia against
people seeing his work while in progress; he actually had a wall built around
it to keep away the curious, as we know from both Vasari and the documents.25 Yet the payments show that Michelangelo had removed the nodus
before the wall was built, while the block was still visible. He seems to have
wanted one and all to know that he intended to execute the statue without
Agostinos nodus.
text not of a system of proportions, but of his method of measuring from a prototype (as has
been emphasized by E. Panofsky, Meaning in the Visual Arts, New York 1955, p. 72, n. 26).
22
Poggi, op. cit., doc. 444.
23
Ibid., doc. 449.
24
Cf. C. de ToInay, Michelangelo, Princeton 1948 ff, I, p. 154, citing K. Lanckoronska.
25
Vasari-Milanesi, VII p. 154; K. Frey, Studien zu Michelagniolo Buonarroti und zur
Kunst seiner Zeit, Jb. d. Preu. Kunstslgn., 30, 1909, Beiheft, p. 107, nos 12 (payment for
the wall, October 14, 1501 and 13 (for the roof, December 20, 1501).
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We can scarcely even speculate as to how Michelangelo himself accomplished the feat. We know from Vasari that he too made a wax model. That
he used a system of enlargement is suggested by the very fact that he built
a wall around the figure, which would have made it practically impossible
to judge proportions from a distance. Another tantalizing notice in both
Vasari and Condivi is that he also left portions of the original block, which
might have served as stationary references for a measuring system, at the
head and at the base of the figure:26 but that at the head was removed,
unfortunately, in the eighteenth century.27
In any event, the David is the first definite instance we have of
Michelangelos use of the model in preparation for monumental sculpture.
Thereafter in his work the model takes on a virtually unheralded significance, but at this point we must consider briefly some aspects of what
might be called the pre-history of Michelangelos achievement.
In the general framework of late quattrocento Italian sculpture it is possible to define a powerful undercurrent of experimentation with new ways
of creating plastic effects. Verrocchio seems to have been a key figure in this
tendency. Certain passages in his relief of the Resurrection from Careggi in
the Bargello, for example, show a strikingly loose and expressive modeling
(Fig. 13) and the same may be said of his bust of Giuliano deMedici in
26
Vasari-Milanesi, loc. cit.; A. Condivi, Vita di Michelangelo Buonarroti, ed. Pisa 1823,
(Collezione di ottimi scrittori italiani), p. 22.
27
As reported by D. M. Manni (in a note to the edition of Condivi by A. F. Gori,
Florence 1746, p. 83; reprinted on p. 98 in the edition cited above, note 26), who says, La
scorza nella sommit del capo ora non si vede pi, dacch anni alquanti sono fu di nouvo
ripulita.
A brief search by the writer in the Florentine archives for a record of this operation was
unsuccessful. There did appear, however, an undated estimate for a later cleaning by the
sculptor Stefano Ricci (17651837):
Dovendosi da me sottoscritto Restaurare, ripulire, ed Incausticare la statua deldavidde dellImmortal Michelangelo esistente in Piazza del Gran Duca, e restaurare i due Leoni che esistono sotto la loggia detta dei lanzi, Avendo Ponderato ed i
Tasselli che ci mancano e la ripulitura, lIncausto, Ponti, ed altro, Esaminando la
Fatica necessaria p rimetter con criterio dei pezzi ad opera simili, giudico, e credo
potere ascender la total somma a Zechini quarantacinque
Tanto a lonore di esporre lUmilissimo Servo
Stefano Ricci Scultore
(Archive of the Soprintendenza della Galleria agli Uffizi, ms. no. 277.)
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Washington.28 The Careggi relief was certainly painted, the Medici bust
probably, so that much of the effect would have been lost. But in fact a host
of other works of this period, perhaps best exemplified by the series of reliefs
attributed to Francesco di Giorgio, show analogously bold vagueness of
form.29 It is scarecly necessary to emphasize that this whole phenomenon
was incalculably indebted to Donatello, and here is where its relevance for
Michelangelo becomes specific. When, as Vasari says, the youthful
Michelangelo in making his Madonna of the Stairs set out to contrafare la
maniera di Donatello,30 it is more than likely that at least part of his interest lay precisely in the diffuse and irregular surfaces that play a central role
in Donatellos relief technique. Certainly, in view of Michelangelos subsequent development it is difficult to imagine that the pictorial possibilities
of the rilievo schiacciato were of great concern to him.
What I wish to suggest is that the basic redefinition of sculptural finish
implied in this development was closely related to the emergence of the
sculptural study as an independent form. For here, too, the first steps were
taken in the late quattrocento, both towards freer handling in the model
itself, and towards an appraisal of the model in terms of its own special
properties. In both these respects Verrocchio once more seems to have been
a leader. His terracotta model in the Victoria and Albert Museum for the
Forteguerri monument in Pistoia (c. 1475, Fig. 4),31 though hardly a sketch,
is very different from such highly finished models as those of Benedetto da
Majano. And if the London relief was actually a presentation piece, submitted for the patrons approval, it marks the appearance of a new attitude
in this domain. That something of the sort was taking place is further evidenced by the fact that a few years later (1482) Verrocchios model of the
St. Thomas of Or San Michele was purchased for the Universit dei
Mercatanti. The model was to be placed on public display, and the decree
authorizing the acquisition states the motive in eloquent terms, per non
28
Illustrations of the former in L. Planiscig, Andrea del Verocchio, Vienna 1941, Pls. 17,
of the latter in C. Seymour, Jr., Masterpieces of Sculpture from the National Gallery of Art,
New York, 1949, Pls. 113116, Cf. p. 114.
29
See A. S. Weller, Francesco di Giorgio, Chicago 1943, pp. 135 ff.
30
Vasari-Milanesi, VII, p. 144.
31
Pope-Hennessy, op. cit., pp. 164 f.
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lasciare guastarsi e perire la boza et principio di si bella cosa;32 it attaches a

definite and positive value to the work of genesis as such.
Whatever their ancestry, however, Michelangelos small figures in wax
and clay have the quality of directness that prompts us to speak for the first
time of real sculptural sketches, or bozzetti (Figs. 9, 14).33 In the terracotta
torso in the British Museum, we even find the same very personal graphic
surface treatment that appears in the unfinished marbles and in many of the
drawings. Throughout the whole prior history of European sculpture there
is nothing that conveys in this way the feeling of being confronted with the
artists most inward and private searchings. Moreover, the sources and preserved examples together leave no doubt that he made such studies regularly
for all sorts of projects, so it can also be said that with Michelangelo the
three-dimensional sketch became an essential part of the sculptors creative
machinery.
At the opposite extreme stands the equally dramatic fact that with
Michelangelo we are able, again for the first time since antiquity, to prove
the use of large-scale models for monumental stone sculpture. I refer of
course to the Medici tombs; large models for the figure sculptures are amply
documented in Michelangelos own Ricordi, and one, the River God in the
Accademia is still preserved (Fig. 15).34
32
Cf. C. von Fabriczy, Donatellos Hl. Ludwig und sein Tabernakel an Or San Michele,
Jb. d. Preu. Kunstslgn., 21, 1900, p. 257.
Fundamentally different is the situation described by Pliny, (NH, XXXV, 155), in which
Arkesilaus models brought more than the final works of others, and one of his statues was
set up before it was finished; these stories merely document the exceptionally high esteem in
which the artists works were held.
It is tempting to speculate that a direct line in the development of the three-dimensional
sketch may have led from Verrocchio through Leonardo; a drawing in Windsor with figures
for the Anghiari battle (c. 1505) has an inscription recording Leonardos intention to make
a small one of wax the length of a finger. These studies, in turn, are probably reflected in a
number of bronze statuettes, and in the small terracotta battle groups attributed to Rustici.
(Cf. K. Clark, Leonardo da Vinci, Harmondsworth, 1959, p. 132) There is no evidence that
the latter were preliminary studies, but it seems quite possible that Leonardos example was
followed in the preparation of larger works in sculpture.
33
See L. Goldscheider, A Survey of Michelangelos Models in Wax and Clay, London, 1962,
with many problematic attributions.
34
For the Ricordi, cf. G. Milanesi, Le Lettere di Michelangelo Buonarroti, Florence 1875,
pp. 591 ff. The frequency with which he used large models for sculpture is not so evident as
with the bozzetti; Cellini (cited below, note 35) says that Michelangelo had worked both
with and without full-scale models, and that after a point he used them regularly. On the
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Both these innovations should be kept in mind when one considers still
another aspect of Michelangelos working procedure (Fig. 16). This is his
habit, described by Vasari and Cellini and confirmed by the works themselves, of attacking the block from one side only, uncovering the projecting
forms first and proceeding only gradually to the deeper excavations.35 The
significance of this technique has not I think been clearly grasped, though
Vasari himself supplies the explanation. He says that its purpose was to
avoid errors by leaving room at the back of the block for alterations. In
other words, should the artist encounter any flaws in the marble as he proceeds, should he make a mistake, should he alter his conception, he will be
in a much better position to make any necessary allowances or changes than
if the opposite side were already hewn away.
I need hardly point out the similarity of this to the later classical procedure, which Bluemel showed was based on making copies by pointing-off.
What this would indicate, however, is that Michelangelos technique, too,
developed in relation to his use of models. Indeed, Vasari gives his description of the procedure in a passage dealing with the use of models. His
description is even couched in terms of the famous analogy of a wax model
slowly withdrawn from a pail of water. I do not mean to imply that
Michelangelo actually pointed-off in a modern way, as has been claimed,36
or even that he necessarily made models, on whatever scale, in every case.
Rather, I suggest in general terms that these two most salient features of his
working procedure his one-sided approach to the block, and the
unprecedented role of bozzetti and modelli in his work should be viewed
as interconnected phenomena, the one proceeding directly from the other.
Michelangelos revolutionary technique may thus be understood against the
broad background of sculptural procedure since the early fifteenth century.
The development that began with Donatellos and Brunelleschis quasiscientific experiment reaches here, a hundred years later, a kind of
threshold.
other hand, in a letter of 1547 Bandinelli reports Pope Clement as having said that
Michelangelo could never be persuaded to make such models (G. Bottari, Raccolta di lettere
sulla pittura . . ., ed. S. Ticozzi, Milan, 1822 ff, I, p. 71).
But that Michelangelo himself thought of them as a means of facilitating the work is
apparent from his letter of April 1523 concerning full-scale models for the Medici tombs
(Milanesi, Lettere, p. 421; cf. on the dating, K. Frey, Die Briefe des Michelagniolo Buonarroti,
ed. H.-W. Frey, Berlin 1961, pp. 243 ff ).
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54
18. Bernini, Model for the Four Rivers fountain,

Detail, Private Collection, Rome.
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06:01
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19. Giambologna, River God,

Terracotta,
Victoria and Albert Museum,
London.
20. Bernini,
Angel with the
Iinscription,
Terracotta,
Side View,
Hermitage,
St. Petersburg.
55
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56
21. Bernini,
Angel with the
Iinscription,
Terracotta,
Front View,
Hermitage,
St. Petersburg.
20. Bernini,
Angel with the
Iinscription,
Terracotta,
Coll. Mr. and Mrs.
Richards S. Davis.
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23. Bernini, Angel with the Inscription,

Ponte S. Angelo, Rome.
57
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58
In the course of the sixteenth century this threshold was crossed and the
creative process became, as it were, so self-conscious and articulate as to be
virtually autonomous. The treatises of Cellini and Vasari on sculpture give
detailed accounts involving a series of clearly defined steps from small study
through the full-scale model, to the final work. An important factor in this
context was that Michelangelo could be cited as authority; the Medici
chapel is Cellinis chief witness when insisting on the desirability of the fullscale model.37 Characteristically, they both give as much attention to the
preparatory stages, the making of the models, as to the final execution. This
attitude has its visual corollary in the fact that the preliminary studies and
models now become independent and highly finished works of art in their
own right. It is probably no accident that two of Giambolognas full-scale
models, the Florence Triumphant over Pisa and the Rape of the Sabines, were
preserved along with the executed works themselves.38 And of course the
small studies for works in a large scale were often cast in bronze as
Kleinkunst (Fig. 17).
This by no means signifies that true bozzetti were not produced in the
sixteenth century; although the highly finished studies form the backbone
of Giambolognas preparations for a work of art, under certain iconographical circumstances at least, he produced sketches that go far beyond
Michelangelo in freedom of handling (Fig. 19).39
I strongly suspect that Berninis bozzetto style was not developed without a direct knowledge of such sketches by Giambologna, possibly in the
35
Vasari-Milanesi, I, pp. 154 f, cf. VII, pp. 272 f.; Cellini, Trattato della Scultura in A. J.
Rusconi and A. Valeri, eds. La Vita di Benvenuto Cellini, Rome 1901, p. 780; these are the
most important among numerous allusions to Michelangelos procedure.
36
F. Kieslinger, Ein unbekanntes Werk des Michelangelo, Jb. d. Preu. Kunstslgn., 49,
1928, pp.50 ff.
37
Op. cit. (above, no. 35), p. 778780
38
E. Dhanens, Jean Boulogne: Giovanni Bologna Fiammingo, Brussels 1956 (Koninklijke
Vlaamse Academie voor Wetenschappen . . ., Kl. der schone Kunsten, Verhandeling nr 11),
pp. 147 (n. 2) ff.
39
It now seems certain that the London model illustrated in our Fig. 19 is a study for a
colossal Nile at Pratolino, which was ultimately superseded by the famous figure of the
Apennines (cf. Pope-Hennessy, op.cit., p. 473, citing H. Keutner, review of Dhanens, in
Kunstchronik, 11, 1958, p. 327). And indeed, from the fluid treatment of the river god a
subtle but definite change may be observed toward sharper, almost craggy surfaces in the
Bargello study for the mountain deity (A. E. Brinckmann, Barock-Bozzetti, Frankfurt a. M.
192325, I, Pl. 29).
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59
Medici collection in Florence.40 Moreover, Bernini continues and even surpasses the late sixteenth century in working out his conception fully in
advance. This may be judged from the fact that Sandrart reports he saw no
less than twenty-two wax bozzetti for the St. Longinus alone.41 Sandrart was
himself astonished, and observes that the number of studies was far greater
than other sculptors were wont to produce. Eleven bozzetti for the angels of
the Ponte S. Angelo are preserved still today, and in them we follow the
development of Berninis ideas with a degree of intimacy that can only be
described as startling. Even in the famous case where we know Bernini
worked the marble directly, the bust of Louis XIV, he did so only after the
most painstaking study, which included besides drawings, many clay
models.42
No less clear is the evidence for Berninis committment to the full-scale
model. In every case where the documents for his larger commissions are
preserved they show that he used full-scale models; it was through them
that he was able to control and give his personal stamp to vast undertakings
executed largely with the help of assistants. Symptomatic of this development is that by far the most elaborate and practical description to date of
techniques of model-making, measurement and proportional enlargement
comes in a treatise on sculpture, still unpublished, written around 1650 by
one Orfeo Boselli.43 Boselli, though a pupil and follower of Duquesnoy,
worked under Bernini on the decoration of St. Peters, and his account may
well reflect the practise in Berninis studio. Symptomatic, too, is the fact
that with Bernini and his school we begin to get measured bozzetti; that is,
bozzetti on which calibrated scales have been incised, for the purpose of
Berninis acquaintance with the Medici collections seems evident from a comparison
of his Rape of Proserpine with the bronze by Pietro da Barga in the Bargello (cf. G. de Nicola,
A Series of Small Bronzes by Pietro da Barga, Burlington Magazine, 29, 1916, Pl. III, Q), a
relationship I hope to enlarge upon in another context.
41
A. R. Peltzer, Joachim von Sandrarts Academie . . ., Munich 1925, p. 286.
42
Cf. R. Wittkower, Berninis Bust of Louis XIV, Oxford 1951 (Charlton Lectures on
Art), p. 8.
43
Osservationi della Scoltura antica, Rome, Bibl. Corsini, ms. 36, F. 27, Bk. I, chs.
xiv ff., II, chs. xviii ff. Concerning one of his methods he says salvarai sempre le doi cime
del sasso, grosse tre dita, ben riquadrate, tanto nel di sopra, quanto nel fianco, perche perse
quelle, sarebbe vano il tutto; ne le levarai mai sin tanto, che non habbi posto a loco certo
tutte le parti principali (fol. 6o verso). On the treatise, cf. M. Piacentini, Le Osservationi
della scoltura antica di Orfeo Boselli, Bollettino del R. Istituto di Archeologia e Storia
dellArte, 9, 1939, pp. 5 ff.
40
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60
mathematically precise enlargement. One of the first examples I know is a

magnificent unpublished bozzetto by Bernini for the Angel with the
Inscription on Ponte S. Angelo, in which measured scales run vertically up
both sides of the rear support (Figs. 20, 21).44
I do not believe one could duplicate this kind of advanced preparation
in the work of any previous sculptor. We are faced with the paradox that
behind Berninis revolutionary effects of freedom and spontaneity there lay
an equally unprecedented degree of conscious premeditation. In a sense, of
course, it may be said that Bernini simply carries to a new level the tendency
to externalize and articulate the creative process that had begun in the early
Renaissance. But there are a number of factors that taken together point to
a profound difference from earlier procedure and have some bearing upon
the paradox of Berninis calculated spontaneity. As regards full-scale models
the examples recorded were made either for the benefit of assistants, or as a
means of trying out the projected work in situ. There is no evidence that
Bernini used full-scale models as part of his own personal working procedure. Interestingly enough, Boselli says specifically that whereas it had
previously been the custom to make full-scale models, he considers a small
model sufficient, except for larger works requiring try-outs for size.45
With regard to smaller models, in Bernini the relationship between
developed studies and sketches is reversed as compared with Giambologna.
Rapidly executed bozzetti, instead of being relatively rare, form by far the
greater portion of the corpus of known Bernini terracottas. Conversely,
highly finished studies are exceptional in Berninis work, and those that
exist can usually be linked to special circumstances such as execution by
assistants. No certain example of a study by Bernini cast in bronze is
known.46 The loose and very personal sketch, then, was his characteristic
instrument of creation.
It is remarkable, finally, that his bozzetti do not necessarily become more
highly finished as they approach the final conception. A striking case in
Height: 32.5 cm.; Inv. no. 630.

Op. cit., fol. 56 recto.
46
One possibility is a small bronze version of the Countess Matilda, cf. R. Wittkower,
Bernini, London 1955, p. 196. A small lead statuette, supposedly a trial model for Berninis
Neptune fountain at the Villa Montalto, was owned by Antonio Muoz (cf. I. Faldi, Galleria
Borghese. Le sculture dal secolo XVI al XIX, Rome 1954, p. 43, and Muoz in LUrbe, 1957,
no. 6, p. 13).
44
45
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61
point is the one just mentioned (Fig. 21). It is extremely close to the third
of Berninis angels, the one now on the bridge (Fig. 23),47 and as we have
seen it is actually measured for enlargement. Nevertheless it is not much
more highly finished than studies produced at an earlier stage in the planning (Fig. 22).48 To be sure, Berninis chief purpose in making the models
was to study the general disposition of pose and drapery, rather than to
work out details. But there is also, I think and this can be shown in many
other ways as well a deliberate effort to retain, or actually to increase the
sense of immediacy and freshness. These qualities which had previously
been, so to speak, incidental by-products of the creative process,
become part of its very purpose, a goal toward which Berninis elaborate
preparations were aimed.
In this way one can also understand the vast gulf separating Berninis
conception of sculpture from that of Michelangelo, despite the many points
they have in common. For Michelangelo sculpture was a matter of taking
away material to reveal the form in the stone. And he was obsessed with the
difficulties of the task such phrases as dura and alpestra pietra occur
repeatedly in his poems in reference to sculpture.49 Sculpture was not an
easy business for Bernini either; one of Michelangelos own dicta that he
applied to himself was nelle mie opere caco sangue.50 But for him a major
challenge was to preserve in the final execution the momentary quality,
though not the roughness, of a sketch. Hence he thought of sculpture as a
process of moulding the marble, rather than hewing it away; and he said
precisely that one of his greatest achievements was to have succeeded in rendering the marble pieghevole come la cera.51
On the attribution of this figure, cf. Wittkower, Bernini, p. 233.

Height: 30 cm.; one of a pair of unpublished bozzetti for the angels in the collection
of Mr. and Mrs. Richards. Davis, formerly of Wayzata, Minnesota, illustrated and discussed
in my dissertation, The Bozzetti of Gianlorenzo Bernini, Harvard Univ., 1955, pp. 184 f.
49
Cf. E. Panofsky, Studies in Iconology, New York and Evanston 1962, p. 178 and n. 16.
50
P. Frart de Chantelou, Journal du voyage du Cavalier Bernin en France, ed. L. Lalanne,
Paris 1885, p. 174.
51
D. Bernini, Vita del Cavalier Gio. Lorenzo Bernino, Rome 1713, p. 149; cf. A. Riegl,
Filippo Baldinuccis Vita des Gio. Lorenzo Bernini, eds. A. Burda and O. Pollak, Vienna 1912,
p. 235.
47
48
LavinIV.Revised:CHAPTER2.qxd13/8/0707:25Page2
IV
Bernini and the

Crossing of Saint Peters
Introduction
N THE present essay the crossing of Saint Peters refers to the grandiose
plan by which, during the reign of Pope Urban VIII (16231644) under
Berninis direction, a visually and conceptually unified focus was created at
the tomb of the Prince of the Apostles (Fig. l).1 The scheme consisted essentially of grouping four of the major relics of early Christianity, previously
dispersed, about the altar above the tomb.2 My chief purpose here is to define the way in which the arrangement was given meaning and expressive
form in the baldachin above the altar and in the decorations of the four
piers supporting the dome of the basilica. It will be necessary to consider
also the earlier contributions, which conditioned the final solution, and the
changes introduced in the course of execution, as a result of which much of
the original unity was lost. Sections IIV trace the broad outlines of the his-
A tradition universally accepted since the Middle Ages held that the bodies of both St.
Peter and St. Paul had been divided; half of each had been deposited at Saint Peters, the
other two halves at Saint Pauls Outside the Walls (cf. E. Kirschbaum, The Tombs of St. Peter
& St. Paul, London, 1959, 209 ff.). For effects of the legend on planning for the crossing see
nn. 48, 111, 171 below.
2
For the holy days and special occasions on which the Passion relics are shown, see
Moroni, Dizionario, CIII, 101 f. In 1964 the head of St. Andrew was returned to Patras in
Greece, whence it had come to Rome under Pius II in 1462 (LOsservatore Romano, anno
104, no. 218, Sept. 20, 1964, 4, and subsequent issues; see now R. O. Rubenstein, Pius IIs
Piazza S. Pietro and St. Andrews Head, in Essays in the History of Architecture Presented to
Rudolf Wittkower, London, 1967, 22 ff.). See also end of n. 125 below.
1
63
1. St. Peters,
view of
crossing
toward west
(photo:
Anderson)
BERNINI AND THE CROSSING OF SAINT PETERS
64
tory of the crossing through the period in question, with emphasis on the
sources and meaning of the baldachin. Chapter V analyzes the role of the
colossal statues in the lower niches of the piers. The Conclusion (Section
VI) is a schematic and tentative effort to understand the significance of the
crossing in Berninis development. The Appendices offer an annotated list
of projects submitted before and in competition with Bernini.
I. The Crossing Before Bernini
The Piers
The first steps toward the new disposition of the relics may be said to
have been taken under Pope Paul V (16051621). In 1606, with the destruction of the nave of the old basilica, Paul transferred the three chief
relics that had long been in Saint Peters to the two piers flanking the apse
of the new building:3 the Holy Face (Volto Santo) and the Lance of St.
Longinus were moved to the southwest pier, the head of St. Andrew to the
northwest (Text Fig. A; see p. 132).4 The relics were kept in the upper
niches, which were separated from the larger niches below by balconies with
balustrades (Figs. 24).5 The arrangement thus retained, without altars
below, that of the two-storey free-standing tabernacles which had been
3
Evidently there was an earlier plan, not carried out, to reorganize the display of the
relics in the new church: Si tratta di fare nel fenestrone principale della gran tribuna del
nuovo San Pietro un nuovo pulpito balaustrato con finiss.e pietre, reliquie del volto santo et
lancia di nostro Sig.re . . . (Avviso of Aug. 18, 1598) Cited by Orbaan, Documenti, 46 f., n.,
whose transcription I have checked against the original. Siebenhner, Umrisse, 301, gratuitously interpolates a phrase into this passage, and interprets it as referring to the west
window of the drum of the cupola.
4
The fundamental source for the transferral of the relics is Grimaldi, Instrumenta autentica . . . 1619 (on Grimaldi, see Pastor, History of the Popes, xxvi, 382; henceforth cited as
Pastor). Grimaldi also devoted a special treatise to the Volto Santo and the Lance,
Opusculum de sacrosancto Veronicae Sudario . . . 1618.
All three relics were moved on Jan. 25, 1606, to the capitulary archive while the Veronica
niche was being readied (ibid., fols. 82 ff.); they were moved thither on March 21 (ibid., fols.
87 ff.). This transferral is reported in an Avviso of March 25 (Orbaan, Der Abbruch AltSankt Peters 16051615, 48 henceforth references to Orbaan are to this work unless
otherwise stated; and Orbaan, Documenti, 71). The head of St. Andrew was shifted to the
northwest pier on Nov. 29, 1612 (Grimaldi, Opusculum, fols. 90v f.).
5
Cf. Appendix I Nos. 5 f., 10, 14 f. See also Ferrabosco, Architettura, Pls. xiv, xxii.
Payments during 16056 for work on the stairways within the piers, the balustrades,
etc., are published by Pollak, Ausgewhlte Akten, 116, and Orbaan, 36 ff.
2. Giovanni Maggi, Canonization of Carlo Borromeo, 1610, engraving.

Bibl. Vat., Coll. Stampe.
65
66
3. Canonization of Carlo Borromeo, 1610, engraving.

(From San Carlo Borromeo nel terzo centenario, 580 fig. 10).
4. Matthus Greuter, Longitudinal section of St. Peters

(detail of 1625 reprint of 1618 map of Rome). London, British Museum.
5. Matthus Greuter, Canonization of Ignatius of Loyola, et al., 1622
(decorations by Paolo Guidotti), engraving (detail).
Rome, Archive of Santa Maria in Vallicella (517 x 366mm).
67
68
6. Canonization of Ignatius of Loyola, et al., 1622, engraving (detail).

(From Mle, Concile, fig. 57).
69
among the most prominent monuments in Old Saint Peters (Figs. 79).6
Until Berninis time, the lower niche of the southeast pier contained the
tomb of Paul 111 (15341549), while before the northeast pier stood the
famous Colonna Santa, the spiral column against which Christ was believed
to have leaned in the Temple at Jerusalem (Text Fig. A).7
The permanent decoration of the niches seems to have been undistinguished. In engravings showing the crossing during the great quintuple
canonization of 1622, however, the upper reliquary niches contain hangings
(Figs. 5, 6).8 These are doubtless the same as two paintings one with Sts.
Peter and Paul holding aloft the Volto Santo, the other showing St. Andrew
with his cross which had been given to the basilica a decade before.9 The
use of the paintings in the niches is of considerable interest, for it indicates
that monumental representations of figures referring to the relics were part
Kauffmann was the first to note the relevance of the earlier tabernacles ("Berninis
Tabernakel, 229 ff.). According to Braun, Der christliche Altar, ii, 259 ff., tabernacles of this
kind were characteristically Roman.
The tabernacles occupied prominent positions in the old basilica. That of Saint Andrew,
originally erected by Pius II (145864), stood just inside the facade in the southernmost aisle
(cf. Alfarano, De basilicae vaticanae, 86 f., no. 85 on the plan, Pl. I). The Volto Santo tabernacle, dating from the twelfth century, stood in the corresponding position in the
northernmost aisle (ibid., 107 f., no. 115 on the plan). The tabernacle of the Lance, built by
Innocent VIII (148492) together with his famous tomb, was at the far end of the central
nave at the south crossing pier (ibid., 57 ff., no. 38 on the plan). The Saint Andrew and
Volto Santo tabernacles are shown in situ in another drawing in Grimaldi, Instrumenta autentica (reproduced by Orbaan, 13 Fig. 5).
It is interesting to note that in 1507, when the building of the new basilica began under
Julius II, the Lance was transferred to the tabernacle of the Volto Santo (Alfarano, De basil.
vat., 58 n., 108); they remained together when Paul V moved them to the crossing.
7
Cf. Panciroli, Tesori nascosti, 531 f.
8
See pp. 88 f. below; Appendix I, nos. 14, 15.
9
The donations are recorded by Grimaldi:
1611. Illustrissimus R.mus Ds Scipio Corbellutius S.R.E. Presbyter Cardinalis Sanctae
Susannae tunc Vaticanae Basilicae Canonicus pia erga Sanctissimu Jesu Christi Sudarium religione motus, ante absidat magnam fenestram, unde eadem sancta facies populo ostenditur
yconam imaginibus, & Apostolorum Petri & Pauli coloribus expressam dono dedit cu ubella.
(Opusculum, fols. 90r f.)
1612. Cum R.mus Ds Angelus Damascenus Romanus utriusque signaturae sanctissimi
Domini Nostri referendarius dictae Vaticanae Basilicae Canonicus ante fenestram magnam absidatam in parastata summi Tholi, ubi ex nobiliss o., marmoreo suggestu ad sinistram arae
maximae caput sancti Andreae Apostoli populo ostenderetur, yconam cum imagine sancti Andreae
Crucem amplectitis cu ubella figuris & insignibus ornata pia largitione fecisset. (Ibid., fol. 90v.)
6
70
of the decoration of the piers, at least on special occasions, before Bernini

began his transformation.
The Tomb and the High Altar
Before discussing the contributions made under Paul V at the tomb and
high altar, we may review briefly the previous history of the shrine. Modern
excavations combined with other evidence have made it possible to reconstruct with rare accuracy the monument as it had been installed by
Constantine when he built Saint Peters (Fig. 10).10 It consisted of four
twisted marble columns forming a screen across the apse; in front of the two
central columns were placed two more twisted columns, creating a square
enclosure around the tomb.11 Two semicircular ribs intersecting diagonally
rested on these four central columns. Around A.D. 600 drastic changes
were introduced. The level of the apse floor was raised and a bench placed
around it with a bishops throne at the back (cf. Fig. 18). Over the tomb was
placed a ciborium, whose design is unknown, except for the fact that it had
four columns. The six original spiral columns were now arranged in a line
in front of this presbytery, and in the eighth century another set of six was
added in front of them, to form a second, outer screen (Fig. 11). The shrine
remained essentially in this form until construction of the new basilica
began in the early sixteenth century under Bramante. Bramante removed
the outer row of columns, replacing them with the wall of a protective
structure that incorporated the apse and enclosed the rest of the shrine (cf.
Fig. 17). This structure stood until the time of Clement VIII (15921605).
It was then removed to permit raising the floor level again and construction
of the new grotte, or crypt. The high altar was also refurbished (dedicated
1594), and over it Clement erected a provisional ciborium with a cupola of
wood.12
There reverberates throughout the subsequent history of the crossing a
dilemma that was a direct consequence of having erected a centrally
planned church over the tomb. Ancient tradition at Saint Peters, as elsewhere, required that the high altar be in close proximity to the apse, which
10
B. M. Apollonj Ghetti, et al., Esplorazioni sotto la confessione di San Pietro in Vaticano,
Vatican City, 1951, 161 ff. For a summary, see J. Toynbee and J. Ward Perkins, The Shrine
of St. Peter and the Vatican Excavations, London-New York, 1956, 195ff.
11
On the spiral columns, see pp. 100 ff. below.
12
See Orbaan, Documenti, 47n., 48n.; a first payment for the ciborium was made in
June, 1594. Documents for the removal of the ciborium are cited in Orbaan, 44.
71
served as a choir for the pope and the sacred college during solemn functions. No less important, however, was the traditional connection between
the high altar and the tomb. Logically, only four solutions were possible, all
of which were proposed or attempted at one time or another, but none of
which could be wholly satisfactory. First, the high altar could be moved
westward toward the apse, relinquishing its connection with the tomb.
Second, the tomb might be moved along with the high altar, a course that
ran the risk, as one source reports, of searching for the bodies of the apostles in vain, although it was known for sure that they were there.13 Third,
the tomb and high altar might be left in situ and a choir built around them,
necessitating an inconvenient encumbrance of the crossing (Figs. 12, 13).14
The fourth alternative was to leave the altar and tomb undisturbed, and relinquish the connection with the choir.
Of these possibilities the first and fourth are particularly important: the
last because, having evidently been preferred by Michelangelo, it was finally resolved upon by Urban VIII and executed by Bernini;15 the first because
it was the one chosen at the beginning of Paul Vs reign, and the projects
for it, though never carried out in permanent form, profoundly influenced
the design of Berninis baldachin. The decision in favour of the first solution is reported in an Avviso of January 18, 1606, at the time the relics were
being transferred to the new church.16 According to this dispatch it had
Quoted n. 16 below.
See Appendix I Nos. 24, 25. The first objection to which Papirio Bartoli replies in his
treatise describing his project is that it would take up too much room in the crossing
(Discorso, int. 2, fol. 1 ff.).
15
Owing to the subsequent retention of the choir begun by Nicolas V (Magnuson,
Roman Quattrocento Architecture, 177 f.), the tomb and high altar is not in the center of the
crossing, but slightly to the west. judging from the engraved plan by Duprac, Michelangelo
had planned to shift it in the opposite direction in order to achieve true centrality (cf.
Siebenhner, Umrisse, 291).
16
The character and importance of this project was first defined by Siebenhner,
Umrisse, 313 f. The relevant passage in the Avviso is as follows:
. . . sendosi intanto fatto levare quella cuppola di legno, che ci era in mezo della nuova chiesa
sudetta sopra laftare maggiore delli Santissimi Apostoli, quale altare anco si levar secondo
il nuovo modello, dovendosi trasportar pi avanti verso il capo della chiesa, ove sar il choro
per poter et Sua Santita et il Sacro Colleggio intervenire alli divini officij, sentendosi, che
dove hora il detto altare, vi si far una balaustrata intorno con scalini per potere scendere
a basso et andar a celebrar messa allaltare et corpi de detti. Santi Apostoli, senza moverli altrimenti, come alcuni altri volevano et stato questo tenuto pi salutifero consiglio, per non
mettersi in pericolo di cercarli indarno, sebene si sa certo, che ci sono. (Orbaan, 44; Orbaan,
Documenti, 68) Cf. also an Avviso of Oct. 4, 1606, in Armellini, Le chiese di Roma, 903.
13
14
7. Tabernacle reliquary of the head of St. Andrew,

Old Saint Peters, drawing. (From Grimaldi,
Instrumenta autentica, fol. 49r).
8. Tabernacle reliqury of the Volto Santo, Old Saint Peters, drawing.

(From Grimaldi, Instrumenta autentica, fol. 92r).
72
10. Constantinian presbytery, Old Saint Peters, reconstruction

drawing. (From B. M. Appollonj Ghetti, et al., Explorazioni sotto la
confessione di San Pietro in Vaticano, Vatican, 1951, pl. H opp. p. 170).
9. Tabernacle reliquary of the Lance of St. Longinus,

Old Saint Peters, drawing. (From Grimaldi,
Instrumenta autentica, fol. 71r).
73
74
11. Plan of mediaeval
presbytery, Old Saint
Peters. (From
Appollonj Ghetti,
et al., Esplorazioni,
fig. 136c).
12. Papirio Bartoli,

Project for a choir in
the crossing of
Saint Peters (detail),
engraving by
M. Greuter.
Rome, Bibl. Vitt.
Em., MS Fondi
Minori 3808,
fol. 141
(266 x 197mm).
13. Carlo Maderno, Project for choirs

in the crossing and apse of Saint Peters,
drawing. Florence, Uffizi, Gabinetto
dei disegni, A265 (665 x 457mm).
14. Borromini, Project for ciborium in

crossing of Saint Peters, drawing, Vienna.
Albertina, Arch. Hz., Rom, Kirchen,
No. 1443 (254 x 160mm).
75
15. Medal of Paul II, 1470.

Bibl. Vat., Medagliere.
16. Ciborium of Sixtus IV

(14711484), Old Saint Peters,
reconstruction drawing.
(From Grimaldi, Instrumenta
autentica, fol. 160r).
18. Sebastian Werro, Ciborium of

Saint Peters, 1581, drawing.
Fribourg, Bibl. Cantonale.
76
17. School of
Raphael, Donation of
Constantine
(detail showing
reconstruction of the
Constantinian
presbytery based on
elements still extant).
Vatican, Sala di
Costantino
(photo: Alinari).
77
78
19. Canonization of Francesca Romana, 1608, fresco. Bibl. Vat., Galleria di Paolo V.
20. Canonization of Carlo Borromeo, 1610, fresco. Bibl. Vat., Galleria di Paolo V.
21. Medal of Paul V, 1617.

Bibl. Vat., Medagliere.
79
80
been determined to shift the high altar toward the main apse, where a choir
would be installed. A proposal to move the tomb as well had been rejected,
and instead stairs were planned to give access from the floor level down to
the tomb so that mass could be said there; this was the beginning of the
open confessio carried out later in Paul Vs reign.17 The second altar was actually built, and simultaneously a baldachin was erected over the original
altar and a model of the proposed ciborium over the new one.18
The baldachin over the tomb altar, built of perishable materials, broke
radically with tradition. At least since the late fifteenth century the ciboria
over the high altar of Saint Peters had conformed to a basic type, with four
columns supporting a cupola (Figs. 1518).19 As we have noted, the temporary ciborium of Clement VIII, which this new one replaced, also had a
cupola.20 In contrast to these predecessors, Paul Vs baldachin, as recorded
17
The Florentine painter and architect Ludovico Cigoli submitted a project that involved moving the tomb (Figs. 25, 26; see p. 82 f. below and Appendix I no. 18). A project
by Martino Ferrabosco for a confessio with circular balustrade and stairways is recorded,
though there is no certain evidence that he was in Rome by this date (see n. 176 below).
18
Payments for the new altar are recorded as early as Dec., 1605: per fare larmatura de
laltare da fare nella tribuna grande verso Santa Marta . . . per ordine di messer Carlo
Maderni (Orbaan, 40). The altar over the tomb continued to function, though one project
for a ciborium over the tomb seems to contemplate its removal (Fig. 14; Appendix I no. 2).
Payments for dismantling the ciborium of Clement VIII occur in Jan., 1606 (Orbaan,
44). Payments for building the new baldachin over the tomb altar begin in Feb. (Fraschetti,
Il Bernini, 55 f.; Pollak, Ausgewhlte Akten, 110; Orbaan, 45 ff.). Payments for the model
of the ciborium over the new altar at the choir begin in Sept. (ibid., 541 f.).
The designer or designers of both these structures remain anonymous, though Carlo
Maderno, as architect of the basilica, is the most likely candidate. Nevertheless, the phraseology of the document quoted at the beginning of this note is inconclusive, since Maderno
may have ordered work to be done even though it was not of his invention.
19
For a general survey, see Braun, Der christ. Altar, II, 185 ff.
The Saint Peters ciborium is shown with a dome in: a medal of 1470 of Paul II celebrating his reconstruction of the tribune (Fig. 15; cf. G. Zippel, Paolo II e larte, LArte, 14,
1911, 184 f.; Magnuson, Roman Quattrocento Architecture, 169); a reconstruction by
Grimaldi of the ciborium built by Sixtus IV (147184), of which important relief sculptures
are preserved (Fig. 16); the Donation of Constantine fresco by the Raphael school in the Sala
di Costantino in the Vatican (Fig. 17); a drawing by the Swiss pilgrim Sebastian Werro, who
visited Rome in 1581 (Fig. 18); E. Wymann, Die Aufzeichnungen des Stadpfarrers
Sebastian Werro von Freiburg i. Ue. ber seinen Aufenthalt in Rom von 1027. Mai 1581,
Rmische Quartalschrift fr christliche Altertumskunde und fr Kirchengeschichte, 33, 1925, 39
ff.
20
See the Avviso of Jan. 18, 1606, quoted n. 16 above, and another of Oct. 28, 1600,
cited by Orbaan, Documenti, 48n. In an Avviso of June 29, 1594, it is described as un
ornamento di tavole depinto a similitudine di catafalco (ibid., 47n.).
81
in many contemporary illustrations, consisted of a tasselled canopy supported on staves held by four standing angels (Figs. 24, 1923);21 it
reproduced, in effect, a portable canopy such as was borne above bishops
(hence the pope) on formal occasions, and above the Holy Sacrament and
the relics of the Passion when they were carried in procession.22 This was the
basic theme that would be retained in the two subsequent baldachins built
over the tomb, including Berninis. The scale of the baldachin was impressive; its height has been calculated at roughly nine meters, only a meter
short of Berninis bronze columns.23 Moreover it was to be executed in
bronze,24 a significant innovation, since monumental altar coverings were
usually of stone. The project thus foreshadows the material of Berninis baldachin, as well as the underlying notion of translating a normally
ephemeral type into permanent and monumental terms.
The purpose of this revolutionary design must have been largely symbolic. With the removal of the high altar the tomb itself became a kind of
reliquary, for which such a canopy would be appropriate. At the same time,
by alluding to the processional canopy traditionally associated with the
bishop, the new design may have been intended to mark the special character of the site as the tomb of the first pope. Whatever its meaning, the
baldachin offered a vivid and surely deliberate contrast to the proper ciborium that was at the same time erected over the new papal altar.
It should be noted, finally, that the depictions of the baldachin during
the canonization of Carlo Borromeo in 1610 are of interest in showing the
decorations it received for the occasion (Figs. 2, 3, 20).25 Strands of lilies are
wound spirally about the supports, and above the canopy proper is a medal-
21
Appendix I Nos. 412, Payments for the angels were made to the sculptors Ambrogio
Buonvicino and Camillo Mariani; the angels drapery was made of real cloth (cf. Orbaan, 47
f.).
22
J. Braun, Die liturgischen Paramente in Gegenwart und Vergangenheit, Freiburg-imBreisgau, 1924, 240; Moroni, Dizionario, VI, 57 ff.
23
Cf. Siebenhner, Umrisse, 309. The height of the bronze columns is given as 45
palmi by G. P. Chattard, Nuova descrizione del Vaticano . . . Rome, 176267, 1, 148 f. (The
Roman palmo was slightly over .22 m.)
24
Tota haec machina ex ligno compacta, subjecto Iconismo expressa ideam exhibebat future
molis, quam ex aere, auroque excitare animo inerat Pontificis . . . Nihil tamen Paulo regnante
effectum est, sed postquam Urbanus VIII Pontificiae Dignitatis . . . (Buonanni, Numismata templi vaticani, 127, and Numismata pontificum romanorum, II, 573)
25
Appendix I, nos. 58.
82
lion with an image of the saint, held in Giovanni Maggis engraving by two
kneeling angels (Fig. 2).26
In the Maggi engraving there also appears a partial view of the ciborium
over the apse altar, jutting above the temporary arcade at the back of the enclosure (Fig. 24). It shows a polygonal structure whose dome rests on a high
drum with volutes at the corners; the dome is surmounted by a lantern
topped by a globe and cross. We know from other contemporary witnesses
that the ciborium employed ten of the famous twisted columns that
adorned the mediaeval sanctuary.27 These pieces of information make it possible to link (though not identify) the model that was built with a group of
closely related, projects of various dates, preserved in drawings and an engraving (Figs. 2528, 79).28 These projects are all for ciboria of the ordinary
kind, with domes supported on columns. In addition, from the central element they envisage two arms extending outward to the corners of the apse
walls, creating a screen-like enclosure before the choir. It is clear that, by
reusing the ancient columns, and by screening the apse with an enclosure
containing an altar, these designs hark back to the mediaeval arrangement
in Saint Peters, which had remained intact (minus the outer row of
columns) until only a decade before the pontificate of Paul V (Fig. 17).29
The chief difference is that now the ciborium has been fused with the
See the comments in Appendix I, no. 5.
In 1618 Grimaldi notes that the pair of spiral columns that had adorned the Oratory
of John VII (see n. 70 below) hodie cernuntur ad maiorem templi apsidam pergulam cereorum
in pontificijs solemnibus sustinentes caeteris consimilibus saniores, et pulchriores (Opusculum, fol.
119v).
In 1635, in a series of notes appended to Grimaldis treatise, Francesco Speroni, sacristan
of Saint Peters, mentions the number ten: . . . tempore d. Pontificis [Paul V]decem earum
integrae delatae fuerunt in novum Templum, ac positae fuerunt ad ornatum ante maiorem apsidem Templi. (Grimaldi Opusculum de SS. Veronicae . . . additis aliquibus praecipuis
additionibus ad hoc pertinentibus a Francisco Sperono eiusdem Basilicae Sacrista an. D. 1635,
Biblioteca Vaticana, MS. Vat. lat. 6439, p. 354) Concerning Speroni, see also Pollak, Die
Kunstttigkeit unter Urban VIII, 635 henceforth cited as Pollak. (See Addenda and Fig.
28A.)
28
See Appendix I, nos. 18, 20, 23, 26.
29
Cf. the project for rebuilding Saint Peters by Bernardo Rossellino under Nicolas V
in the mid-fifteenth century, as reconstructed by Grimaldi and Martino Ferrabosco
(Magnuson, Roman Quattrocento Architecture, 177 f., 178, Fig. 22). A. Schiavo, San
Pietro in Vaticano (Quaderni di Storia dellarte, IX), Rome, 1960, 11, assumes that the
twelve columns surrounding the altar in the Grimaldi-Ferrabosco plan were to be the
originals.
26
27
83
colonnaded screen to form one unit; the result recalls, whether consciously
or not, the earliest mediaeval form of the shrine (Fig. 10).
What all these considerations suggest is that the memory of the shrine
of Old Saint Peters was very much alive and that the idea of recreating it in
a modern idiom was in force from the time it was dismantled, or at least
soon afterward. We shall find that Bernini was motivated by a similar idea.
These projects further anticipate that of Bernini in their scale. They would
have been some ten metres shorter than Berninis baldachin (28.97 m.), but
they would have stood in the relatively low choir, not under the main
dome.30
The two huge models, standing a few meters apart on the axis of Saint
Peters the baldachin over the tomb and the ciborium in front of the apse
represented opposite poles of tradition; the one was inherently mobile,
fragile, and informal, the other was static, permanent, and architectonic. In
the development that took place during the next quarter of a century, which
culminated in Berninis baldachin, these two seemingly incompatible traditions were fused.
The crucial link was provided by a third type, intermediate, almost in a
literal sense, between the other two. This was the baldachin made usually of
perishable materials and suspended in a fixed position above the altar.31 The
type seems to have been introduced into the development of Saint Peters
by Carlo Maderno. At least this is suggested by a rather obscure passage in
a manuscript guide to Rome written during the 1660s by Fioravante
Martinelli, the friend of Borromini.32 Martinelli reports that Maderno submitted to Paul V a design that included twisted columns; he adds, however,
that the canopy did not actually touch the columns or their cornices. It is
We may note, further, a plan for the completion of the church as a whole, ca. 16056,
which shows an enclosure with an altar flanked by two columns at the entrance to the apse
(Fig. 29; Appendix I, no. 1); two groups of four columns flank the altar in the crossing. If
the ten columns were to be the originals, it would be an early precedent for Berninis use of
spiral columns in the crossing, rather than as a screen in the choir.
In the other projects it was evidently intended to supplement the preserved originals
with copies (cf. Appendix I, no. 19).
30
The height of these projects (about 19 m.) may be judged from the scale (100 palmi)
on Borrominis drawing (Fig. 28). The height of Berninis baldachin is given in P. E. Visconti,
Metrologia vaticana, Rome, 1828, Table II.
31
Cf. Braun, Der christ. Altar, II, 262 ff., Pls. 187 ff.
32
The passage is quoted in its context below, n. 53. On Borromini and Martinelli cf. P.
Portoghesi, Borromini nella cultura europea, Rome, 1964, 96, 200.
84
22. Canonization of Ignatius of Loyola, et. al., 1622, drawing.

Vienna, Albertina, Arch. Hz., Rom, Kirchen, No. 780 (292 x 195mm).
23. Canonization of Elizabeth of Portugal, 1624 (decorations by Bernini),
engraving. Bibl. Vat., Arch. Cap. S. P. (330 x 245mm).
24. Detail of Fig. 2.
25. Ludovico Cigoli, plan of choir

for Saint Peters, 16051606.
Florence, Uffizi, Gab. dei disegni,
A2639r (424 x 286mm).
85
86
26. Ludovico Gigoli, Ciborium for
choir of Saint Peters, 16051606,
drawing (detail).
Florence, Uffizi, Gab.
dei disegni, A2639v
(424 x 286mm).
27. Ciborium for choir of Saint

Peters, drawing. Vienna,
Albertina, Arch. Hz.,
Rom, Kirchen, No. 767
(362 x 315mm).
87
28. Borromini, Ciborium for

choir of Saint Peters,
ca. 1620, drawing.
Vienna, Albertina, Arch. Hz.,
Rom, Kirchen, No. 766
(235 x 177mm).
28A. Attributed to Franois Derand,

Ciborium model of 1606 in choir of
Saint Peters, drawing, 16131616.
Paris, Louvre, Cabinet des Dessins,
cole fran. No. 3598
(431 x 3000mm).
88
difficult to imagine what sort of arrangement was intended, but it is most

probable that the canopy was to be suspended from above. (A proposal of
just this sort was made later, under Urban VIII.33) Madernos project may
also have laid the groundwork for one of Berninis first solutions, in which
the canopy, held aloft by angels, was also separate from the columns (cf. Fig.
31, and p. 92 below). The idea of using columns and a canopy is the first
evidence of the tendency to combine elements of the traditional baldachin
with those of an architectural ciborium.34
After the models were built in 1606 there is no further record of construction on the projects during Paul Vs lifetime. Effort must have been
concentrated on building the nave and the confessio at the tomb; when
these were finished the problem came to the fore once more, and new proposals were offered.35 Before the pope died plans were evidently made to
replace the models, perhaps because they had deteriorated in the meantime.
However, actual rebuilding of both models, again using temporary materials, began only under Paul Vs successor, Gregory XV (16211623). The
final invoices, which contain detailed descriptions, date from the early years
of Urban VIIIs pontificate. The description of the apse ciborium given in
the painters invoice corresponds with a project drawn by Borromini, but
Anonymous, Modo di fare il tabernacolo, fols. 26r and v; see n. 55 below.
It is tempting to pair Madernos project described by Martinelli with one recorded in
a drawing by Borromini, but presumably invented by Maderno in 16056, for a ciborium
with cupola resting on straight columns over the tomb in the crossing (Fig. 14; Appendix I,
nos. 2, 17). In this case the relationship ciborium in the crossing vs. baldachin in the choir
would have been the reverse of that of the models. This interchangeability of types is in
itself a significant prelude to their fusion.
35
The nave was finished in 1615 (Pastor, XXVI, 394 f.). Paul V resolved in Jan., 1611,
to build the confessio, which was opened in 1617 (ibid., 401 f.; cf. Appendix I, no. 9).
Papirio Bartoli specifically says that planning for the pontifical choir was delayed by construction of the nave and indecision about the choirs form: . . . e se bene da molti sommi
Pontefici stato pensato di fare detto Coro [pontificio] . . . con tutto ci si restato, si perche
ancora non era finito il corpo della chiesa, s anco che non si concordava del modo, se bene
del luogo la maggior parte concorreva, che si dovesse fare vicino allAltare de St i Apostoli
. . . (Bartoli, Discorso, int. I, fol. 1r.)
Projects other than those considered in the text that can securely be dated to the latter
part of Paul VS reign are: dismountable choir for the apse recorded in Ferrabosco,
Architettura (Appendix I, no. 22; Appendix II); Papirio Bartolis proposal for a choir in the
form of a navicella to be placed in the crossing and incorporate Madernos confessio (Fig. 12;
Appendix I, no. 24), a drawing in the Uffizi attributed to Maderno showing a colonnaded
enclosure in the crossing behind the confessio and a choir in the apse (Fig. 13; Appendix I,
no. 25).
33
34
89
probably designed by Maderno, which has an inscription bearing the name

of Paul V (Fig. 28).36 The phraseology shows that it was largely a remodelling of the earlier structure, the main alterations being the addition of four
straight columns to the ten twisted ones and of four apostles to the cornice
of the dome.
Of greater importance are the changes that were introduced in the new
baldachin model over the tomb. Payments for the work begin in June,
1622, but it seems possible that a kind of preview of the new model is given
in engravings of the great quintuple canonization that took place on March
12 of that year (Figs. 5, 6).37 The baldachin depicted here is the same basic
type as that of Paul V, a tasselled canopy resting on four supports with angels at the bases. There are notable differences, however. The angels, of
whom only two are shown, kneel rather than stand, and the supports consist of rich foliate forms. This baldachin may still be Paul Vs, again dressed
up for the ceremony.38 Yet we shall see presently that the new baldachin,
begun within three months after the canonization, also had elaborately
carved supports and a new set of angels beside them, executed in stucco by
Bernini. Moreover, we shall shortly consider a later canonization print in
which Berninis original design for his bronze baldachin was previewed in
just this fashion (cf. Fig. 30). In any case, the baldachin shown in the engravings provides an important link to Berninis ideas, in that it combines
essential elements of both its predecessors. The supports are wholly organic, curvilinear in form, recalling the twisted columns of the ciborium; but
they are now used to carry a canopy rather than a cupola. The fact that the
angels, in kneeling, seem less actively to carry the structure also implies a
Appendix I, nos. 26, 27.
Appendix, I no. 1315.
38
A record of purchases of material for decorating the baldachin for the canonization is
preserved:
Baldachino grande
Per armesino, canne 75 ................scudi 337.50
Frangie alte di oro et seta bianca ............237.30
Per oro in folio per indorare ..................104
Per colori, tele, pitura trategi ................194
The account book dates from 1615 to 1618, that is, at least four years before the canonization took place; nevertheless there is no hint of any intention to replace the angels.
Cf. I. M. Azzolini, in Canonizzazione dei santi Ignazio di Loiola, 127; the account book
contains no further references to the baldachin (Rome, Casa Generalizia della Compagnia di
Ges, Archivum Postulationis, Atti concernenti santi, Sez. i, Scaff. A, Busta 16, int. 20).
36
37
90
29. Project for a tabernacle in the crossing and a choir screen in the apse of Saint
Peters, drawing (detail). Bibl. Vat., Arch. Cap. S. P., Album, pl. 4 (740 x 455mm).
engraving. Bibl. Vat., Coll. Stampe (330 x 245 mm).
31. Medal of Urban VIII, 1626. Bibl. Vat., Medagliere.
32. Medal commemorating the canonization

of Andrea Corsini, 1629.
Paris, Bibl. Nat., Cabinet des Mdailles.
91
92
significant change in dynamic: the baldachin is thought of as a more selfsufficient, quasiarchitectural unit. Two major steps remain in the transition
to the final form: the introduction of true columns as supports for the
canopy, and the addition of a superstructure.
The new baldachin model as it was actually built is described in the carpenters final invoice.39 It too had a fringed canopy, and the supports seem
to have incorporated into their regular design something of the ornamentation applied to the earlier structure on special occasions. The ornaments
included among other things cherubs, foliage, and spiral fluting.40 It is not
likely that the supports actually had the form of columns, since they are
consistently described as staves (aste), and neither capitals nor proper bases
are mentioned. But their decoration must in any case have closely resembled that of the ancient spiral shafts, and they thus anticipate Berninis idea
of imitating rather than reusing the originals. It was also intended to gild
the supports, which would have given them the effect of being made of
metal.41 Furthermore, the supports were colossal in scale; they stood well
over twelve meters high, more than two meters taller than the bronze
columns by which Bernini replaced them. A final point of importance is
that during the first part of 1624 Bernini himself made four stucco angels
for this model; they were apparently placed at the base of the supports, as
had been the case previously.42
II. Berninis First Project for the Baldachin

The transition from the baldachin begun under Gregory XV to Urban
VIIIs enterprise is barely perceptible. The earlier model was never quite finAppendix I, no. 13.
Per lintaglio dele dette 4 Aste alte luna pi 58. con cherubini festoni cartelle cartocci
fogliami e scanelate a vite vasi regni mitre colarini e piedi fatto a fogliami (Pollak, 18, no.
35).
41
The bole and gesso were applied, but the gilding was never carried out (cf. Pollak, 309
no. 1000).
42
He was paid for them between Feb. and Aug., 1624 (Pollak, Nos. 1001 ff.). The fact
that there were four angels and that the columns had spiral fluting are the chief differences
of the model as executed from the baldachin represented in the prints of the canonization of
Ignatius of Loyola, et al. (Figs. 5, 6). The possibility still remains, however, that the engravings prefigure the intended new baldachin, and that the design was modified in the course
of execution (as proved to be the case with Berninis baldachin). It may also be that the en
39
40
93
ished, and at some point precisely when is not known it was decided
to return the high altar to its place above the tomb, thus finally re-establishing the predominance of the crossing, but relinquishing the reference to
the mediaeval form of the presbytery.43 We shall see that, paradoxically, the
decision may have been at least partly determined by a desire to recreate
even more accurately the original form of the shrine. No formal contract
with Bernini for the design and construction of a new, permanent structure
has been preserved, if one ever existed; payments to him simply began, in
July of 1624, while he was still being paid for the stucco angels for the earlier baldachin.44 The first elements of the new baldachin to be executed were
the bronze columns; installation began in September, 1626, and they were
unveiled in June of the following year.45 A separate commission, based on a
small model, provided for the superstructure, of which a full-scale model
was set in place in April, 1628.46
Berninis first project is recorded, with certain variations, in an engraving showing the decorations he designed for the canonization of Queen
Elizabeth of Portugal on March 25, 1625 (Fig. 30),47 and in medals dated
graver simply omitted the two angels at the back (in one engraving of the canonization of
Carlo Borromeo, the rear two angels were omitted, and in another the medallion atop the
western face of the canopy was left out; cf. Figs. 2, 3). That the project for the new baldachin
was developed during the preparations for the quintuple canonization is suggested by the
fact that a preliminary drawing in Vienna for the 1622 prints shows the straight, smooth
staves of the earlier structure (Fig. 22; Appendix I, no. 11).
Siebenhner, Umrisse, 317 ff., offers the curious theory that the engraving by Girolamo
Frezza in Buonanni, Num. templ. vat., Pl. 48, represents the present baldachin, despite the
facts that it does not show the carving on the supports mentioned in the documents and
that, as is clear from Buonannis text (p. 127), the plate is based upon Paul Vs medal (Fig.
21; Appendix I, no. 9).
43
The choir was to be retained in the apse; a model for one was later designed by Bernini
(Pollak, 611).
Bartoli notes in 1620 (Discorso, int. 1, fol. Ir) that the choir installations in the apse were
temporary and had to be set up and taken down for each occasion; the same is true today.
44
Pollak, nos. 1053 ff.
45
Cf. Pollak, nos. 1127, 1130.
46
Pollak, nos. 1142 ff., where payments for the large model are wrongly ascribed to the
small one; on the installation, see an Avviso of April 8, 1628, quoted in E. Rossi, Roma ignorata, Roma, 15, 1937, 97.
47
Berninis designs for the canonization were approved by the pope shortly before Feb.
8, 1625 (Fraschetti, Bernini, 251 n. 1; cf., Pastor, XXIX, 10, where the references should be
corrected as follows: Bibl. Vat., Arch. Segreto, Acta Consistorialia, Camerarii, XVI, fols.
67v68, aud Bibl. Vat. MS. Urb. lat. 1095, fol. 315r, May 28, 1625; Pollak, Nos. 125 ff.).
94
1626 (Fig. 31) and 1629 (Fig. 32).48 All three depictions agree on the basic
thought underlying the design, which consists of four spiral columns supporting semicircular ribs that intersect diagonally; from the apex, crowning
the whole structure, rises a figure of the Resurrected Christ holding the bannered Cross.49 On the columns are angels who seem to carry the tasselled
canopy by means of ribbons strung through loops on its top and secured to
the ribs. The representations differ in one important respect. The medal of
1626 shows the canopy raised well above the level of the columns, so that
it appears as a completely separate unit. In the engraving of 1625 and the
medal of 1629, however, the canopy is lowered to the same height as the
capitals and is joined to them by a continuous molding or cornice. This is
the solution Bernini adopted in the work finally executed.50
It is evident that Berninis project owes a great debt to its predecessors,
both visually and conceptually. The idea of using bronze and gilt dates from
the time of Paul V, when also it was contemplated to execute a monumental balclachin, rather than a ciborium, over the tomb. The angels and
tasselled hangings had appeared in both earlier temporary baldachins. The
ciboria with screens planned for the high altar before the apse had incorporated the ancient spiral columns.51 The notion of imitating the marble shafts
The fullest available account of the canonization is that of A. Ribeiro de Vasconcellos,
Evoluo do culto de Dona Isabel de Arago, Coimbra, 1894, 1, 439 ff., II, 190 ff. An earlier
version of the print (Fig. 23) is discussed in Appendix I, no. 12. Berninis canonization installations will be discussed in a separate paper.
48
The medal bearing the date 1626 on the reverse (Fig. 31; Buonanni, Num. Pont., II,
573 f., no. XIII) is inscribed with the fourth year of Urbans reign on the obverse, and therefore dates between Sept. 29 (the anniversary of the coronation) and Dec. 31. Both this and
a medal of 1633 showing the baldachin in its final form have legends describing the tomb
as that of Peter and Paul, reflecting the belief that parts of both apostles bodies were preserved at Saint Peters; see n. 1 above.
The medal of 1629 (Fig. 32) honours the canonization of Andrea Corsini in April of
that year, for which Bernini also designed the decorations (cf. Pastor, XXIX, 9 n. 3; Pollak,
nos. 136 ff.).
49
In the full-scale model, Christ was to rise from a cloud (Pollak, 354).
50
The drawings by Bernini for the final form of the crown, except for the very latest,
show the canopy in the raised position (Brauer-Wittkower, Zeichnungen, Pls. 6 ff.); but the
engraving of 1625 and the medal of 1629 indicate that the continuous cornice existed as an
alternative solution from the outset.
51
The idea of an independent ciborium with only four spiral columns supporting a
cupola occurs in a fresco in the Vatican Library from the time of Sixtus V (158590), representing the Council of Ephesus (Fig. 33; A. Taja, Descrizione del palazzo apostolico vaticano,
427 f.; J. Dupront, Art et contre-reforme. Les fresques de la Bibliothque de Sixte.Quint,
95
in another material may have originated in the previous ciborium and baldachin models. Maderno had thought of using spiral columns with a
baldachin, rather than with a dome. The baldachin begun under Gregory
XV may have suggested that spiral columns serve as actual supports for the
canopy. In several of the earlier projects sculptured figures, including angels,
had appeared atop the superstructure (Fig. 34; cf. Figs. 2628).52 Finally, the
stupendous scale of Berninis work was by no means an innovation.
Despite this catalogue of precedents, Bernini blends the ingredients in a
completely new way. He combines the columns and superstructure proper
to a ciborium with the tasselled canopy and supporting angels of a baldachin. His treatment of each of these elements individually, as will become
apparent in the following discussion, is equally original. And in the versions
that join the canopy directly to the columns he takes the final step in fusing the architectural quality of a permanent ciborium with the transitory
quality of a processional baldachin.
Striking confirmation that these were indeed the innovating features of
Berninis design is found in the criticisms voiced against it by certain contemporaries. One of these came from the painter Agostino Ciampelli, and
is reported in the manuscript guide to Rome by Fioravante Martinelli, mentioned earlier as the source for our knowledge of Madernos project.53
Ciampelli had himself supplied Bernini with a design, but he objected to
Berninis, maintaining that baldachins are supported not by columns but
MlRome, 48, 1931, 291). Interestingly enough, there was a tradition that the columns in
Saint Peters had come from a temple of the Ephesian Diana in Greece (Torriggio, Sacre giotte
vaticane, 283).
52
Appendix I, nos. 16, 18, 26.
53
F. Martinelli, Roma ornata dallarchitettura, pittura, e scoltura, Rome, Bibl.
Casanatens, MS. 4984, p. 201:
F pensiero di Paolo V coprire con baldacchino Ialtar maggiore di S. Pietro con ricchezia proportionata allapertura fatta alla confessione e sepolcro dl d.o Once Carlo Maderno
gli presen un disegno con colonne vite; ma il baldacchino non toccava le colonne, ne il
lor cornicione: sopragionse la morte di Pauolo, e resto lop.a sul disegno sin al ponteficato di
Urbano VIII. il quale disse at d.o Carlo si contentasse, che il Bernino facesse d.a opera. Il
Cavalier Celio, forse non ben informato del tutto, stamp essere inventione di Santiss.o giuditio (cio del Papa) messo in opera dal d.o Bernino. Vincenzo Berti manoscritto appresso
Mons.r Landucci Sacrista di Nro Sig.re Alessandro VII. e p le sue eminenti virtudi dignissimo di grado superiore, ha scritto, esser disegno del Ciampelli cognato del d.o Bernini, il che
non s se sia vero; ma si bene non concorreva con d.o Bernini circa labbigliam.ti et altro; e
diceva, che li Baldacchini non si sostengono con le colonne, ma con lhaste, e che in ogni
modo voleva mostrare che to reggono li Angeli: e soggiongeva che era una chimera.
96
by staves, and that in any case he would show it borne by angels; and he
added that it was a chimera. The objection evidently refers to the solution
shown in the engraving of 1625 (Fig. 30) and the medal of 1629 (Fig. 32),
in which the columns rather than the angels appear to be the chief support
of the canopy; this was a grave breach of architectural etiquette, and the re-
The passage occurs as a marginal correction to the original text, which is canceled but
can be deciphered: Il Ciborio con colonne di metallo istorte vite dellaltar maggiore disegno del Cav. Bernino, et il getto di Gregorio de Rossi Rom.o Ma il Cav.re Celio scrive essere
inventione di santissimo giuditio messo in opera dal d.o Cav.re Vincenzo Berti manoscritto
appresso monsig.re Landucci sacrista di N. S.re h lasciato scritto esser disegno del Ciampelli
cognato di d.o Bernino. (See Addenda.)
The reference from Celios guidebook concerning Urban VIIIs contribution is as follows: Laltare maggiore con le colonne fatte vite e suoi aderenti, il tutto di metallo
indorato, Inventione di santissimo giuditio, messo in opera dal Cavalier Lorenzo Bernino.
(Memoria fatta dal Signor Gaspare Celio . . . delli nomi dellartefici delle pitture, che sono in alcune chiese . . . di Roma, Naples, 1638, 70.) The publisher of this work, Scipione Bonino,
writes in the introduction (pp. 4 f.) that it was based on a manuscript of Celios written in
1620, and that almost all the additional information about works done since then came from
Sebastiano Vannini, Galeno di questi tempi. Vannini was the author, among other things,
of two poems to Fioravante Martinelli (Bibl. Vat., M.S. Barb. lat. 2109, fols. 162 f.).
Baglione describes Celios book as pieno derrori (Baglione, Vite, 381).
The source of the story is probably a passage in a manuscript dialogue by Lelio
Guidiccioni (kindly brought to my attention by Cesare DOnofrio), in which Guidiccioni
(L.) and Bernini (G.L.) are the conversants. The context of the passage is an elaborate eulogy of Urban VIIIs expertise in artistic matters; Bernini asks, Di chi pensate, che sia il
pensiero dellAltar Vaticano, tale, quale sia divenuta lopera? L. Vostro h sempre pensato.
G.L. pensarla meglio, dite di S. S.ta L. Dunque voi sete pure obietto di lode sua; la quale
origine della vostra . . . (Bibl. Vat., MS. Barb. lat. 3879, fol. 53v) The dialogue is datable
to Sept., 1633, since it contains a reference (fol. 51v) to the death within the last days of
Antonio Querengo (d. Sept. 1, 1633; G. Vedova, Biografia degli scrittori padovani, Padua,
183236, II, 134 f.). It is conceivable that the phrase quale sia divenuta lopera refers to the
decision to change the superstructure. (See now C. DOnofrio, Un dialogo-recita di
Gianlorenzo Bernini, Palatino, 10, 1966, 127 ff.)
Except for two letters, dated 1660, in the Biblioteca Nazionale, Florence (C.V.90.147;
C.V.97.5), I have been unable to identify the Vincenzo Berti whose manuscript is mentioned
as the source of the story about Agostino Ciampelli. Ambrogio Landucci was a well-known
Augustinian, a native of Siena (D. A. Perini, Bibliografla agostiniana, Florence, 192938, I,
143 ff.), for whom Borromini designed an altar (H. Thelen, Istituto austriaco di cultura in
Roma. 70 Disegni di Francesco Borromini [Exhibition Catalogue], Rome, 1958, 24 no. 54).
He died in Rome on Feb. 16, 1669, leaving his books and manuscripts to the Convent of
San Martino in Siena. His testament is accompanied by an inventory of his library which includes 121 items, but they are listed with short titles only and none is identifiable as the one
by Berti that Martinelli mentions (Rome, Arch. di Stato, Notaio Bellisarius, Busta 243, fols.
97
sult is truly a hybrid, chimerical form.54 To another, anonymous writer who

submitted an alternative project of his own, the superstructure appeared unworkable. He claimed that an open arch could not possibly support a
figure, and also hold together columns of such great weight.55 This argument seems to have weighed heavily in the ultimate decision to substitute a
cross and globe for the Risen Christ and to increase the number and change
the shape of the ribs (see p. 126 below).
From an aesthetic point of view the key to Berninis solution lay in the
idea of discarding the ancient spiral columns themselves, and instead imitating them on a larger scale. What he achieved may best be understood by
comparing his project with the earlier ones for screen-ciboria in the choir,
which were to reuse the ancient shafts (Figs. 2628, 79). The original
465v, 535 ff.). The library of San Martino passed to the Biblioteca Comunale of Siena,
whose director kindly informs me that an inventory of the convents library contains the following entry: Berti Quaestiones regulares. But no manuscript answering the description
appears in L. Ilari, Indice per materie della Biblioteca Comunale di Siena, 7 Vols., Siena,
184451.
The statement that Ciampelli and Bernini were brothers-in-law cannot be strictly true.
Ciampelli who died not in 1642, as is commonly reported, but on April 22, 1630 (Rome,
Arch. del. Vicariato, San Giovanni dei Fiorentini, Liber Defunctorum 16261716, fol. 16r)
was married to a woman named Camilla Latina (ibid., S. Giov. Fior., Liber Baptizatorum
161649, fol. 82v), who did not remarry after Ciampellis death, while Bernini married
Caterina Tezio in 1639 (Fraschetti, Bernini, 104 f.).
We may note, finally, a drawing by Ciampelli with twisted columns mentioned in an inventory of Cardinal Francesco Barberini: Una carta fattoci in penna IAnuntiata dipinta con
diverse Colori e due Coloe ritorte di mano di Agostino Ciampelli, alta p.m i uno e larga tre
quarti di palmo. (Bibl. Vat., Arch. Barberini, Arm. 155, Inventario di tutte le robbe . . . nel
Palazzo della Cancellaria del . . . Card.le Fran.co Barberino, Oct., 1649, p. 68).
54
Since Ciampelli died early in 1630 (see the previous footnote) he presumably did not
know the final version, which was not worked out until 1631 (see p. 126 below).
Criticism of Berninis architectural grammar seems implicit also in Teodoro della Portas
offer to submit a project according to the good rules of architecture (Appendix I, no. 28B);
this is perhaps to be identified with a drawing in the Albertina (Fig. 35; Appendix I, no.
28c).
55
Modo di fare il tabernacolo, fol. 26r: . . . e non puol mai un Archetto in aria sostenere
ne figura ne unite le colonne di tanto gravissmo peso, come il Cavaliere h esposto, che essendo di gettito oltre la grossa spesa non necessaria pericolosa di motivo di gran rovina.
The project was to be executed in bronze and copper over a wooden core and use
columns decorated with bees, laurel, and animals to support an architrave, upon which eight
putti were placed, fingendo di portare come per Aria il Baldachino che sar attaccato nella
volta di sopra con Ingegno di poterlo levare (ibid.); the idea seems to recall the project of
Carlo Maderno, reported by Fioravante Martinelli (pp. 83 f. above).
98
columns were dwarfed by the new building, and to gain height the earlier
projects included both an attic and a drum between the capitals and the
dome; the resulting vertical accent was safely counterbalanced by the lateral wings. For a structure in the crossing even more height was needed, but
the wings were an obstruction and had to be removed.56 By enlarging the
columns Bernini was able to omit the drum and attic, and thus create a
more balanced proportion without the help of the wings. It might be said
that Berninis solution made it aesthetically possible to keep the high altar
and tomb together in the crossing. It also made possible the fusion of baldachin and ciborium types, for in the absence of both drum and attic
Bernini could rest the superstructure directly on the columns and cover the
intervening space with a fringed canopy.
The design of the crown itself serves a dual function, in keeping with the
nature of the whole conception. Its domical shape suggests the cupolas with
which ordinary ciboria were often covered, while its open ribs deny the
sense of weight and mass that a cupola normally conveys. The perforated
superstructure recalls a common mediaeval type of ciborium, in which one
or more orders of colonnettes resting on the main entablature act as a kind
of drum for the dome.57 Berninis open ribs had been anticipated in a ciborium by Giovanni Caccini in Santo Spirito in Florence, where open metal
strapwork screens the space between the thin ribs of an octagonal cupola
(Fig. 36).58 But while this tradition may have paved the way for Berninis
general conception, his design has its most precise antecedent in the central
56
Ferraboscos project with wings was rejected by Urban VIII because it occupied too
much space (see n. 179 below).
57
Braun, Der christ. Altar, II, pls. 160 ff.
58
Designed by 1599, dedicated in 1608 (cf. W. and E. Paatz, Die Kirchen von Florenz,
Frankfurt-am-Main, 194054, v, 140 f.).
A few years later Bernini drew even closer to Caccinis ciborium, in the catafalque he designed for the funeral of the popes brother Carlo Barberini (d. 1630), known from a
workshop drawing in Windsor (Fig. 37). Here he used a proper open-ribbed dome, crowning it with a figure of death analogous to the Risen Christ on the baldachin (cf.
Brauer-Wittkower, Zeichnungen, 162 n. 6; A. Blunt and H. L. Cooke, The Roman Drawings
of the XVII and XVIII Centuries in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen at Windsor Castle,
London, 1960, 25 no. 48; no. 49, Inv. no. 5612, seems to have no connection with the
Barberini catafalque). The catafalque is discussed in an unpublished doctoral dissertation by
O. Berendsen, Italian Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Catafalques, New York
University, 1961, 132 f., Fig. 48. A ground plan study for the catafalque by Borromini is in
Vienna, Albertina, Architektonische Handzeichnungen, Rom, Kirchen, no. 64; 214
173mm.
99
portion of the shrine built over the apostles tomb by Constantine in the
early fourth century (Fig. 10). There, four of the twisted columns also supported semicircular intersecting ribs.
Though careful records were kept of the excavations beneath the crossing when the foundations for the bronze columns were dug, it is
improbable that these could have yielded such accurate information concerning the elevation of the Constantinian shrine.59 Rather, the source of
Berninis astonishing piece of archaeological reconstruction seems to have
been a unique medal, now lost, of the early Christian period (Fig. 38). On
one side a tabernacle appears that has been regarded as a depiction of the
shrine in Saint Peters.60 It consists of four twisted columns surmounted by
two semicircular arches placed diagonally, exactly the form that can be reconstructed, on independent grounds, for the main feature of the early
mediaeval confessio of Saint Peters. The similarity of Berninis design to
that on the medal extends even to the swags of drapery hung between the
columns and to the interposition of a continuous cornice between columns
and open crown.
Precisely how Bernini came to know the medal cannot be determined,
but its history has been traced to within a decade of his project; it was given
to the popes nephew Cardinal Francesco Barberini in March, 1636, by
Claude Mntrier, the French antiquarian living in Rome.61 Mntrier, who
sent a cast of the medal to his colleague Nicolas Peiresc in Paris to get the
latters interpretation, does not say when or where the medal was discovered, or from whom it was acquired. But he reports that it had been found
together with a representation in gold glass of Sts. Peter and Paul a circumstance that, especially in view of the legend linking the bodies of the
59
See the accounts of the excavations published in Armellini, Le chiese di Roma, II, 862
ff., and H. Lietzmann, Petrus und Paulus in Rom, Berlin-Leipzig, 1927, 194 ff., 304 ff. An
attempt under Urban VIII to reconstruct the confessio in detail from literary sources is noted
below, p. 100.
60
Cf. most recently F. Castagnoli, Probabili raffigurazioni del ciborio intorno alla
memoria di S. Pietro in due medaglie del IV secolo, Rivista di archeologia cristiana, 29, 1953,
98 ff.; A. Baird, La colonna santa, BurlM, 24, 191314, 128 ff. A badly oxidized lead cast
of the medal was preserved in the Museo Sacro of the Vatican, the original bronze having
been lost; the cast has since also disappeared, perhaps oxidized into unrecognizability. (See
Addenda.)
61
See the brilliant piece of research tracing the medals history by G. B. De Rossi, Le
medaglie di devozione dei primi sei o sette secoli della chiesa, B di archeologia cristiana, 7,
1869, 33 ff.
100
two apostles, must have reinforced the association with Saint Peters suggested inevitably by the twisted columns. The medals testimony must have
been further supported by a passage in Gregory of Tours (538594), who
reports that over the tomb was a ciborium resting on four white columns;
in a learned treatise on the ancient confessio, submitted to Urban VIII before Berninis baldachin was built, the passage is taken as an accurate
description of the original monument.62 If the medal was believed to show
the shrine in its pristine form that is, as an independent structure without wings knowledge of it may even have influenced the basic decision
to return the high altar to its place over the tomb in the crossing.
This clear and deliberate effort to recreate the early Christian monument while retaining essential elements from the recent predecessors may be
what chiefly distinguishes Berninis work as a new departure. But the motivation was more than simply one of archaeological exactitude, as becomes
evident when one considers the baldachins meaning.
Of the twelve white spiral columns that decorated the mediaeval presbytery, eleven are still preserved.63 Eight were installed by Bernini in the
upper reliquary niches in the crossing piers (Figs. 5356; see p. 118 ff.
below), one is the Colonna Santa referred to earlier (p. 69 above), and two
flank the altar presently dedicated to St. Francis in the Chapel of the Holy
Sacrament off the north aisle of the basilica (Fig. 39). These columns were
the subject of various legends, by far the most widespread of which was that
they had been brought by Constantine from the Temple of Solomon at
Jerusalem. The association was so strong that twisted columns were often
used by artists in representations of the Temple (Fig. 40),64 and the allusion
to the Holy City is implicit in the columns of Berninis baldachin as well.
Vous treuverez . . . un soulphre que jay jett sur une petite lame de metal Corinthe de
cave laquelle jachepta ces jours passs et donna Monseig.r lEcc. Card.le Pat.ne, lequel tesmogna luy plaire grandement pour estre une pice de la primitive Eglise. (Letter of
Mntrier to Nicolas Peiresc, March 8, 1636; ibid., 35.)
62
Michele Lonigo, Breve relatione del Sito, qualit, e forma antica della Confessione
. . . in Buonanni, Num. templ. vat., 191 ff. (cf. p. 198); Buonanni says (p. 115) that Lonigo,
who was papal archivist and master of ceremonies under Paul V, submitted the work to
Urban VIII before the baldachin was built, The essential passage in Gregory of Tours is: Sunt
ibi et columnae mirae elegantiae candore niveo quattuor numero, quac ciborium sepulchri
sustinere dicuntur. (De gloria beatorum martyrum 28, PL, LXXI, 729.)
63
On the columns see especially J. B. Ward Perkins, The Shrine of St. Peter and its
Twelve Spiral Columns, JRS, 42,1952, 21 ff., and Alfarano, De basil. vat., 53 ff.
64
Some further examples are mentioned in nn. 67, 107 below.
101
In fact, even apart from the spiral columns, parallels between Saint Peters
and the Temple in layout, measurement, and decoration were long thought
to exist.65 One in particular is important here, since it involves specifically
the Temple and St. Peters tomb. It is stated by Tiberio Alfarano (d. 1596),
who was a cleric of Saint Peters, in his description of the old basilica: The
emperor Constantine and Pope Sylvester did no differently about the body
and altar of the apostle Peter than Moses and Aaron had done about the Ark
of the Covenant containing the tablets of the Law and the urn, which at
Gods command they constructed in the centre of the Tabernacle inside the
Holy of Holies under the wings of cherubim. And Solomon did the same
in the Temple of the Lord.66 The cherubim mentioned here seem to find an
echo in the angels who spread their wings above Berninis baldachin; indeed
this may well have been among the reasons for shifting them from beside
the supports, their position in the previous baldachins, to the top. It is even
possible that the very material of the baldachin was intended to carry out
this theme, recalling the famous pair of brazen columns with which
Solomon had flanked the Tabernacle.67
To be sure, the allusion to the Temple was already implicit in the reuse
of the ancient columns in earlier projects. But it is important to emphasize
The relationship was already explicit in Nicolas Vs project for rebuilding Saint Peters
(cf. Magnuson, Roman Quattrocento Architecture, 210, 36062), and according to L. D.
Ettlinger it is reflected in the early decoration of the Sistine Chapel (The Sistine Chapel, 79
f.). For the sixteenth century, see the many references in Alfarano, De basil. vat., 221, s.v.
Templum Salomonis.
66
Haud aliter quidem Constantinus Imperator et Beatus Silvester Papa circa beati Petri
Apostoli Corpus et Altare fecerunt quam Moses et Aaron fecerant circa Arcam foederis Domini
tabulas legis et urnam continentem, quam Dei monitu in Tabernaculi medio intra sancta sanctorum sub cherubim alas constituerant. Et Salomon in Templo Domini idem fecerat. (Alfarano,
De basil. vat., 29.) The allusion is to Hebrews 9:35. (See Addenda.)
67
I Kings 7:21; II Chron. 3:17. Cf. S. Yeivin, Jachin and Boaz, Palestine Exploration
Quarterly, 1959, 6 ff.
In a painting of the Presentation of the Virgin by Domenichino in Savona (Borea,
Dornenichino, Pl. 78) and in a miniature of the Marriage of the Virgin in the Book of Hours
of Etienne Chevalier by Jean Fouquet (K. Perls, Jean Fouquet, London-Paris-New York,
1940, 53), the entrance to the Temple is actually shown flanked by a pair of the spiral
columns of Saint Peters; in the Fouquet the columns are tinted to imitate gilt metal.
I am convinced that Bernini later had in mind a dual reference to Old Saint Peters and
Jerusalem when he included the window with the dove of the Holy Spirit above the
Cathedra Petri in the west apse; Alfarano speaks of the setting sun penetrating the rear windows of the old basilica: ad occasum tendens per posteriores Basilicae fenestras dictam Aram
maximam, totamque Basilicam irradiat sicut Arcam Foederis intra sancta sanctorum
65
102
that Berninis bronze columns differ from the originals in several ways. The
enveloping vine tendrils of the originals have been transformed by Bernini
into laurel, a Barberini device that occurs throughout the crossing along
with the popes famous bees and sun. In making this change, an essential
symbolic element of the columns the age-old association of the vine
scroll with the Christian sacrament was lost. Yet there seems to have been
an allusion to the sacrament in the form Bernini gave to the columns. He
did not imitate the normal type, with alternating bands of fluting and foliage (cf. Figs. 5356). Rather, he singled out those which, evidently as a
result of having been shortened at some time, have fluting only on the lower
portions.68 Two columns of precisely this form had been used by Paul III in
the mid-sixteenth century to decorate the altar of the Holy Sacrament in
the old nave (Fig. 41).69 Their subsequent history is uncertain, but it is surely significant that Bernini used two of the same type, perhaps the same pair,
to flank the lateral altar in the Chapel of the Holy Sacrament in the new
church (Fig. 39).70 The cycle of interrelationships is carried out also in the
Tabernaculi Mosi et Salomonis Templi existentem per anteriores portas ingrediens olim illustrabat. (De basil. vat., 19) It should be recalled that the orientation of Saint Peters is unusual
in that the apse is to the west.
68
Ward Perkins, The Shrine of St. Peter, 26, 32, was evidently the first to observe that
two of the columns had been cut down, and that these in particula served as Berninis model
for the baldachin.
69
Alfarano, De basil. vat., 55, 63 f.
70
The altar, then dedicated to St. Maurice, was decorated from April, 1636 (Pollak, Nos.
890 ff.). The chapel as a whole was first intended as a sacristy; the request of the
Archconfraternity of the Sacrament to have it assigned to them was approved in 1626
(Pollak, no. 872).
Grimaldi in fact shows four columns of this type, two of them on the old sacrament altar
(Fig. 41) and two flanking the entrance to the Chapel of John VII (7057), which was located at the Porta Santa. Grimaldi (quoted n. 27 above) says that in his day the columns of
the John VII monument were to be seen before the main apse, along with other similar
columns, making no mention of what happened to the pair from the sacrament altar. Both
Cerrati and Ward Perkins assume that the pair now in the Chapel of the Holy Sacrament
came from the John VII chapel. But Ward Perkins seems to have overlooked the sacrament
altar of Paul III altogether, while Cerrati (ed. of Alfarano, De basil. vat., 55, 106 n. 2) seems
not to have noticed that the extant pair have been altered and assumed that they were copies;
except for minor restored details, they are certainly antique. The problems would be resolved
if Schller-Piroli is right in stating (I know not on what evidence) that the same pair was
simply shifted from the John VII chapel to the sacrament altar in old Saint Peters (2000
Jahre Sankt Peter, Olten, 1950, 629). They would subsequently have been moved to the apse
of the new basilica, where Grimaldi saw them, and finally to the Chapel of the Sacrament.
103
stucco scene in the vault of the chapel directly above this altar (Fig. 40).71
The panel shows Solomon examining the plans of the Temple of Jerusalem;
in the background is a complex structure in course of construction, which
includes four columns of this same design.72 Equally striking, the columns
A drawing in Berlin attributed to Etienne Duprac shows the Colonna Santa beside a row
of four columns of the sacramental type, without any architectural setting; M. Winner assumes that Duperac invented two of the sacramental columns (Zeichner sehen die Antike.
Europische Handzeichnungen 14501800 [Exhib. Cat.], Berlin-Dahlem, 1967, 129 f. no.
80, Pl. 48).
There has also been considerable confusion about the fate of the missing column or
columns. Cerrati believes that three columns were lost or destroyed in transport; others, accepting the pair in the sacrament chapel as originals, have theorized that one column was
given away (cf. Cerrati, in Alfarano, De basil. vat., 55). A possible answer to this problem is
suggested by the sacrament columns themselves. Though at some time the intermediate zone
of fluting was removed, their actual height is precisely the same as the rest of the series (that
is, 4.70 m., as reported by Cerrati, ibid., 55; the figure 3.60 m., given in the caption to Ward
Perkins Pl. V, Fig. 1, is erroneous). Furthermore, this pair of columns is different from all
the others in several respects, notably in that the vine scrolls are inhabited only by birds and
other animals; there are no putti. What all this suggests is that the missing twelfth column
may have been of the same unusual type as the sacrament pair and that it was cut up and
portions used to bring the latter two back to their original length. When these operations
might have taken place is impossible to say. A payment of June, 1637, when the altar in the
sacrament chapel was readied, records the addition of a piece to one of the columns (Pollak,
277, no. 897); but this probably refers to the bottom half of the lowest ring of acanthus on
the left-hand column.
It should be noted finally that a sixteenth century engraving of one of the sacrament
columns appears in various versions of A. Lafrrys Speculum Romanae magnificentiae (e.g.,
Bibl. Vat., Riserva S. 6. fol. 18, with title page dated 1587); doubtless this was the print mistakenly identified as representing the Colonna Santa in the 1572 list of Lafrrys prints
published by F. Ehrle, Roma Prima di Sisto V. La Pianta di Roma Du Perac-Lafrry del 1577,
Rome, 1908, 55 (cf. Cerrati, in Alfarano, De basil. vat., 55). The print seems to show the
column in its shortened state.
71
Payments to Giovanni Battista Ricci for the cartoons for the narrative stucco panels in
the choir began in May, 1621 (Rome, Arch. della Rev. Fabbrica di S. Pietro, I Piano, Ser. 1,
Vol. 246, Spese 162123, fol. 17r); the sacristy is first mentioned in the payments in Dec.,
1622 (ibid., fol. 72v). His payments ended in Dec., 1626 (Pollak, Nos. 705 ff.; cf. no. 33).
The areas surrounding the narratives had been designed earlier by Ferrabosco (Beltrami,
Ferabosco, 30). The execution extended into the reign of Urban VIII (Pollak, Nos. 712 ff.,
Feb., 1623Aug., 1627).
72
These columns had often been imitated, but I would mention one instance in Rome
in which the sacramental association seems evident; namely, in the Oratorio del Gonfalone,
where they form the general framework of the fresco cycle (156884) illustrating the Passion
(cf. A. Molfino, Loratorio del Gonfalone, Rome, 1964). Here they also appear prominently
in the background of Livio Agrestis Last Supper (ibid., Fig. 22). A chapel in Santo Spirito in
104
33. Council of Ephesus, fresco. Bibl. Vat., Salone Sisto V (158590).
34. Project for a choir screen with an altar, drawing. Windsor Castle,
No. 5590 (436 x375mm).
35. Project for a ciborium,

drawing. Vienna, Albertina,
Arch. Hz., Rom, Kirchen, x-15
(525 x 226mm).
36. Giovanni Caccini, ciborium,

Florence. Santo Spirito
(photo: Alinari).
105
37. Bernini Workshop,

Catafalque for Carlo
Barberini,
drawing. Windsor
Castle, No. 5613 (485
x 261mm).
38. Early Christian medal. Formerly Bibl. Vat.,

now lost or disintegrated (from De Rossi,
Le Medaglie . . ., Bolletino di Archeologia
Cristiana, 7, 1869, No. 8 on pl. opp. p. 44).
106
39. Saint Peters, Chapel of the Holy Sacrament,

Altar of Saint Francis.
40. Saint Pters, Chapel of the Holy Sacrament, vault,

Solomon Inspecting the Construction of the Temple.
107
41. Altar of the Holy Sacrament, Old Saint Peters,

drawing. (From Grimaldi, Instrumenta autentica, fol. 35r).
42. Rome, San Giovanni in Laterano,

Altar of the Holy Sacrament.
108
42A. Rome, San Giovanni in Laterano,

Altar of the Holy Sacrament,
southwest corner.
43. Saint Peters, vie of baldachin and dome.
109
110
of the Temple support an inward curving entablature, a device that in the

final version Bernini applied to the sides of the baldachin (cf. Fig. 43).
The allusion to the sacrament in Berninis first project for the baldachin
is far more pervasive than the choice of the columns alone would suggest.
Around 1600 Clement VIII had erected a great altar of the sacrament at the
Lateran. This Constantinian foundation the cathedral of Rome and the
mother church of Catholicism, at whose high altar, as at Saint Peters, only
the pope may officiate had been lavishly restored by Clement. He had
decorated the confessio before the papal altar, which is mentioned in a document as one of the models for Paul Vs confessio at Saint Peters.73 Under
the direction of the Cavaliere dArpino the upper part of the lateral transept
walls had been covered with a series of frescoes illustrating the life of
Constantine. On the end of the south transept wing, DArpino painted a
grandiose fresco of the Ascension of Christ. Below this is the Altar of the
Sacrament, designed by Pier Paolo Olivieri as a wall tabernacle in the form
of a temple front (Fig. 42). Four colossal bronze columns support the triangular pediment, which is also of gilt metal. Here the idea of a monumental tabernacle all in bronze had actually been realized.
Its relevance for the Saint Peters altar was more than a matter of scale
and material. The bronze columns of the Lateran were also the subject of
various legends, among the current ones being that they too had once
adorned the Temple at Jerusalem, whence they had been brought by the
Empress Helen.74 They thus embodied the same allusion as the spiral
columns of Saint Peters and provided an additional motive for using
bronze. The back of the Lateran altar was ornamented with a relief of the
Last Supper in solid silver, which served as a reliquary cover for a portion of
cedar wood believed to have come from the table at which Christ and the
disciples supped; the relief was melted down in the eighteenth century during the French occupation of Rome (and later replaced). But the
sacramental nature of the altar was also provided by another relic: the
Sassia with frescoes by Agresti (Fig. 57; see p. 128 below) seems to have provided the model
for Berninis own use of the columns in the upper niches of the piers in Saint Peters.
73
La Santit di Nostro Signore . . . risolv di far aprire sotto laltar maggiore di San
Pietro . . . in quella guisa, che stanno le cappelle sotto laltar maggiore di San Giovanni
Laterano et del Presepio in Santa Maria Maggiore. (Avviso of Jan. 26, 1611, in Orbaan, 98.)
For Clement VIIIs work at the Lateran, see Pastor, XXIV, 475 ff.
74
On the legends concerning the Lateran columns, cf. Panciroli, Tesori nascosti, 139f.;
Severano, Memorie sacre, I, 506 f.; C. Rasponi, De basilica et patriarchio lateranensi, Rome,
1657, 32, 47 f.
111
columns were supposed to be filled with earth from Mount Calvary upon
which Christ shed his blood at the Crucifixion, again brought back to
Rome by Helen. This lent a real, topographical basis to the allusion to
Jerusalem, and we shall later consider another exactly parallel case that was
directly pertinent to Saint Peters.
The Lateran altar, in keeping with its dedication to the sacrament, has
the Trinity as its overall theme (cf. Fig. 45). God the Father is depicted in
the triangular opening of the pediment, while on the underside of the roof
appears the dove of the Holy Ghost. Combined with the crucifix on the
altar itself, these form the three elements of the traditional formula for representing the Trinity, in their usual vertical sequence. The same elements are
distributed in an analogous way at Saint Peters. The dove is also shown on
the underside of the baldachins canopy above the altar crucifix, while God
the Father appears in the lantern at the apex of the dome (Fig. 43).75 The
latter figure was executed when the decoration of the dome began, also directed by the Cavaliere dArpino, under Clement VIII.76
A similar arrangement had occurred in the Church of Santa Maria dei
Monti in Rome, designed by Giacomo della Porta and built and decorated
after 1580 (Fig. 44).77 Here the high altar, with its famous miraculous image
of the Virgin, also holds the tabernacle containing the Eucharist. The dove
of the Holy Spirit appears in the conch of the apse above the altar (also in
the stucco decoration around the base of the drum), and God the Father is
depicted in the lantern of the dome. The special emphasis given to the
sacrament in the Madonna dei Monti may be explained by the fact that it
was the church of the Confraternity of the Catechumens, whose purpose
was to instruct and assist Jews and other non-believers wishing to convert
to Catholicism.78
All these considerations shed light upon what would surely have been
one of the most spectacular features of Berninis baldachin, the great
figure of the Resurrected Christ at the centre of the crown in the first proH. Sedlmayr has also emphasized the relation of the baldachin to the dome mosaics in
Saint Peters and, though in a different way, has seen the reference to the Trinity (Epochen
und Werke, Vienna, 1960, II, 23 ff.).
In Paul Vs baldachin, as the medal of 1617 shows (Fig. 21), the underside of the canopy
was covered with stars.
76
On the chronology of the dome decorations, cf. Siebenhner, Umrisse, 300.
77
Cf. Pastor, XX, 583.
78
See Moroni, Dizionario, XLVII, 270 ff.
75
112
ject.79 Monumental altar ciboria are most frequently surmounted by the

cross and globe (Figs. 14, 18, 24, etc.), and so eventually was Berninis baldachin. Instead, Berninis use of the Risen Saviour in the first project recalls
the eucharistic images in which Christ is shown usually with a chalice
and holding a cross that often occur on tabernacles intended to hold the
sacrament (Fig. 45).80 Yet Berninis Christ held the banner associated with
the Resurrection as a narrative event rather than a symbolic type, and there
was no chalice; this is exactly the sort of figure that occurs in the Lateran
sacrament altar, on a small scale in bronze atop the cupola of the lavishly
decorated altar tabernacle (Fig. 46), and in a life-size marble surmounting
the high altar in Santa Maria dei Monti (Fig. 44).
Thus, the substitution of the Risen Christ for the usual cross and globe,
in conjunction with the Trinity, embodies a reference to the sacrament; and
the form these elements were given seems to derive specifically from two of
the most recent and conspicuous altars in Rome that held the sacrament.
It should be noted, finally, that reflections of the Lateran sacrament
altar are found in Berninis work long after the baldachin was completed.
The general organization of the altar at the end of the transept served as
a model for his Chapel of Saint Teresa in the transept of Santa Maria della
Vittoria (begun 1647). There is also evidence that the relief of the Last
Supper on the altar frontal of the Teresa chapel may have been based
specifically on the lost silver relief of the Lateran altar.81 Toward the end
It may be relevant that images of the Resurrected Christ had appeared on coins struck
during the sede vacante of 1623, the period between the death of Gregory XV and the election of Urban; the obverses bear the arms of Cardinal Ippolito Aldobrandini, nephew of
Clement VIII who was Camerlengo. But these have no known connection with the basilica.
Cf. E. Martinori, Annali della Zecca di Roma. Sede vacante 1621 . . ., Rome, 1919, 17 ff.;
Corpus nummorum italicorum, Milan, 1910 ff., XVI, 269 ff.
80
A. Marquand, Luca della Robbia, Princeton, 1914, 61 ff., considers the door in the
Peretola tabernacle to be a later insertion; in any case, the figure of Christ follows the traditional eucharistic type. Cf. also Braun, Der christ. Altar, II, Pls. 346 left, 348, 350 left.
81
I have in preparation a monograph on the Saint Teresa chapel, in which the relations
to the Lateran altar will be discussed. Berninis Last Supper is illustrated in E. Lavagnino, et
al., Altari barocchi in Roma, Rome, 1959, Pl. on p. 83. As far as I can discover the connection is first mentioned in A. Nibby, Roma nellanno MDCCCXXXVIII, Rome, 183841,
Moderna, 1, 530, but there is good reason to believe it is true; in the engraving of the Lateran
altar in the series by Giovanni Maggi discussed in Appendix I no. 8, the relief is shown with
a composition verv close to Berninis. A similar composition is also shown in a medal commemorating the altar (Buonanni, Num. pont., II, 457 Fig. XI, but the engraving here is
inaccurate; see instead A. Ciaconius, Vitae, et res gestae pontificum romanorum . . . Rome,
79
113
of his life he placed a figure of the Resurrected Christ without a chalice

atop the cupola of the sacrament altar he himself designed for Saint Peters
(1670s).82
The reference to the sacrament is only part of the significance of the figure on the baldachin. The decoration of the dome of Saint Peters had been
completed under Paul V. Around its base the twelve apostles had been depicted, with Christ enthroned and flanked by the Virgin and John the
Baptist in the west side facing the nave; in the compartments above, angels
hold the instruments of the Passion (Fig. 47). The scheme is familiar from
depictions of the Last judgment, and the figure atop the baldachin was certainly conceived in this context. The basic imagery of the crossing would
have comprised the sacrifice at the altar and, above, Christ rising from the
tomb to assume his place in heaven as King and Judge.83 The Christ figure
thus charges the physical space of the crossing with the meaning of a dramatic action; we are actually at Jerusalem and salvation is being achieved
before our very eyes.
The conception of the baldachin that emerges from these considerations
may be summarized under three headings: historical, liturgical, and geographical. Historically, through its paraphrase of the ancient spiral columns
and its basic design, it recalls the original monument in Saint Peters.
Liturgically, through the design of the columns and the figure of Christ, it
refers to the Holy Sacrament. And geographically, the Risen Christ, the spiral columns, and perhaps even the use of bronze, involve a reference to
1677, IV, cols. 275f., no. 17; examples of the medal are preserved in the Staatliche
Mnzsammlung, Munich, and in the Bibliothque Nationale, Paris).
82
Visible in the illustration in Fraschetti, Bernini, 395. No banner is attached to the
cross-staff held by Christ in the work as we know it; but it is interesting to note that a banner does appear in a drawing at Windsor with projects for adding candelabra, which Brauer
and Wittkower believe was made after the altar was finished (Zeichnungen, 173, 175, Pl.
195c). The Christ on the Saint Peters ciborium rises from a cloud, as did the figure in the
first version of the baldachin (see n. 49 above).
For the relationship between the Lateran sacrament altar and the crossing of Saint Peters
as a whole, see n. 164 below.
83
This theme also seems embodied in the ornaments of the upper reliquary niches of
the piers; symbols of the Passion appear in the lower part of the frontispieces, symbols of
salvation above (see nn. 121, 164 below). An element of vertical integration involving the
building itself was also present at the Lateran, with the crucifix on the altar. the
Resurrected Christ on the ciborium, and the Ascension of Christ on the wall above the
tabernacle.
44. Rome, Santa Maria dei Monti, high altar.
45. Luca della Robbia, Tabernacle of the Holy Sacrament,

14411443. Peretola, Santa Maria (photo: Alinari).
114
47. Saint Peters, mosaics in dome, west side

(photo:Alinari).
115
48. Bernini workshop, Project for the Saint Veronica niche.

Vienna, Albertina, Arch. Hz., Rom, Kirchen,
No. 776 (359 x 305mm)
49. Francesco Mochi, St. Veronica. Rome, Saint Peters

(photo: Anderson).
116
51. Bernini, St. Longinus. Rome, Saint Peters

(photo: Anderson).
52. Francesco Duquesnoy, St. Andrew. Rome, Saint Peters

(photo: Anderson).
117
52. Andrea Bolgi, St. Helen. Rome, Saint Peters

(photo: Anderson).
53. Saint Peters, reliquary niche of St. Veronica.
118
55. Saint Peters, reliquary niche of St. Longinus

(photo: Anderson).
54. Saint Peters, reliquary niche of St. Andrew.
119
120
Jerusalem, the site of Christian redemption. This imagery became fundamental to Berninis treatment of the crossing as a whole.
III. The Decoration of the Pier Niches
Planning for the four piers and their decoration began when it was still
expected to execute the baldachin according to Berninis first project. Urban
had already shown his concern for the condition of the relics when in
January, 1624, he ordered a complete reconstruction of the reliquary niche
for the Holy Face and the Lance; it was finished late in the following year.84
The crucial decision to redecorate the lower niches beneath the relics must
have been taken shortly thereafter. This is evident from a document in the
archive of the basilica reported by Baldinucci in the famous defense of
Berninis work on the piers, which lie appended to his biography of the
artist; the document shows that two models for altars, uno sotto al nicchio
del Volto Santo e laltro di S. Andrea, were in existence by June of 1626.85
During the first part of 1627 payments were made for a group of models
for the Veronica niche, one of which was by Bernini himself.86 His project
is preserved in a workshop drawing in Vienna, which is practically identical
with the description given in the craftsmens invoices (Fig. 48).87 It estabThe documents are published by Pollak, 311 ff. The inscription bearing the date 1625
placed beneath the balustrade (Forcella, Iscrizioni, VI, 148 no. 542) surely refers to the completion of this reconstruction (cf. also Hess, Knstlerbiographien, 109 n. 1), rather than the
beginning of that which followed (Brauer-Wittkower, Zeichnungen, 22 n. 2).
85
Vi son in essere le cimenti p 2 altari da farsi uno sotto al nicchio del Volto S.to, et laltro d S. And.a Parlarne con N S.re parria molto conveniente far li altari del Volto S.to e S.
And.a in d.i luoghi, che non vi son, ne si vuole andare a celebrare ne luoghi, dove son collocate d.e reliquie. (Minutes of the Congregation, June 3, 1626; transcribed from the original,
Arch. Fabb. S. P., I Piano, Ser. 2, Vol. 71, Congregazioni 15711630, fol. 397r)
Cf. Baldinucci, Vita, 165 f. Bernini was accused of having weakened the piers, causing
cracks that had appeared in the dome.
86
The documents are quoted in Pollak, 465f., but are there misleadingly placed under
the heading of the upper reliquary niches.
87
Apparently overlooking the correspondence with the documents, Brauer and
Wittkower regarded the project as the invention of another artist (Zeichnungen, 23 n. 3, Pl.
195a). I quote the documents after Pollak, 24, 29 f. (italics mine):
Per unaltro Modello sotto la Nicchia del Volto Santo con il disegnio del Sr Cavv, Bernino
fatto amezzo ottangolo con pilastri alli angoli doppij con basamento, zoccolo con li collarino
fregi cimasa tutto scorniciato fatto tutte le modinature etc. . . . con il finimento sopra fatto
piramida con le mozzole (mensole?) nelle Cantonate alto tutto pi 32 long. di giro pi 30 etc.
. . . 80
84
121
lishes the basic solution that was to be retained in the final execution: a
monumental statue raised on a high base, in which there are openings giving access to a stairway that leads down to an altar in the grotto below. The
statue is conceived in accordance with the traditional formula for St.
Veronica, which had appeared on the mediaeval tabernacle (Fig. 8) and
would later also provide the point of departure for Francesco Mochis figure
of the saint. Indeed, the whole arrangement, comprising an altar below, depictions of the appropriate saint and relic, and a container for the relic
above seems consciously to recreate in relief the reliquary monuments of the
old basilica. Since there is no reference in the project to the Lance, which
was kept together with the Holy Face, it must already have been determined
to house the relics separately.
The official decision to include all four piers in the program was taken
in June of 1627.88 There had been an earlier proposal to treat the four niches uniformly.89 But coming after the high altar had nearly been shifted
Per li fusti contornati dove dipinta la Veronica e doi angeli grandi etc. . 10
E pi ordine del Sig.r Chavaglier Bernino si depinto un modello fatto di legniame sotto
alla nichia del Volto Santo con haverlo incessato e stuchato e dato di piacha (biacca) fina e
si inbrunito da alto e passo e svenato di marmaro, con un arme del Papa di chiaro e scuro
e quadro cartelone con le steste di carobini messe di rame battuto e unbrato di sopra et dui
ferate messe di rame battuto e unbrato, di sopra e una ficura di Santa Veronicha di palmi
quindici con dui Angeli di palmi nove messo di rame battute e umbrato e scorniciato di dutto
. . . 50
E pi per haver rifatto sopra li ideso modello se alzato tre palmi di piu pisogniato
restauralo e far di nuovo et un arme del Papa messo di rame battuto umbrato di sopra e si
fatto sopra le dui porte dui ferate messe rame battute e umbrate con dui candelone di pi e
dui ferate di pi fatte di color di rame scorniciato e unbrato et haver rifatto un a(l)tra volta
la figura di palme 12 e li Angeli di palmi 7 e si rimesso di rame battuto la maggior parte e
umbrato di nuovo . . . 35
88
Pollak, no. 1621.
89
A document of uncertain date reads as follows: Nelle quattro nicchie grandi che sono
alli piloni della Cuppola canto lAltar maggiore pensato di fare due Chori, uno per li
Cantori, et laltro per li Principi, che verranno veder la messa pontificale, se bene alcuni
hanno opinione, che vi staranno bene quattro Altari nelli quali si potranno collocare li quattro Corpi di S. Leoni Papi, che sono nella medesima Chiesa. (Pollak, Ausgewhlte Akten,
73) Siebenhner connects the chori mentioned here with those shown in Cigolis project
(Figs. 25, 26; Umrisse, 312, where the reference should read Pollak in place of Orbaan).
Siebenhners assumption (Umrisse, 245, 257) that four figures of prophets made for
Saint Peters in the 1550s by Guglielmo della Porta were intended for the crossing piers, has
been disproved by W. Gramberg (Guglielmo della Porta verlorene Prophetenstatuen fr San
Pietro in Vaticano, in Walter Friedlaender zum 90. Geburtstag, Berlin, 1965, 80 n. 7).
122
toward the apse and after the nave had been added, the new arrangement
was a reaffirmation of the centrality of the crossing. Interest still focused
primarily on the Veronica and Andrew niches, however, and in April, 1628,
several models (plura modula seu formae) for them were shown to the
Congregazione della Fabbrica, the group of cardinals who governed the
basilica.90 Remarkable insights into the whole development of the crossing
are provided by the records of the meeting of the Congregation a month
later, May 15, 1628, in which the choice among the projects was made.
There are two documents in question: one comes from the notes made by
the steward (oeconomus) of the Congregation during the actual meeting, the
other from the official record of the meeting as it was transcribed from these
notes.91 Variations between the two versions are normally trivial, but that is
not the case in the present instance. In the notes made at the meeting it is
said that the design which most pleased the pope was that for the St.
Andrew and that authorization was given to award the commission. In the
official transcription the oeconomus specifies that the project chosen was
Berninis. Thus it appears that Berninis winning design was for the St.
Andrew, and it was this design that evidently provided the basis for the statue executed subsequently by Duquesnoy. The implications of this point will
become evident when we consider the close similarities between
90
April 10, 1628:
Fuerunt exhibita plura modula seu formae capellarum construendarum in locis subtus SSmas
Reliquias Vullus S ti et Capitis S. Andreae quae per Ill mos DD. visa, et diligenter expressa,
Iniunxerunt mihi ut illa S mo D. N. deferrem, ut facilius possit ex dictis et alia, quae habet, formula, seu modula sibi magis placitus eligere et Sacr. Cong. eo citius mentem S mi desuper
executione demandare. (Pollak, no. 1622.)
91
May 15, 1628:
Li disegni delli Altarini, N. Sre dice che la Congne veda qual pi li sodisfaccia et quello si
faccia; mostra gradir il S. And(re)a. si potria deputar. qualche delli SSri Illmi S. Sisto e Vidone.
(Pollak, no. 1623)
May 15,1628:
Exhibui Ego Oeconomus plura delineamenta depicta pro forma seu modulo parvarum
Cappellarum de mente S mi construendarum in loculis Nicchi nuncupatis per me de ordine eiusdem Sanct mi huic Sacrae Congregationi praesentanda ut illis per DD. visis ex eis eligerent quale
perficiendum erit, ideo per eos bene inspectis approbarunt ex eis unum ab Equite Bernino delineatum, utque facilius, et citius opus absolvatur, rogarunt Ill mos DD. Cardinales St ti Sixti, et
Vidonum, ut curam huic incumbant et quatenus illis.videatur mentem eiusdern S mi desuper
melius exquirant, et exequantur. (Pollak, no. 1624.)
On the minutes of the meetings, see F. Ehrle, Dalle carte e dai disegni di Virgilio Spada,
AttiPontAcc, Ser. III, Memorie, II, 1928, 19.
123
Duquesnoys figure and Berninis own St. Longinus. The St. Andrew was in
fact the test case for the whole program. Work was begun immediately on
the niche proper; Duquesnoy received the first payment for his full-scale
stucco model in May, 1629, and the final payment the following
November.92
In February of 1629, following Madernos death, Bernini had been appointed architect of Saint Peters.93 The overall scheme matured in April of
the same year, when the pope gave the basilica a portion of the famous relic
of the True Cross, composed of fragments which he had removed from
Santa Croce in Gerusalemme and SantAnastasia.94 The significance of this
step can best be appreciated by considering momentarily a document of
three years before, July 15, 1626, also reported by Baldinucci.95 It records
with respect to the altars then being planned that the oeconomus was directed to determine whether there were in Saint Peters other relics of the
apostles that might accompany the head of St. Andrew; the head of St. Luke
was one possibility mentioned. The thought clearly was to pair the Passion
relics, the Volto Santo and the Lance, against relics of the apostles. The idea
of pairing remained, as we shall see, but the procurement of the fragments
of the True Cross early in 1629 shows that a general theme had emerged
which required another Passion relic for its completion.
In the Congregation meeting of December 10, 1629, within a month
after the model of the St. Andrew was finished, the other three artists who
were to execute models of their statues were named.96 Bolgi began his model
for the St. Helen on July 2, 1631, and Bernini probably began his model for
the St. Longinus at the same time; Mochi began the Veronica model on
September 24 of that year. He completed his model on November 29,
1631, and it was viewed by the pope on February 8, 1632; the pope saw
Berninis completed model one week later, on February 15, and that of
Pollak, nos. 1625 ff.

Pollak, no. 4.
94
Cf. Torriggio, Sacre grotte vaticane, 217. The new relic was at first kept with the Volto
Santo and the Lance (Severano, Memorie sacre, 1, 164).
95
Delli altari del Volto S.to e S. And.a che le pareva si dovessero fare nelli luoghi etc. et
chio minformassi sin S. Pietro vi fusse reliquia insgne di apostolo per poterla accompagnare con la testa di S. And.a / parl.e D. Bonin . . [?] / testa di S. Luca. (Minutes of the
Congregation, July 15, 1626, Arch. Fabb. S. P., I Piano, Ser. 2, Vol. 71, Congr. 15711630,
fol. 417r). Cf. Baldinucci, Vita, 166.
96
Pollak, no. 117.
92
93
124
Bolgi on March 5.97 Considerable time elapsed before execution of the marbles began, in Duquesnoys case presumably because he had to wait until the
other models were completed; in the other cases there was delay in acquiring suitable marbles.98 Duquesnoy was the first to begin work, in April of
1633, and the Andrew was in place by October, 1639 (Fig. 50).99 Bernini
began only in June, 1635, but the Longinus was installed by June, 1638
(Fig. 51).100 Mochi also began in June, 1635, and his Veronica was in place
by October, 1639 (Fig. 49).101 Bolgi received his first payment in January,
1635, and the Helen was finished by the end of 1639 (Fig. 52).102
The decoration of the upper niches (Figs. 5356), carried out between
1633 and 1641, brought the program to completion.103 The niches were
based on a design by Bernini (cf. Fig. 68), which involved reusing the ancient columns from the presbytery of Old Saint Peters. At first the columns
were to support triangular pediments, but in the final form the pediments
are segmental and the whole fronticepiece is bowed inward. Marble putti
surmount the pediments, upon which stucco clouds flow down from the
surface of the conch.104 Above, also in stucco, putti carry inscriptions, while
inside the frontispieces are marble reliefs of angels and putti displaying images of the relics.105
Here again, dual reference to the old church and to Jerusalem is evident.
The idea for images of the relics and columns in the upper story seems to
97
The dates are given by Torriggio, Sacre grotte vaticane, 206, 219, 283. Torriggio says that
the model of the Longinus was finished on July 5, 1631, but more likely this was the beginning
date. All the artists received down payments of 50 scudi on Dec. 19, 1629, after which there
was a delay while work on the niches proceeded. On May 5, 1631, the Congregation decreed
that the models be executed (Pollak, no. 1646) and regular payments for them began in Sept.
(Longinus) and Nov. (Veronica and Helen), 1631. Final payment to Bolgi was made on March
15, 1632, to Bernini on April 5, to Mochi on Aug. 11, of the same year. Bernini received a
total of 500 scudi, Mochi 450, Bolgi 350. Cf. Pollak, 442 f., 454 f., 461 f.
98
Pollak, Nos. 1718 ff.; see end of n. 174 below.
99
Pollak, Nos. 1654, 1667. G. Baglione, Le nove chiese di Roma, Rome, 1639, 38 f.,
speaks of the Helen and Longinus as in their places, but not yet the Andrew and Veronica. His
dedication to Cardinal Francesco Barberini is dated Sept. 1, 1639.
100
Pollak, Nos. 1787, 1791. The pope had inspected it on May I (Fraschetti, Bernini,
76). See also n. 125 below.
101
Pollak, nos. 1735, 1747.
102
Pollak, nos. 1820, 1752. The statue is signed and dated 1639. The document of 1649
mentioned by Fraschetti, Bernini, 74, refers to other works by Bolgi in Saint Peters.
103
Pollak, 467 ff.
104
On this device, see n. 132 below.
105
With one important exception; see p. 160 below.
125
have come from the earlier reliquary tabernacles, one of which that of
the Volto Santo actually had versions of the famous twisted columns (cf.
Fig. 8).106 The cornices, like those of the baldachin, are concave and may be
related to the reconstruction of Solomons Temple in the vault of the sacrament chapel (cf. Fig. 40); the notion of surrounding the central altar by the
Solomonic spiral columns has a precedent among versions of the Temple,
in which the columns were distributed around the Holy of Holies.107
The bowed frontispieces are of particular interest, however, since hereafter they appear frequently in Berninis work, in varied forms, and they
become one of the stock phrases in the vocabulary of Baroque architecture. The motif has a complex genealogy, but in this instance Berninis
direct model lay not far from Saint Peters, in the Church of Santo Spirito
in Sassia. The side chapels of this church are, like the reliquary niches of
Saint Peters, semicircular in plan with half-domes. In a number of cases
the frames of the altarpieces are curved in adherence to the wall surface.
This is the case in the second chapel on the right (Fig. 57), decorated at
the altar and in the vault with paintings by Livio Agresti (d. ca. 1580),
where the altarpiece is framed by a pair of columns that closely imitate the
sacrament columns of Saint Peters.108 Here, too, are the broken pediment
surmounted by figures, the flat strips that continue the entablature and
bases on the wall as if to form lateral extensions of the frontispiece, and
other details that appear in Berninis niches. His major changes were toward unifying the design, by making the horizontal entablature
continuous between the columns and echoing the columns in the form of
106
As noted by Kauffmann, Berninis Tabernakel, 229. In fact, it seems to have been a
common type, as witness the tabernacles with spiral columns in the upper level in Santa
Maria Maggiore and San Giovanni in Laterano in the series of prints by Maggi discussed in
Appendix I no. 8 (the Santa Maria Maggiore print is reproduced by Armellini, Chiese di
Roma, 1, 286; cf. P. De Angelis, Basilicae S. Mariae Maioris de urbe . . . Descriptio, Rome,
1621, ills. on pp. 83, 85, 87); also in Santa Maria in Campitelli (G. Ciampini, Vetera
monumenta, Rome, 1690, Fig. 3 on Pl. XLIV opp. p. 181).
107
Cf. the interior of the Temple in a miniature of Jean Fouquets Antiquites judaques
(Perls, Fouquet, 248); reconstructions of the Temple as a centrally planned structure were
also common (see now S. Sinding-Larsen, Some Functional and Iconographical Aspects of
the Centralized Church in the Italian Renaissance, Institutum Romanum Norvegiae, Acta,
11, 1965, 221 ff.).
108
Cf. P. De Angelis, La chiesa di Santo Spirito in Santa Maria in Sassia, Rome, 1952, 10;
E. Lavagnino, La chiesa di Santo Spirito in Sassia, Rome, 1962, 110.
126
bent pilasters at the angle with the back wall. Also significant is the fact
that Bernini gave the frontispiece a less pronounced curvature than the
niche itself (Fig. 58);109 this, together with the continuous entablature,
makes the frontispiece seem almost to project from the niche as an independent unit, rather than following its surface as in the Santo Spirito,
altarpiece.
Perhaps most remarkable is that even in the design for these niches
Berninis interest may have been more than simply formal. The Church of
Santo Spirito, and especially the Confraternity of the Holy Spirit whose seat
it was, had an ancient and intimate association with the relic of the Holy
Face, and hence with Saint Peters. The relic had once been kept in the
church, and in the later Middle Ages, after it was transferred, the popes
would carry it from Saint Peters to Santo Spirito and back again in annual
procession. From the latter part of the fifteenth century the custom was reversed and the Confraternity went in procession to Saint Peters where it
had the signal honour of being shown the relic.110
IV. Changes During Execution
The Crown of the Baldachin
During the long period of work on the statues and the niches two major
changes were made, both of which radically affected the design and disposition of the crossing. The first of these occurred probably in 1631 while the
models for the niche figures were being made. The two semicircular arches
that Bernini had intended to place over the columns of the baldachin were
discarded and were replaced instead by the familiar twelve curving volutes
(four sets of three) decorated with palm fronds; and the great figure of the
Resurrected Christ was replaced by the more traditional globe and cross
The plan of the niches is from Baldinucci, Vita, Pl. 11 opp. p. 176. Baldinuccis point
(pp. 162 f.) is that Bernini did not weaken the piers by deepening the niches, but, on the
contrary, tended to fill them in; he also notes that the space between the old and the new
surface served to insulate the wall from humidity.
Cf. the niche with double curvature that Bernini created during the same period for the
Countess Matilda monument (Fig. 75).
110
See Moroni, Dizionario, CIII, 95 f. The connections between the Volto Santo and Santo
Spirito are recorded extensively by Grimaldi, Opusculum, fols. 35 ff., 41, 47, 67 f., 147 ff.
109
127
(Fig. 59).111 It seems that these alterations were motivated at least partly by
practical considerations. One of Berninis critics mentioned earlier, who
submitted a project of his own, objected that the original arrangement
would be inadequate to support the Christ figure and restrain the columns,
and there would be danger of a collapse.112 Filippo Buonanni says explicitly
that it was feared the columns might give way (laxari).113 In fact, the change
increased the number of supports, and created groups of pointed arches,
raising the crown and making the thrust on the columns more nearly vertical. A series of drawings shows Bernini experimenting with a variety of
convex, concave, and mixed curves that would achieve this result.114 A small
and a full-size model of the new crown were made during 1631; the work
was unveiled on June 29, 1633.115 The repercussions of the substitution of
the cross and globe for the Christ, which served to lighten the load, will be
discussed in Section V.
Cf. Brauer-Wittkower, Zeichnungen, 20 f. Their dating for the change is based on a

series of payments beginning in April, 1631, to Borromini for detailed drawings (Pollak, nos.
1274 ff.). Payments for models of the new superstructure also begin at the same time
(Pollak,369 ff.). The original form still appears on the canonization medal of 1629 (Fig. 32),
and is referred to in a poem published that year (Brauer-Wittkower, Zeichnungen, 20 n.
2)The Christ is also mentioned in C. Bracci, Rime . . . per il ciborio, opera di bronzo fatta inalzare in S. Pietro . . . , Arezzo, 1633, 56:
Sovra quel bronzo in pi Colonne alzato
Dal divo Urbano, e successor di Piero,
Vedesi pur listesso
Christo resuscitate. (Florence, Bibl. Marucelliana, Misc. 253, int. 3)
In his preface (p. 44) Bracci only notes seeing the bronze columns on a recent visit to
Rome (Non molto, che trovandomi in Roma ammirando le quattro Colonne di bronzo,
che fanno ciborio in S. Pietro). It was still being planned to cast the Christ in Jan., 1633,
presumably for another destination (Pollak, no. 1248).
Also unexecuted were seated figures of Peter and Paul to be placed before the balustrade
in front of the baldachin, for which Giuliano Finelli made models (cf. Brauer-Wittkower,
Zeichnungen, 20 n. 2). A drawing in the Albertina (Arch. Hz., Rom, Kirchen, no. 768, 321
215 mm.) shows the figures seated on pedestals attached to the balustrade, flanking the
entrance to the confessio.
112
Anonymous; quoted n. 55 above.
113
Buonanni, Num. templ. vat., 130: Verum cum mentem Pontificis non explerent, & nimis
aeris pondere subjectas columnas laxari posse timeretur, aliam formam . . . Bernini excogitavit.
114
Cf. Brauer-Wittkower, Zeichnungen, Pls. 6 ff. (See Addenda.)
115
Pollak, 369 ff.; the finishing touches were not completed until two years later.
111
56. Saint Peters, reliquary niche of St. Helen.
57. Rome, Santo Spirito in Sassia, Altar of the Virgin.
128
59. Saint Peters, crown of the baldachin.
58. Saint Peters, plan of the reliquary niches.

(From Baldinucci, Vita, pl. 11 opp. p. 176).
129
130
60. St. Andrew (from the

tabernacle of Old Saint Peters).
Rome, Saint Peters, Sacristy
(photo: Anderson).
61. Adriaen Collaert,

St. Andrew, engraving.
Brussels, Bibl. Royale,
Cabinet des Estampes.
62. Domenichino, Apotheosis of St. Andrew. Rome, SantAndrea

della Valle (photo: Anderson).
63. Saint Peters,

vault of northwest
grotto chapel
(originally dedicated
to St. Andrew),
Apotheosis of St.
Andrew.
131
132
Apse
(west)
Volto Santo
and Lance
Head of
St. Andrew
Volto Sancto
(Veronica)
Head of
St. Andrew
Volto Santo
Lance
Tomb of
Paul III
Colonna
Santa
Lance
(Longinus)
True Cross
(Helen)
Head of
St. Andrew
True Cross
A. Under Paul V
B. First arrangement under

Urban VIII (1629 ff.)
C. Decree of April 26, 1638
Volto Santo
Head of
St. Andrew
True Cross
Lance
D. Decree of July 5, 1638

(final)
Text Figure. Disposition of the relics in the crossing.
The Placement of the Niche Statues

The second major change involved the distribution of the relics in the
four piers, and hence also the placement of the statues and the decoration
of the upper niches. The point of departure for the original placement was
certainly the installation of Paul V (Text Fig. A), in which the two Passion
relics, the Holy Face and the Lance, had been given the place of honour in
the southwest pier (in cornu evangelii), while Andrews head had been
placed in the northwest corner, the side of lesser distinction (in cornu epistolae).116 When Urban VIII decided to treat the Lance separately and add
the True Cross, the same principle was applied at a lower level to the two
eastern piers, that on the south being considered more important than that
on the north. Thus, the descending order of precedence of the piers was:
southwest; northwest; southeast; and northeast. The Volto Santo, because
of its outstanding importance, retained the first place. The distribution of
116
On the directional symbolism of the Christian basilica, cf. J. Sauer, Symbolik des
Kirchengebudes, Freiburg-im-Breisgau, 1924, 87 ff.; J. A. Jungmann, Missarum sollemnia,
Freiburg, 1958, I, 529 ff.; I. Lavin, The Sources of Donatellos Pulpits in San Lorenzo, AB,
41, 1959, 20 n. 8. The nobler side, to the right of the celebrant of the Mass, gets its name
from the fact that the lesson from the Gospel in the Mass was read from there, while the
Epistle, of lesser distinction, was read from the celebrants left. In Saint Peters the pope celebrates the Mass facing the congregation in the nave. Because Saint Peters is also wested
(that is, with the apse in the west), the nobler side is to the south, as it is in normally oriented churches.
117
Breviarium romanum, Rome, 1634, Commune sanctorum, xviff.
133
the other three relics depended upon the basic distinction according to
which saints are classified, that is, between males and females. In the
Common of the Saints, the series of prayers by which saints are collectively venerated, males have preference over females. Apostles and evangelists
come before male martyrs; confessors, doctors, and abbots follow, and the
female saints come last. Among the latter, saints who were neither virgins
nor martyrs which was the case with Veronica and Helen constitute
the lowest category.117 By this criterion, Andrew, as apostle and martyr, takes
precedence over the male martyr Longinus, who in turn precedes Helen;
this was the order in which Urban VIII originally distributed the relics (Text
Fig. B). The controlling factor, except for the Volto Santo, was the liturgical rank of the saints, male martyrs vs. female non-virgins non-martyrs.
The frescoes illustrating the histories of the relics in the grotto chapels
beneath the niches were actually carried out according to this original
arrangement, under Berninis direction, mainly during 1630 and 1631.118
The liturgical rank of the saints was emphasized in the altar paintings by
Andrea Sacchi in these chapels: in the case of Veronica and Helen, scenes
showing their connection with the relics were chosen (the Road to Calvary
and the Testing of the True Cross), while under Andrew and Longinus the
altarpieces pertained to their martyrdom (Andrew worshipping the cross on
which he would be crucified and the Beheading of St. Longinus).119 Another
118
The dates are given by Torriggio, Sacre grotte vaticane, 200, who also describes the
frescoes in detail. An inscription in the vault of the ambulatory between the northeast and
northwest chapels reads as follows:
URBANUS VIII PONTE [sic] MAX
NOVOS ADITVS APERVIT
ALTARIA CVM STATUS ER[E]XIT
PICTVRIS ADAVXIT
ANN DOM M DC XXXI PONT VIII
The inscripion thus dates between Jan. I and Sept. 28, 1631 (the eve of the anniversary
of the popes coronation). Payments begin in Jan., 1630 (Pollak, no. 2108), and the last invoice is Jan., 1633 (Pollak, no. 2123).
119
Mosaic copies of the paintings are now on the altars (according to the final, not the
original location of the relics). The paintings are now in the Treasury of Saint Peters. Sacchi
received payments in 1633 and 1634 (Pollak, Nos. 2086 ff.), and a final payment for the St.
Helen scene on Sept. 5, 1650: Al And.ea Sacchi Pitt.e Scudi 150 m.ta oltre a scudi 650 havuti sono p. intero pagam.to di tutti quattro li quadri che il d.o ha dipinto sotto le grotte
compresoci in d.o n.o il quadro con lhist.a quando S.ta helena trovo la Croce di N.S. Sotto
S.ta helena di marmo e questo e in conformita di quanto ha ordinato la Sacra Cong.e di q.to
di. (Arch. Fabb. S.P., Ser. Arm., Vol. 179, Spese 163657, p. 276; cf. Set. 3, Vol. 162, Decreta
et resolutiones 164253, fol. 178r.)
134
souvenir of the original disposition, in which the liturgical pairing of the

saints is also indicated, is in the decorations on the bases of the statues, for
which payments were made between April, 1632, and March, 1635.120
Beneath the inscriptions on the bases in the northwest (Fig. 52) and southeast (Fig. 50) niches are palm fronds, the symbol of martyrdom; they were
intended respectively for Sts. Andrew and Longinus. Under Veronicas inscription are laurel leaves (Fig. 49); no change took place here. The base on
which Longinus now stands has laurel branches entwining a sceptre
(Fig. 51), showing that it was intended for the Empress St. Helen.121
Most important, it is evident that the statues were conceived as pairs,
facing each other diagonally across the baldachin Andrew vs. Longinus,
Veronica vs. Helen (Figs. 50 vs. 51, 49 vs. 52). Changing the statues locations not only destroyed this deliberate opposition but profoundly affected
the logic of their design (cf. Text Fig. D). The St. Andrew, simply moved
diagonally across the crossing, suffered least. But the whole movement in
the pose and glance of the Longinus, shifted to the opposite side of the nave,
is now outward and away from the baldachin; like the St. Andrew, it would
have been directed inward and up toward the Resurrected Saviour.
Likewise, Helens glance and gesture, now outward in the direction of the
transept, would have been inward toward the central axis of the basilica,
corresponding to St. Veronicas. The figures thus created a compact, centralized unity that was, in the end, largely dispersed.
The statues were already nearing completion, and their bases and the
frescoes in the grotto chapels had been executed, when, in 1638, the original plan was altered. The motivation was a bull that had been issued by
Urban VIII in 1629, when he gave the relic of the True Cross to the basiliCf. Fraschetti, Bernini, 70; H. Posse, Andrea Sacchi, Leipzig, 1925, 54 ff.; A. Mezzetti,
in Lideale classico del seicento in Italia e la pittura di paesaggio (Exhibition Cat.), Bologna,
1962, 332 ff.
120
Pollak, 436 ff., 452, 458, 464.
121
A further remnant of the first arrangement is in the motifs that decorate the socle zone
of the frontispieces of the reliquary niches; under the twisted columns in three of the niches are Passion symbols (crown of thorns and crossed reeds, gauntlets and lantern, bag of
coins, scourges, hammer and tongs, nails and loincloth, ewer and basin), while under those
in the northwest niche are various fish, for Andrew the fisherman, whose relic was the only
one not connected with the Passion (cf. Figs. 5356). On the north side of the north column of the northeast niche is an imperial crown with a cross, for the Empress Helen. (I have
been able to visit only the eastern niches; hence I cannot identify the emblems on the inner
faces of the column bases in the western niches, which are not visible from afar.)
135
ca. He had then stipulated that the three relics of the Passion be displayed
in a sequence that implied an ascending order of importance, the Lance first
and the Cross second, climaxing with the Holy Face.122 A compromise between the original arrangement and the import of Urban VIIIs bull was
made in the first of two decrees issued by the Congregation concerning the
placement of the relics: in April of 1638 the Congregation ordered a new
disposition, stating explicitly that it was in accordance with the relative dignity of the relics (Text Fig. C).123 Yet the decree merely exchanged the places
of the head of Andrew and the Lance of Longinus; the preferred position
was given to the Lance because it is a Passion relic, but the pairing of the
saints was still retained. The difficulty now was that the Lance had precedence over the True Cross. The Congregation changed its mind again and
in a subsequent meeting, in July, 1638, decreed what was to be the final
arrangement (Text Fig. D).124 This adheres strictly to the hierarchy of the
relics, expressing it in an ascending counterclockwise order beginning with
the head of St. Andrew, the only relic not related to the Passion, and end. . . . de cetero Ferri primo, deinde Crucis, postremo Sacrae Imaginis reliquiae hujus modi
ostendi debeant. (Collectionis bullarum, III, 240 [April 9, 1629]).
123
April 26, 1638:
Fuit actum mandato S.D.N., de quo mihi oeconomo fidem fecit Rev.mus D. Archiep.us
Amasiae super collocat.ne 4.or p.lium Reliquiarum S.S. Basilicae S. Petri iuxta debitum cuiq
pced.ae ord.em et exhibito Modulo milti ab eodem R.mo D. Archie.po consignato et D. Paulo
Alaleona Magro Ceremoniarum eiusd S.D.N. subscripto, in quo p.s locus Augustissimo Vultus S.
Reliquiae in loculo dexterae Parastidis, seu Pilastri subtus Cupolam versa ad Januam facie assignandam propanitur, 2.s S.mae Cruci in loculo sinistro sub.to per Diametrum respondente, 3.s
ptiossimae Lanceae in loculo sinistro p.o loculo Vultus S.tt respondente et 4.s Capiti Gloriosissimi
Apostoli S. Andreae in loculo dextero conspectu S.mae Crucis. Em.mi D.ni eodem viso et considerato mandarunt juxta ordinem ibi perscriptum easd S.S.tas reliquias collocari, et modulum ptum
cum p.nti decr.o ad perpetuam memoriam conservari. (Arch. Fabb. S. P., I Piano, Ser. 3, vol.
161, Decreta et resolut 163642, fol. 36v).
124
July 5, 1638:
Fuit iterum actum de collocatione Reliquiarum pn.lium sacros.ta Basilicae S.tt Petri, et non
obst.e Decreto alias facto melius discusso neg.o resolutum S.mam Vultus S.ti Reliquiam in eodem loculo dexterae parastidis seu Pilastri verso ad Januam facie esse collocandam, sacrosanctum Crucis
Lignum in sinistro eidem respondenti, Praetiosissimam Lanceam in loculo dexterae paristidis,
quae invenitur ab ingressu Ecclesiae, et Caput gloriosissimi Apostoli S.ti Andreae in sinistro huic
respondenti. (Ibid., fol. 43v).
The decrees are alluded to by Fraschetti, Bernini, 72f.
It is evident that Duquesnoys cries of foul play at the change of plan, reported by Bellori,
Passeri, etc., were quite unfounded (the sources are conveniently quoted in Fransolet, Le S.
Andre de Duquesnoy, 277 ff.; cf. 252).
122
136
ing with the Volto Santo. The pairing of the saints was abandoned completely.125
Underlying these changes was a progressive shift in emphasis in which
the importance of the relics rather than that of the saints became the
basis for the arrangement. Hierarchy was the determining factor throughout. In the beginning, however, it was focused on the human personalities
of the saints represented, which in turn determined their liturgical status;
125
The Longinus was installed in June, 1638 (Pollak, no. 1791), before the Congregations final decree. Presumably the final disposition was known in advance. It is just
possible, however, that the statue actually was set up in the northwest pier in accordance with
the first decree, and subsequently moved. A list of expenses for work done during June,
1639, includes a payment per haver condutto il Bassorilievo[sic!] di S. Longino; this is listed in Pollak as though it were for the statue (no. 1793), though it may refer to the relief of
the reliquary niche above (nos. 1978 ff.). The English Sculptor Nicholas Stone notes in the
diary of his visit to Rome that on Dec. 11, 1639, Bernini told him he would finish within
fifteen days a statue on which he was working in Saint Peters; this can only refer to the
Longinus (cf. W. L. Spiers, The Note-Book and Account Book of Nicholas Stone, Walpole
Society, 7, 1919, 171).
In 1637 P. Totti describes the statues (and the long inscriptions below the balconies) as
if they were already in place according to the original plan, though none of the figures was
completed then (Ristretto delle grandezze di Roma, Rome, 1637, 5 ff.). The next year he adds
a correction, hoggi si sono mutati i luoghi di S. Longino e di S. Andrea (Ritratto di Roma
moderna, Rome, 1638, 530, with dedicatory letter dated Nov. 18, 1638).
Another indication of the date of the change is provided by two payments to the painter
Guidobaldo Abbatini. The first was on April 23, 1637, for having painted the inscriptions
on the scrolls carried by the angels in the uppermost arches of the reliquary niches (Pollak,
no. 2015); the second was on July 29, 1638, for having painted the inscriptions a second
time (Pollak, no. 2018).
Because Torriggio states (Sacre grotte vaticane, 220, 232, 283) that the inscriptions below
the balconies of the Longinus, Andrew, and Helen niches were set up in 1634, the change
has been dated too early (Fransolet, Le S. Andr de Duquesnoy, 251 n. 8; Kauffmann,
Berninis H1. Longinus, 370). Torriggio makes no mention of any discrepancy between the
inscriptions and the chapels below, an anomaly he certainly would not have overlooked or
failed to note in his detailed account. Either the inscriptions were not yet really installed, and
Torriggio anticipated, or they were first set in place according to the original arrangement
and subsequently shifted.
There is an engraved plan of the grottoes (a reworking of an earlier print showing the
grottoes in their pre-Urban VIII form; cf. Lietzmann, Petrus u. Paulus in Rom, 193, 304, Pl.
11), ordered first by Benedetto Drei, fattore of the basilica, with inscriptions in the chapels
identifying them according to the final disposition of the relics and carrying the date 1635
(e.g. Bibl. Vat., R. G. Arte-Arch. 5.95 unnumbered). But a further inscription says the plan
was brought up to date (ridotta nella forma che al presente si ritrova) by Pietro Paolo Drei,
soprastante of the basilica, an office to which he was appointed only in Nov., 1638 (cf.
Pollak, no. 28).
137
and this is reflected in the design of the statues, which are paired visually
and psychologically. Ultimately, the overriding consideration became the
relics and their relative dignity; pre-eminence was given to the mementoes
of Christs sacrifice.
The main results and implications of the discussion in the preceding two
Sections may now be briefly summarized. First, the statues were planned
when the baldachin was to have its original form, with the Resurrected
Christ above. Second, it seems clear that besides his own statue Bernini provided initial designs also for the Andrew and the Veronica. Presently we shall
offer evidence that the same is true of Bolgis Helen. Each artist developed
the prototype according to his own predilection; but the statues complement one another according to a unified scheme, as we shall also see, and
this underlying conception can only have been Berninis. The significance
of these observations will become apparent as we consider the sources and
meaning of the figures and the overall programme.
V. The Sources and Significance of the Statues
St. Andrew and the First Version of St. Longinus
The decisive change introduced by Bernini into the two-storey organization of the piers under Paul V lay in devoting the lower niches to
monumental figures of the saints, and the upper niches to representations
of the relics themselves. This new arrangement, already implicit in Berninis
Veronica project early in 1627 (Fig. 48), involves a much more explicit reference than had obtained under Paul V to one in particular of the reliquary
tabernacles in Old Saint Peters, namely that of Saint Andrew (Fig. 7). A
The St. Andrew is shown in the northwest niche in a view of the interior of Saint Peters in
the Prado, signed by Filippo Gagliardi and dated 1640 (A. E. Perez Sanchez, Pintura italiana
del S. XVII en Espaa, Madrid, 1965, 279, Pl. 75). The statue had been installed in Oct., 1639,
after the final decree and therefore certainly in the southeast niche. Incongruously, the reliquary
niche above the St. Andrew shows the relief with the cross of St. Helen.
It should be emphasized, finally, that all this had no bearing on the actual location of the
relics; the Passion relics are kept in the Veronica niche and shown from there (see Moroni,
Dizionario, CIII, 101 f.; P. Moretti, De ritu ostensionis sacrarum reliquiarum, Rome, 1721,
111), while St. Andrews head was reserved to the niche above St. Helen. We have a payment
for the canopy over the niche of St. Helen in Nov., 1641, that is, long after the final disposition was made, in which it is stated that the St. Andrew relic was kept there (Pollak, 492;
cf. 65 no. 54).
138
representation of the apostles head held by angels decorated the upper

story, and standing on the altar below was a colossal marble statue of the
saint (Fig. 60).126 The relationship goes beyond general organization, however. The earlier statue, which was added to the fifteenth century tabernacle
in 1570, also seems to be reflected in the figure of the saint executed by
Duquesnoy (Fig. 50); the arrangement of the drapery is similar and the figure holds the cross behind him in the same distinctive way. The connection
clearly forms part of the pattern of deliberate reminiscences of the old basilicas monuments in the new crossing.
Another antecedent that must be taken into account is an engraving
(Fig. 61) from a series depicting the apostles by the Antwerp printmaker
Adriaen Collaert (d. 1618).127 The saint is again placed in front of the cross,
which consists of knotty cylindrical logs, and embraces it with his right arm;
here, moreover, part of the mantle falls behind the cross at the right side, as
in the marble. The link with Collaerts engraving is of special interest because another series of prints by him a life of St. Theresa printed first at
Antwerp in 1613 and then at Rome before 1622 later served as one of
Berninis chief sources for his Chapel of Saint Teresa in Santa Maria della
Vittoria in Rome (begun 1647).128
The Duquesnoy figure is also inconceivable without still another model,
by which the earlier images were brought up to date; this is Domenichinos
famous depiction of St. Andrew in Apotheosis on the vault of the choir of
SantAndrea della Valle (Fig. 62). Domenichino had executed the fresco late
in 1624, a few years before Bernini submitted his design for the St. Andrew
niche in April, 1628.129 While the colossal scale and details of pose and
drapery come from the earlier sculpture and the engraving, Domenichino
provided the basic conception of the saint, with nude torso, head tilted back
and to the right, and arms extended upward in a gesture of helpless yearn-
126
C. De Fabriczy, La statua di SantAndrea allingresso della sagrestia in San Pietro,
LArte, 4, 1901, 67 ff.
127
The similarity was first noted in print by Hess (Notes sur Duquesnoy, 30 f.), who
cites R. Berliner.
128
This relationship will be explored at length in my forthcoming study of the Saint
Teresa chapel.
129
The Apotheosis scene seems to have been the first of the frescoes carried out by
Domenichino in the choir and pendentives of SantAndrea; a payment of 26 scudi in Dec.,
1624, evidently refers to it. The main body of the decoration was executed during 162627,
and the latest payment to Domenichino is in Feb., 1628. See A. Boni, La chiesa di S. Andrea
139
ing.130 As if to acknowledge his debt to Domenichinos work, Bernini had it

virtually duplicated soon thereafter on the vault of the chapel under the
northwest pier, originally dedicated to St. Andrew (Fig. 63).131 Indeed, the
Domenichino fresco long continued to be an important source of inspiration for Bernini. His vision of the saint rising on a cloud in the apse of
SantAndrea al Quirinale (begun 1658) seems to translate Domenichinos
image into three dimensions (Fig. 64).132
The realization that Bernini was responsible for the basic conception of
the St. Andrew whose power and monumentality is without precedent or
della Valle (Conferenza letta allAssociazione Archeologica romana la sera dell8 Dic. 1907),
Rome, 1908, 21; Hess, Die Knstlerbiographien, 48 n. 5; H. Hibbard, The Date of
Lanfrancos Fresco in the Villa Borghese and Other Chronological Problems, in Misc. Bibl.
Hertz., 357 f., 364; Borea, Domenichino, 184.
130
The pose, gesture, and expression for an upward soaring figure are characteristic of
Domenichino, and recur frequently in his work (cf. Borea, Domenichino, Pls. 28, 47, 67,
81 f.).
The statues connection with Domenichino, though not with the SantAndrea fresco, has
been noted by J. Pope-Hennessy, Italian High Renaissance and Baroque Sculpture, London,
1963, text vol. p. 109, and Nava Cellini, Duquesnoy e Poussin, 41.
Nava Cellini (pp. 40 f.) revives the attribution to Duquesnoy of a terra-cotta model of
St. Andrew in SantAndrea delle Fratte, which had been rejected by Fransolet (Le S. Andr
de Duquesnoy, 243 n. 4) and Hess (Die Knstlerbiographien, 110 n.1; Notes sur
Duquesnoy, 31 f.). The tilt of the head in the opposite direction seems sufficient, in the
present context, to exclude it as a study for the Saint Peters figure; indeed, the model has
close analogies to the statue of the saint by Camillo Rusconi in the Lateran (cf. A.
Riccoboni, Roma nellarte. La scultura nellevo moderno dal Quattrocento ad oggi, Rome,
1942, Pl. 315).
131
Torriggio, Sacre grotte vaticane, 220.
132
The similarity has also been pointed out by M. Fagiolo DellArco, Domenichino
ovvero classicismo del primo Seicento, Rome, 1963, 92.
We may note that it was probably also from Dornenichinos frescoes the allegories in
the choir in SantAndrea della Valle and the pendentives there and in San Carlo ai Catinari
(162731) that Bernini developed his famous technique of stucco spilling over the architectural frame. Bernini is usually credited with the invention of this device, which he
introduced in the reliquary niches in Saint Peters (Figs. 5356) and elaborated further in his
Cappella Pio in SantAgostino (begun 1644); in fact, it has a long prior history, with which
I hope to deal in my study of the Chapel of Saint Teresa.
The allegory in the choir of SantAndrea della Valle variously identified as Hope,
Chastity, or Voluntary Poverty seems, along with the figure of Andromeda in the Galleria
Farnese, to have contributed to Berninis figure of Truth in the Borghese Gallery (begun
140
sequel in Duquesnoys work133 helps to clarify its intimate relation to

Berninis own St. Longinus (Fig. 51). They are analogous in pose, in psychological expression, and in the arrangement of their drapery.134 But it
must be emphasized that the similarity is not primarily a matter of both
works having been conceived by the same artist, nor did it result simply
from a desire to set up a harmonious echo between the two statues. Rather,
it was created in response to an anomalous situation with which Bernini was
confronted when it came to the final execution of his figure.
In its present form the statue represents Longinus as if standing at the
foot of the Cross, at the moment when, having pierced Christs side, he suddenly recognizes Christs divinity and is converted. He looks up enraptured
and thrusts his arms out as if in emphatic imitation of Christs pose upon
the Cross.135 The fact is, however, that Bernini did not originally plan to
represent St. Longinus in this fashion. We have a record of the figure he first
intended to pair with St. Andrew in one of the scenes in the vault of the
chapel in the grotto that was meant for Longinus (Figs. 65, 66).136 These
frescoes, as we have noted, were carried out under Berninis direction mainly during 1630 beginning in January, almost immediately after the four
statues were commissioned and 1631, with the final payments coming
in January, 1633. That the scene dates from early in the campaign is indicated by the fact that the upper niche does not yet show the decoration
executed subsequently also on Berninis design, whereas the design for this
1646). The painters influence is evident in Berninis work as early as the St. Bibiana
162426) in the Church of Santa Bibiana, which is related to the figure of St. Cecilia in
Domenichinos fresco in San Luigi dei Francesi, showing St. Cecilia before the judge (Borea,
Domenichino, Pl. 29).
133
Duquesnoys only other monumental figure, the St. Susanna in Santa Maria di Loreto,
is profoundly different in conception (see p. 164 below).
134
Bernini repeated the knot of drapery at the left in the Countess Matilda (Fig. 75) and
in the Christ of the Pasce Oves Meas in Saint Peters. In light of the documentation concerning the genesis of the St. Andrew, the view of the relationship between Bernini and
Duquesnoy suggested by Nava Cellini (Duquesnoy e Poussin, 45, 59 n. 47) should be reversed. (See also n. 174 below, and Addenda.)
135
Kauffmann has, in my opinion rightly, revived this interpretation of Berninis figure
(cf. his Berninis Tabenakel, 233; Berninis Hl. Longinus, 369).
136
The scene anticipates the transferral of the relic to this pier, and is inscribed on the
painted frame: In hoc conditorium Urbano VIII Pont. Max. iussu, solemni pompa Ferrum
Lancea infertur; cf. Torriggio, Sacre grotte vaticane, 209.
141
decoration, in which the twisted columns support triangular pediments,

does appear in one of the frescoes of the Veronica chapel (Figs. 67, 68). This
shows Bernini kneeling before the pope and presenting his drawing for the
reliquary niches.137 Work on the upper niches began in 1633, shortly after
the paintings were finished, and it is likely that this sketch dates from toward the end of the campaign in the grotto, that is, the late summer of
1632.
The Longinus depicted in the fresco already shows basic elements of the
final solution. The figure is oriented toward its right, holding the spear in
the extended right hand, head tilted to the side and upward. A huge cloak
envelops the shoulders and sweeps forward across the hips. The most notable differences from the final work are the right foot raised on the helmet
and the left hand placed across the breast. The figure would thus have been
more self-contained and passive than the present Longinus, rather more akin
in mood, though less so in pose, to the St. Andrew. Above all, it is clear that
at this stage in the figures development there was no hint of the Crucifixion
simile. In fact, at the time this version was planned to accompany the St.
Andrew, the baldachin was to be topped not by a cross and globe but by the
Resurrected Christ.
These original relationships were evidently based upon a specific tradition in which Andrew and Longinus had long been closely linked. The
tradition centred at Mantua, where in the Church of SantAndrea is preserved the relic of the Precious Blood of Christ, which Longinus was
supposed to have collected from the wound he had made in Christs side
with his lance.138 Longinus, who according to one tradition was a native of
Mantua, and was ultimately martyred there, brought the Precious Blood
with him after the revelation of Christs divinity at the Crucifixion.139
Andrew was associated with the relic by virtue of the fact that on two sep-
137
The fresco is inscribed: Sacellum Beatae Veronicae cum tribus aliis Urbanus VIII extruendum iubet; cf. Torriggio, Sacre grotte vaticane, 200 f.
138
Attention was first called to the Mantuan tradition in this context by Kauffmann,
Berninis Tabernakel, 233 f., and Berninis Hl. Longinus, 365; its quattrocento manifestations have been studied by M. Horster, Mantuae Sanguis Preciosus. WRJb, 25, 1963,
151 ff.
139
On Longinus legends, cf. Acta sanctorum, Antwerp, 1643 ff., s.v. March 15. The
most important compilation of the Mantuan traditions is Donesmondi, Dellistoria ecclesiastica di Mantova; the view that Longinus was Mantuan is maintained by G. Magagnati, La
vita di S. Longino martire cavalier mantoano . . . , Venice, 1605, preface.
142
64. Bernini, Apotheosis of St. Andrew. Rome, SantAndrea al Quirinale.
65. Saint Peters, vault of

southeast grotto chapel
(originally dedicated
to St. Longinus).
Transferral of the Lance
of St. Longinus,
143
144
67. Saint Peters, vault of southwest grotto chapel (dedicated to St. Veronica).
Bernini Presenting the Design for the Reliquary Niches to Pope Urban VIII.
69. Mantua, SantAndrea, Ancona of Chapel of the Precious Blood.
145
146
arate occasions, in 804 and 1049, when it had been hidden and its whereabouts forgotten, he had appeared miraculously to bring about its
rediscovery. The two saints were also linked through the Holy Lance at
Saint Peters which, having been hidden from the Saracens at Antioch, was
recovered in 1098 upon another apparition of the apostle.140
This Mantuan tradition had given rise to numerous representations in
which the two saints were paired.141 In most of these, and in images showing Longinus paired with other saints (cf. Fig. 70), the figures are depicted
in relation to the relic itself. In the chapel of SantAndrea that belonged to
the Confraternity of the Precious Blood and the Order of the Redeemer, the
wooden ancona decorating the altar wall has carved figures of Sts. Andrew
and Longinus in the attic zone; flanking the altar niche below are twisted
columns decorated with eucharistic vine scrolls (Fig. 69).142 Berninis general concept is foreshadowed by another work in the Mantuan tradition,
which pairs Longinus with St. Barbara:143 the title page of a poetic life of St.
Longinus published in 1605 (Fig. 70).144 The engraving, signed by
Wolfgang Kilian, shows the two saints standing before a frontispiece with a
pediment whose sides have a scroll-like curve. St. Longinus, who has
thrown off his military garb, holds the lance in his right hand and extends
his left; St. Barbaras right hand is thrown across her breast. They look up
140
J. Bosio, La trionfante e gloriosa croce, Rome, 1610, 121; Severano, Memorie sacre, 1,
161; cf. Kauffmann, Berninis Tabernakel, 233.
141
Many are mentioned and reproduced in P. Pelati, La Basilica di S. Andrea, Mantua,
1952 (cf. Pls. 58, 83, 87, 92, 113 f.).
142
The ancona is ascribed to G. B. Viani and datable ca. 1600 (cf. E. Mariani and C.
Perina, Mantova. Le arti, III, Mantua, 1965, 179, 372, 693, and the bibliography cited
there).
143
The Church of Saint Barbara in Mantua was the ducal chapel, and a portion of the
Precious Blood had been transferred there (Donesmondi, Istoria ecclesiastica, II, 354).
144
Magagnati, La vita di S. Longino; on Magagnati cf. Ianus Nicius Erythraeus (G. V.
Rossi), Pinacotheca, Cologne, 1645, 168 f., and E. A. Cicogna, Illustri muranesi richiamati
alla memoria . . . Venice, 1858, 17 f. The poem describes the moment of Longinus conversion as follows (p. 7):
Onde qual suole Aquila altera, il guardo
Nel Sol di Verit sicuro assisa
E rapito il contempla, e homai comprende
Luommorto vivo Dio, gi chiaro scorge
Viva la vita haver la Morte estinta,
Onde esclam con voce alta e sonante
Veramente di Dio questi era il Figlio.
147
worshipfully toward the reliquary of the Precious Blood, which is held by

two putti. The whole arrangement strikingly anticipates that at Saint
Peters, even to the pairs of winged putti who display the papal and apostolic insignia from the horizontal entablatures between the scrolls of the
baldachin (Fig. 59). Of particular interest also are certain examples that
seem to reflect a great controversy of the 1460s, concerning whether the
blood Christ shed at the Crucifixion was reunited to His body at the
Resurrection; if it was, relics of the blood could not be venerable.145 A famous engraving by Mantegna (Fig. 71) shows Andrew and Longinus
flanking the Resurrected Christ exactly the juxtaposition originally
planned for the crossing of Saint Peters, where the saints were to look up
toward the figure of Christ on the baldachin between them.146
There was good reason to refer to this Mantuan tradition beyond the
simple fact that it provided precedence for linking Andrew and Longinus.
Pius II had held a solemn disputation on the subject of the Precious Blood
in 1462, and though no final decision was made, his sympathy was entirely with those who affirmed its venerability.147 It was also Pius II who, in the
same year, acquired the head of St. Andrew and had built for it the tabernacle at the entrance to Old Saint Peters. This fact is duly recorded in the
inscription above St. Andrews niche and in the frescoes of his chapel in the
grotto.148 It is also possible that the reference to Mantua was of more than
religious and historical significance. With the death of Vincenzo II Gonzaga
in December, 1627, and the extinction of the main Gonzaga line, the already vexed question of the succession to the Duchy of Mantua became
critical. The papacy was directly threatened, and this was one of Urban
145
Cf. Pastor, III, 286 ff.; Donesmondi, Istoria ecclesiastica, II, 11 ff. On the possible
repercussions of this dispute in the Sistine Chapel and Raphaels Disputo, cf. respectively
Ettlinger, The Sistine Chapel, 83 f., and F. Hartt, Lignum Vitae in Medio Paradisi. The
Stanza dEliodoro and the Sistine Ceiling, AB, 32, 1950, 116 n. 6.
146
On the engraving see G. Paccagnini, et al., Andrea Mantegna, Venice, 1961, 199.
Mantegna also depicted the two saints twice at SantAndrea in Mantua, in the tondo of the
pediment and in the atrium; in the latter case they were shown with the Ascension of Christ
above the portal (ibid., and Donesmondi, Istoria ecclesiastica, II, 49). After closing the dispute in 1462 Pius II had ordered that the relic be shown each year on Ascension Day
(Donesmondi, Istoria ecclesiastica, II, 16).
147
Cf. Pastor, III, 286 ff.
148
Pastor, III, 258 ff. For the inscription, see Forcella, Iscrizioni, VI, 148 n. 148. The
scenes depicting Pius IIs reception of the head are described in Torriggio, Sacre grotte vaticane, 222 ff.
148
VIIIs most pressing concerns during the period in which the statues were
being planned. He decreed two extraordinary universal jubilees in the interests of peace, in April, 1628, and October, 1629. But his conciliatory
efforts were futile and events soon led to a conflict that was one of the major
episodes of the Thirty Years War.149
But most important, surely, was the fact that the Mantuan tradition
made it possible to relate Andrew and Longinus in a meaningful way to the
baldachin and altar, and to the other saints in the crossing. It introduced a
distinction the significance of which will emerge presently between
the upper part of the baldachin, where Andrew and Longinus focus their attention, and the altar below.
St. Veronica and St. Helen
Despite their obvious stylistic differences it is evident that the two female statues were also conceived as a pair (Figs. 49, 52). This becomes
especially clear when it is recalled that the Helen was to face the Veronica
from the opposite pier (cf. Text Fig. B). Their relationship is with the lower
part of the baldachin rather than its crown, and by their poses, glances, and
gestures, they form a kind of contrapuntal embrace of the crossing. Both
figures stride toward the baldachin in the centre: Veronicas face is turned to
the worshipper approaching from the nave, while her arms extend the Volto
Santo toward the area behind the altar; Helen would have displayed the
Nails in the direction of the nave, while her glance was focused on the worshipper in front of the altar.150 The intensely active role of the Veronica and
149
See R. Quazza, Mantova e Monferrato nella politica europea alla vigilia della guerra per
la successione (162427), Mantua, 1922 (Pubblicazioni della R. Accademia virgiliana, Ser. II,
Misc. no. 3) and La guerra per la successione di Mantova e del Monferrato (162831), 2 Vols.,
Mantua, 1926 (ibid., Misc. nos. 56). On the popes role, cf. Pastor, XXVIII, 201 ff.
150
It will be seen that the actions of the female figures take the spectator into account,
as opposed to the males complete absorption in the miraculous event above. This, too, reflects the relatively more mundane concerns of the non-virgins non-martyrs, as compared
with the male martyrs.
The kind of contrapuntal composition seen in the Veronica and the Helen has its immediate forerunner in Berninis work in the bust of Cardinal Bellarmino in the Ges
(162324); here the face turns with a rapt expression to the worshiper approaching the choir,
while the hands clasped in prayer are directed toward the office at the altar. The space is thus
charged with a dramatic implication that forms the prelude to Berninis conception of the
crossing of Saint Peters. See the comments in my Five New Youthful Sculptures by
Gianlorenzo Bernini and a Revised Chronology of His Early Works, to appear in AB, 50,
Sept., 1968.
149
the noble calm of the Helen present, furthermore, a clearly calculated contrast.
The Veronica was, as we have seen, preceded by an early project by
Bernini (Fig. 48); but Mochis highly personal interpretation seems to owe
much to the depiction of Veronica by Pontormo in Santa Maria Novella in
Florence (Fig. 72). Mochi was born near Florence and received his early
training there under the painter Santi di Tito. His strong allegiance to his
Florentine artistic heritage has been emphasized since the earliest biography.151 It is perhaps relevant that Urban VIII was also a native of Florence,
where he received his early education. Mochis reference to Pontormos figure may have been considered appropriate because the painting decorated
the Chapel of the Popes in Santa Maria Novella. It had been executed on
the occasion of the visit of Leo X, another Florentine, in 1515.152 That pope
had shown considerable interest in the Volto Santo, and issued bulls concerning its display.153 Indeed, the pose of Pontormos figure, the drawn
curtains behind, and the accompanying inscriptions seem to allude specifically to the rite of displaying the relic.154 At the same time, important
changes were introduced in the context at Saint Peters. Through the figures
motion and expression the essentially ritualistic character of Pontormos
image is given a dramatic immediacy which suggests that the Passion is actually in progress.
The St. Helen by Bolgi, who was Berninis assistant and close follower,
is undoubtedly a far more accurate imitation of the masters model. The
presence of Berninis guiding mind can perhaps best be appreciated by considering the source of Bolgis statue: a painting of St. Helen by Rubens, his
151
Cf. Passeri, in Hess, Die Knstlerbiographien, 130. The Veronica has been compared
with a figure from an ancient Niobid group (A. Muoz, La scultura barocca e lantico,
LArte, 19, 1916, 133), and with a figure from a painting by Santi di Tito in the Vatican (J.
Hess, Nuovi aspetti dellarte di Francesco Mochi, BdArte, 29, 193536, 309).
152
On the Cappella de Pontefici and its association with no less than four popes, cf. V.
Fineschi, Memorie sopra il cimitero antico della chiesa di S. Maria Novella di Firenze, Florence,
1787, 36; for recent bibliography, J. Cox Rearick, The Drawings of Pontormo, Cambridge,
Mass., 1964, 1, 106.
153
Cf. Collectionis bullarum, II, 374. Awareness in the early seventeenth century of Leos
interest is indicated by the fact that his bulls are quoted by Grimaldi in his treatise on the
Volto Santo, along with a notice from Leos diarist of showings of the relics on Easter and
Ascension Days, 1514 (Opusculum, fols. 69r and v).
154
The inscriptions are transcribed in F. M. Clapp, Jacopo Carucci da Pontormo, His Life
and Work, New Haven, Conn-London, 1916, 124.
150
first dated work, executed in 16011602 while he was in Rome (Fig. 73).155
The massive proportions of the figure and its drapery, the pose and gesture
with extended left arm, the huge cross projecting diagonally out of the picture space have all been transferred to the marble. The most significant
difference is that the heavenward gaze of the eyes has been lowered. But a
number of other changes have been introduced as well: notably, the outer
swathe of drapery is now pulled to one side and joined at the hip, and the
left leg, no longer moving forward, is flexed and to the rear of the right leg.
Both feet are exposed and wear clog-like sandals. In part, as we shall see
presently, these changes may reflect a study of ancient statuary, but the main
inspiration seems again to have come from a work by Rubens: the figure of
St. Domitilla in the right wing of his altarpiece in Santa Maria in Vallicella,
also painted in Rome, in 1608 (Fig. 74).156 Between the time that Bolgi
completed the model of the St. Helen and the time he began the final work,
Bernini repeated the basic formula almost exactly in his figure of the
Countess Matilda on her tomb in Saint Peters (begun 1633; Fig. 75);157 the
similarities here include the arrangement of the drapery at the breast, the facial type, even the coiffure. In the Matilda, however, the positions of the
arms have been reversed, and they are now virtually identical with those of
Rubens St. Domitilla. As with the St. Andrew of Duquesnoy, Bolgis St.
Helen is unique for the artist who executed it, but fits integrally into
Berninis own development.158
Rubens painting of St. Helen hung until the eighteenth century in the
chapel dedicated to her in the Basilica of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme,
whence Urban VIII removed the portion of the True Cross for the fourth
Now in the Hospital at Grasse, France, along with two companion pictures, The
Crowning with Thorns and The Raising of the Cross. Cf. C. Rubens, Correspondance de Rubens,
Antwerp, 1887, I, 41 ff.; M. Rooses, Loeuvre de Pierre-Paul Rubens, Antwerp, 1889, 11, 281
f.; most recently, M. De Maeyer, Rubens in de Altaarstukkcn in het Hospitaal te Grasse,
Gentse Bijdragen tot de Kunstgeschiedenis, 14, 1953, 75 ff.
156
M. Jaff, Peter Paul Rubens and the Oratorian Fathers, Proporzioni, 4, 1963, 209 ff.;
G. Incisa della Rocchetta, Documenti editi e inediti sui quadri del Rubens nella Chiesa
Nuova, AttiPontAcc, Ser. III, Rendiconti, xxxv, 196263, 161 ff.
157
The relationship is so close that, as Wittkower has observed, the Matilda has even
been attributed to Bolgi, though the documents show he was responsible only for secondary
details (Art and Architecture in Italy 16001750, 2nd ed., Harmondsworth, etc., 1965, 201).
158
The St. Helen is Bolgis only piece of monumental religious statuary. Cf. V.
Martinelli, Contributi alla scultura del seicento. V. Andrea Bolgi a Roma e a Napoli,
Commentari, 10, 1959, 137 ff.; A. Nava Cellini, Ritratti di Andrea Bolgi, Paragone, 13,
no. 147, 1962, 24 ff.
155
151
crossing pier in Saint Peters. Santa Croce has the most ancient and hallowed associations with the mother of Constantine.159 It was founded in the
Sessorian palace, which had belonged to her, and she was supposed to have
installed the chapel that bears her name in her own chamber. The church
possesses besides three remaining fragments of the True Cross a nail,
thorns from the crown, and the Title of the Cross, which Helen was believed to have brought back from Jerusalem.160 Part of the appeal Rubens
work held, therefore, probably lay in what might almost be called the authenticity of its location. This may also be the explanation for the marked
similarities, in figure type, pose, and drapery arrangement, between Bolgis
St. Helen and an authentic classical prototype still existing in Santa Croce,
over the same altar that Rubens painting once decorated (Fig. 76). When
the painting was removed toward the middle of the eighteenth century, it
was replaced by an ancient statue restored (chiefly the head and arms) to
represent St. Helen in a kind of composite imitation of Rubens and Bolgi.
There is good reason to identify the figure now on the altar with a statue of
the Empress Helen that had been found in a mid-sixteenth century excavation in the garden behind the church.161
Still more important as a key to the relevance of Rubens painting for the
program at Saint Peters are the Solomonic columns of Saint Peters that appear in the background. They are employed in such a way under the
arches of a larger building, with no sign of a superstructure and with a drape
hanging from the architrave that might easily suggest a kind of tabernacle. Their presence in the picture is explained by a tradition current at the
time the crossing of Saint Peters was being planned, according to which it
was precisely the Empress Helen who had obtained them in Jerusalem.162
Shown thus with the columns, Helen is represented as if she were actually in Jerusalem. In fact, this topographical identification is explicit in the
very name of the basilica, Santa Croce in Gerusalemme. The identification,
moreover, was not merely metaphorical. When Helen returned to Rome,
R. Krautheimer, Corpus basilicarum christianarum Romae, Vatican, 1, 1937, 165 ff.
Rubens includes the Crown of Thorns and Title of the Cross, Bolgi includes the Nails,
and the Title appears in the relief of the reliquary niche above. On the relics in Santa Croce
see B. Bedini, Le reliquie sessoriane della Passione del Signore, Rome, 1956.
161
On the statue in Santa Croce, presumably an earlier work reused in the second quarter of the fourth century, see my note, An Ancient Statue of the Empress Helen
Reidentified(?), AB, 49, 1967, 58 ff.
162
Panciroli, Tesori nascosti, 532.
159
160
70. Wolfgang Kilian, title page of G. Magagnati,

La Vita di S. Longino, 1605.
71. Mantegna, Sts. Andrew and Longinus with the Resurrected Christ,
engraving. London, Victoria and Albert Museum.
152
153
72. Pontormo, St. Veronica. Florence, Santa Maria Novella, Chapel of the Popes.
73. Rubens, St. Helen. Grasse, Hospital

(formerly in Rome, Santa Croce in Gerusalemme).
74. Rubens, Sts. Nereus, Domitilla, and Achilleus.

Rome, Santa Maria in Vallicella (photo: Alinari).
154
76. Ancient statue restored as St. Helena. Rome,

Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, Chapel of Saint Helen.
75. Bernini, monument of Matilda of Tuscany.

Rome, Saint Peters (photo: Alinari).
155
77. Bernini, bozzetto for St. Longinus. Cambridge, Mass.,

Fogg Art Museum.
78. St. Longinus, drawing after Bernini.

Bassano, Museo Civico.
156
79. M. Ferrabosco, Project for ciborium.

(From Architettura di S. Pietro, pl. 27).
157
158
according to the legend, her ship was loaded with the earth from under the
Cross that Christ had bathed with his blood. This venerable earth she
placed in the lower part of her room, and it thus underlies the pavement of
the chapel dedicated to her, of which Rubens painting was the altarpiece.
The story is told in a long inscription in majolica tiles lining the passageway that leads to the chapel. It celebrates a miraculous rediscovery of the
Title of the Cross in 1492, which was the occasion for a major restoration
of the chapel preceding the one for which Rubens painting was made. The
inscription explains not only the meaning of the chapel, but also its implication for Saint Peters:
This holy chapel is called Jerusalem because St. Helen, mother of
Constantine the Great, returning from Jerusalem in the year of our Lord
321, having rediscovered the insignia of the Lords victory, constructed
it in her own chamber; and having brought back in her ship holy earth
of Mount Calvary upon which the blood of Christ was poured out for
the price of human redemption, and by the power of which entrance to
the Heavenly Jerusalem was opened to mortals, she filled it to the lowest vault. For this reason the chapel itself and the whole basilica and all
Rome deserved to be called the second Jerusalem, where the Lord for the
strength of its faith wished to be crucified a second time in Peter, and
where it is believed that the veneration of one God and the indeficient
faith, by the prayers of the Lord and the favour of Peter, will remain
until the last coming of the judging Lord in Rome, the sublime and
mighty and therefore the truer Jerusalem.163
The process of what might be called topographical transfusion of
Jerusalem to Rome is here clearly delineated, and it is linked specifically to
the second sacrifice in the person of St. Peter.
In imitating Rubens picture, and creating the same juxtaposition of St.
Helen and the Solomonic columns, Bernini was continuing the topograph163
SACRA VLTERIOR CAPPELLA DICTA HIERVSALEM Q, BEATA HELENA
MAGNI CONSTANTINI MATER HIEROSOLYMA REDIENS ANNO DOMINI CCCXXI: DOMINICI TROPHEI INSIGNIIS REPERTIS: IN PROPRIO EAM
CVBICVLO EREXERIT: TERRAQ, SANCTA MONTIS CALVARIAE NAVI INDE ADVECTA SVPRA QVAM CHRISTI SANGVIS EFFVSVVS FVIT REDEMPTIONIS
HVMANAE PRAECIVM: CVIVSQ, VIGORE IN CELESTEM HIERVSALEM MORTALIBVS ADITVS PATVIT: AD PRIMVM VSQ, INFERIOREM FORNICEM
159
ical transfusion to Saint Peters itself. When we recall the passage in Tiberio
Alfarano quoted near the beginning of this study (Section II, p. 101 above),
identifying the setting of the tomb and altar at Saint Peters with that of the
Temple, the cycle of associations is closed.
From all these considerations it is evident that for Bernini the crossing
of Saint Peters had a specific topographical meaning. Both in a real and in
a figurative sense it was Jerusalem, the place where salvation was achieved
and is continually renewed. This ultimately is the meaning of the baldachin
and its crown and of the figures in the piers. The women concentrate upon
the Passion and sacrifice at the altar, the men upon the resurrection and redemption above, as if at the very time and place that the events occurred.164
REPLEVERIT EX QVO SACELLVM IPSVM ET TOTA BASILICA AC VNIVERSA

VRBS: SECVNDA HIERVSALEM MERVIT APPELLARI APVD QAM [SIC] ET DS
AD ILLIVS ROBVR FIDEI: IN PETRO ITERVM CRVCIFIGI VOLVIT VBIQ, VNIVS
DEI VENERATIO AC FIDES INDEFICIENS: ET DOMINI PRAECIBVS ET PETRI
FAVORE: AD VLTIMVM VSQ DI IVDICANTIS ADVENTVM IN VRBE SVBLINI
ET VALENTE AC INDE VERIORE HIERVSALEM: CREDITVR PERMANSVRA
For the rest of the inscription, cf. Forcella, Iscrizioni, VIII, 187. See now I. Toesca, A
Majolica Inscription in Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, in Essays in the History of Art Presented
to Rudolf Wittkower, London, 1967, 102 ff.
164
This vertical distinction may also be reflected in the ornaments of the upper reliquary
niches in the piers (Figs. 5356).The panels of the socle zone beneath the twistcd columns
contain (with certain exceptions; see n. 121 above) symbols of the Passion (crown of thorns
and crossed reeds, gauntlets and lantern, bag of coins, scourges, hammer and tongs, nails and
loincloth, ewer and basin), while above, on the frieze of the entablature, are (besides
Barberini bees) paired dolphins with scallop shells, early emblems of salvation.
Berninis interpretation of the crossing as a whole is foreshadowed by the sacrament altar
of Clement VIII in the Lateran, which we have seen was also an important part of the prehistory of the baldachin (see pp. 110 f. above). In niches flanking the altar, on the back and
lateral walls of the transept end (partially visible in Fig. 42), are four monumental statues of
Old Testament personages who prefigure the sacrament and the priestly sacrifice (Aaron,
Melchisadek, Moses, Elijah). All four figures look toward the altar as if to witness the enactment of the sacrament. The figure on the lateral wall at the right strides toward the altar, in
a motion anticipating that of Mochis Veronica (Fig. 42A).
Of considerable interest in this context, also, are the medals of Clement VIII struck in
commemoration of the sacrament, which show the altar. In one of these (cited n. 81 above)
the structure is shown normally, with the silver reliquary relief of the Last Supper situated
high on the wall above the ciborium. In a second medal, the scene is enlarged to fill the
whole space within the altar (Buonanni, Num. pont., II, Fig. XII; examples in the Bibl. Vat.
and the Bibl. Nat.). The structure of the altar itself thus serves as the large upper room
(Mark 14:15; Luke 22:12), with the Last Supper actually taking place inside.
160
The Development of the Longinus

When it was determined to replace the Resurrected Christ by a cross and
globe, traditional symbols of the universal dominion of Christianity, this
original plan for the crossing was no longer tenable. Bernini dealt with the
new situation, typically, by exploiting it, finding a solution that expressed
his underlying point of view even more vividly than before. He interpreted
the cross not simply as an emblem of the Church, but as an allusion to a
real event. The sacrifice was now represented twice, in effect, at the altar and
above the baldachin, and the Andrew and Longinus were now to be related
to the same theme as were the Veronica and Helen. It happened that the
Andrew might easily be understood as an analogue of the Crucifixion.
Andrew was martyred by crucifixion, and one of the most familiar episodes
of his legend was his having fallen to his knees to worship the cross as he
was being led to his death.165 Thus, although the pose was derived from the
apotheosis image of Domenichino, no change was required for the figure to
carry the new meaning: that is, not enthrallment at the sight of the
Resurrection, but imitation of the Crucifixion. In fact, the executed figure
is identical with the full-scale model done while the baldachin was still to
be crowned by the Risen Christ.166 The only difficulty presented by St.
Andrew was the relic. St. Andrews head, alone among the relics involved,
had no reference to the Passion. This may explain one of the most remarkable of all the anomalies presented by the crossing: in the reliquary niche
above Duquesnoys statue is represented not the head of St. Andrew, but his
cross (Fig. 54).167
Seen in this light, the motivation for the change in the Longinus becomes clear. The original pose, in contrast to Andrews, could not be
interpreted as referring to the Passion, and a radical reworking of the figure
was necessary. This process must have taken place within a relatively short
period between the execution of the fresco in the grotto chapel, probably in
the first half of 1630, and the beginning of the full-scale model in the summer of 1631. Two intermediate stages have been preserved. In a bozzetto in
165
A survey of St. Andrew iconography will be found in H. Martin, Saint Andr, Paris,
1928; H. Aurenhammer, Lexikon der christlichen Ikonographie, Vienna, 1959 ff., 132 ff.
166
An engraving after Duquesnoys model, dated 1629, is reproduced by Fransolet, Le
S. Andr de Duquesnoy, Pl. IV opp. p. 247.
167
Perhaps this is also the explanation for the fact that the altarpiece in the grotto chapel
represents Andrew worshiping the cross rather than his actual martyrdom, as in the case of
St. Longinus.
161
the Fogg Museum, the figure has been brought very close to the St. Andrew
(Fig. 77; cf. Fig. 50).168 Both arms are now extended, and the drapery, instead of being joined at the neck, is knotted under the left elbow, resulting
in a cascade of folds at the left hip and in the diagonal sweep across the right
leg. The drapery at the right side practically duplicates the corresponding
portion on the St. Andrew. The right foot is lowered and straightened, resting now on the shield, rather than the helmet, which has been shifted to lie
beside the left foot.
In some respects, however, the bozzetto is farther removed from the St.
Andrew than the painted version (Fig. 66). The figure is tall, slim, wiry, and
lithe. The knotting of the drapery creates taut, energetic lines of force in
contrast to the loosely falling folds in the St. Andrew. The flat placement of
the right foot gives the figure a second solid support, as against Andrews
tilted foot with toes barely touching the ground. The drapery at the figures
right and the strips of the epaulettes suggest a wind-caught movement.
Above all, the right arm, which in both the painted study and in the St.
Andrew is relaxed, is now thrust outward vigorously. In other words, while
bringing the figure closer iconographically, as it were, Bernini introduces elements of an active dynamism that contrasts with the gentle receptivity of
the St. Andrew.
A drawing at Bassano, which seems to reflect a sketch or model by
Bernini, probably represents an alternative solution at a slightly later stage
(Fig. 78).169 The drapery is thrown open at the front and the agitated, broken folds intensify the idea of a sudden burst of revelation, barely suggested
in the bozzetto. The shield has been removed, and certain details of the
arrangement of the drapery at the figures right and the long, billowing
edges of folds at the left are retained in the final work.
The executed statue (Fig. 51) unites elements from both these antecedents. Bernini returns to the mass of drapery knotted in front of the
168
Height 52.7 cm.; Acq. no. 1937.51. First published by R. Norton, Bernini and Other
Studies, New York, 1914, 46 no. 2, Pl. XII; acquired by the Fogg Art Museum in 1937. The
bozzetto was analyzed by Kauffmann, Berninis HI. Longinus, 369 ff. The gilding may be
original; the full-scale model of the Longinus was coloured (Pollak, no. 1774), but evidently
the models of the other figures were not.
169
The drawing was first published as an original by C. Ragghianti, Notizie e letture,
Critica dArte, 4, 1939, XVI Fig. 5; and later by L. Magagnato, ed., Catalogo della Mostra di
disegni del Museo Civico di Bassano da Carpaccio a Canova, Venice, 1956, 40 no. 35. The view
that it follows a Bernini study is here adopted from Wittkower, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, The
Sculptor of the Roman Baroque, 2nd ed., London, 1966, 197.
162
body as in the terra cotta. But instead of being pulled into thin lines of tension, the drapery is crumpled into violent disarray, recalling but going far
beyond the sketch. The right foot is flat on the ground while the martyrs
helmet and the hilt of his sword are at his left. Perhaps most important is a
new element: the hipshot pose of all the earlier studies is straightened and
stiffened, greatly augmenting the effect of electric excitement. It may be said
that whereas in the original version the saint would have played a passive
role in the Resurrection, he now plays an active role in the Passion. In this
way, while creating a near counterpart of the St. Andrew, Bernini depicts
through Longinus a contrasting religious experience. Though implying participation in Christs sacrifice rather than mourning over it, the contrast is
analogous to that between Veronica and Helen.
In sum, the substitution of the cross and globe for the Resurrected Christ
atop the baldachin had no effect on three of the figures, but it led Bernini to
interpret St. Longinus in a new way. The figure, though isolated and freestanding, is portrayed in its traditional narrative context.170 This very fact
indicates, however, that Berninis attitude toward the crossing as a whole remained unchanged: he still conceived of it as if it were the site of a dramatic
action, a second Jerusalem in fact, with Christ really present at its centre.171
170
It is perhaps significant that whereas the sources for the other figures were in more or
less isolated representations of the saints, the closest parallels for Longinus are in scenes of the
Crucifixion (cf. those by Giulio Romano and Lorenzo Lotto cited by Kauffmann, Berninis
HI. Longinus, 367). Wittkower has observed a similarity between Longinus head and that
of the Borghese Centaur in the Louvre (Gian Lorenzo Bernini, 37).
171
Symptomatic of this active interpretation of the crossing are the inscriptions in the
books held, along with swords, as the attributes of St. Paul by pairs of putti on the north and
south sides of the baldachin (cf., Fig. 59). (Putti on the east and west sides hold the tiara and
keys of St. Peter. These groups, in effect, replace the statues of the two apostles parts of
both of whose bodies were supposed to be preserved at Saint Peters that were intended
to adorn the balustrade of the confessio; see n. 111 above.) The books are open and each
contains an inscription on four pages, only partially visible from the floor. On an occasion
when the baldachin was being dusted one of the workmen transcribed the inscriptions for
me as follows (the portions I was able to decipher confirm his readings):
North:
FRA
TRE
IVST
IFIC
ATI
EX E
DE P
CEM
LECT
EPIST
B PAVLI
AD
ROMA
NOS
FRA
EXI
South:
FRA
EXI
QU
NO
SUM C
/
DIGNA
LECTICO
EPLAE
B.PAVLI
APLI A
ROMA
NOS
FRA:
TRES
(partially visible in Fig. 59)
163
VI. Conclusion
We have spoken repeatedly of a program for the crossing of Saint
Peters. It has by now become obvious that this term is at best an approximation for an evolutionary process that took place over a considerable
period and that was never fully realized. There is no evidence to suppose
that all the details of the crossing were worked out in advance as a general
scheme. The first steps in the reorganization of the relics were taken early in
1624, at the time the new baldachin was begun. Thereafter the two major
elements of the plan, the baldachin and the decoration of the piers, developed pari passu, each undergoing basic changes long after work began. Even
before the models were finished early in 1632, the form of the crown of the
baldachin was being altered. And by the time the statues themselves were
nearing completion later in the decade, ideas had so changed that they were
not even installed in the positions for which they were intended.
Nevertheless, the crucial period for the gestation of a plan that encompassed the entire crossing was probably between June of 1627, when it was
decided to decorate all four niches, and December of 1629, when, the relic
Though fragmentary and garbled, the inscriptions clearly refer to two passages in Pauls
Epistle to the Romans: Iustificati ergo ex fide pacem habeamus per Dominum nostrum Iesum
Christum (5:1); Existimo enim quod non sunt condignae passiones huius temporis ad futuram
gloriam quae revelabitur in nobis (8:18).
The appropriateness in this context of selections from the message to the Romans is evident. It is remarkable, however, that the texts are not quoted alone, but are accompanied by
the prefatory phrase Lectio epistolae beati Pauli apostoli ad Romanos. Fratres:, which occurs in
the missal, as if the liturgy were actually in progress. Both passages are quoted in succession
in the Roman missal as alternate readings for the Common of the Martyrs (Missale romanum, Rome, 1635, Commune sanctorum, xvf.). The content of the passages also bears
witness to the basic conception of the crossing that we have described, referring on the one
hand to justification by faith, on the other to the sufferings (passiones) of this world. This
distinction seems to echo that between the theological and temporal realms implicit in the
references to the unity of the faith and the unity of the priesthood in the inscriptions on the
friezes below the four pendentives: southwest, HINC VNA FIDES; northwest, MVNDO
REFVLGIT; northeast, HINC SACERDOTII; southeast, VNITAS EXORITVR. These inscriptions, in turn, are subsumed beneath the inscription carried out under Paul V on the
base of the dome, referring to the foundation of the church: TV ES PETRI . . . (Matthew
16:1819). See Figs. 1, 53, 54, 59. (For documents for the dome inscription see Orbaan,
Abbruch, 34, 35, 42, 45; 1 am uncertain of the date of the pendentive inscriptions, but presumably they were added after the time of Urban VIII.)
164
of the True Cross having been acquired, models of the four statues were ordered. It was then, or shortly thereafter, that Bernini must have supplied the
participating artists with their instructions.172 A crucial question, to which
no very precise answer can be given, is how detailed these instructions were.
Mochi (15801654) was much older than Bernini (15981680), a fully
matured artist with a long series of monumental works to his credit. The
Veronica is so deeply imbued with his personality that one can imagine his
having received no more (but also no less) than a general orientation concerning the pattern of relationships to be portrayed.173 The case with
Duquesnoy (15941643) and Bolgi (16051656) was different. Both had
worked under Bernini on details of the baldachin, but Duquesnoy had
theretofore produced only a single life-size work,174 Bolgi none. One may
suppose that Bernini gave them much more explicit advice. The assumption
that their figures are more or less accurate reflections of Berninis ideas is
confirmed by the documentary and stylistic evidence presented earlier, and
172
We know that under Clement VIII, Cardinal Baronio supplied the subjects for the altarpieces in Saint Peters (Baglione, Vite, 110 f.), but there is no evidence for such an adviser
for the work under Urban VIII. The documents indicate that the pope himself played an active part in the planning.
173
Bernini seems to have agreed with those who criticized the movement of Mochis figure as improper; at least, he made clever use of the criticism in his crushing answer to Mochi,
who had joined the chorus blaming Bernini for the cracks that had appeared in the dome:
Bernini felt extremely compassionate toward the forced and belabored agitation of the
Veronica, since the defect was caused by the wind coming from the cracks in the dome, not
the inadequacy of the sculptor (L. Pascoli, Vite de pittori, scultori, ed architetti moderni, 1st
ed. Rome, 173036; facsimile ed. Rome, 1933, II, 416).
174
A Venus and Cupid, now lost (M. Fransolet, Franois du Quesnoy sculpteur
dUrbain VIII 15971643, Acadmie royale de Belgique, Classe des Beaux-arts, Mmoires, Ser.
II, IX, 1942, 99 f.).
The problem of the relative chronology of Duquesnoys St. Andrew and St. Susanna (see
recently D. Mahon, Poussiniana. Afterthoughts Arising fromthe Exhibition, GBA, 60,
1962, 66 ff.; K. Noehles, Francesco Duquesnoy: un busto ignoto e la cronologia delle sue
opere, AAntMod, no. 25, 1964, 91; Nava Cellini, Duquesnoy e Poussin, 46 ff.) is greatly
facilitated by the knowledge that the design of the St. Andrew approved by the Congregation
in June, 1628, was Berninis, not Duquesnoys (see p. 122 above). All the early biographies
of Duquesnoy state that he owed the commission for the St. Andrew to the success of the St.
Susanna. However, the first document mentioning him in connection with the latter work
is a payment for marble in Dec., 1629 (execution of the figure did not come until 163133),
whereas he had begun the full-scale model of the St. Andrew by May, 1629 (p. 122 above).
If the biographers story is true, the success of the St. Susanna must have been based on a
model of some sort. But this need not have been made before 1628, as has been maintained,
but only before May, 1629.
165
by the fact that, as we have also pointed out, the Saint Peters statues are in
many respects quite untypical of their work as a whole.
Once it is recognized that the basic conception of the figures must have
been Berninis, what becomes striking is their diversity of mood, psychological as well as stylistic. It is tempting to explain these variations on the
basis of chronology. Certainly the St. Andrew reached its definitive form
first, when the model was finished in November, 1629. But with the acquisition of the True Cross in April, 1629 (a month before Duquesnoy
began work on his model), all the constituents of the program were known,
and it would be naive to presume that Bernini did not begin thinking of
them in relation to one another. He must have had a good idea of what he
wanted by the time the commissions were awarded at the end of that year.
Except for the changes in the Longinus necessitated by the substitution of
the cross and globe for the Risen Christ, whatever subsequent development
took place at the hands of the individual artists must have started from a
nucleus provided then.
Thus, while an evolutionary process undoubtedly took place, the essential differences among the statues cannot be explained simply on this basis.
Instead, they bear witness to Berninis capacity to adapt his expressive
means to a particular interpretation of the figure. In each case, as we have
seen, that interpretation was conditioned partly by a specific tradition or
traditions, partly by the role the figure was to play in the overall program of
the crossing. The figure of St. Helen is classical in form and shows emotion
with noble restraint, not primarily because it was designed at a certain moment, nor because it was executed by Bolgi, but because it represents the
empress mother of Constantine contemplating Christs Passion.
Apart from the appearance of many motives and devices that recur later
in Berninis work, much of the chronological significance of the crossing in
his development lies precisely in this expressive range. Psychological drama
had been one of Berninis chief interests from the beginning, but this had
generally taken the form of relatively simple and strident contrasts. Here,
the contrasts remain, but the variations are richer and subtler. These obserDuquesnoy claimed, according to Sandrart, that the St. Andrew was delayed because
marble was deliberately withheld (by Bernini); cf. A. R. Peltzer, ed., Joachim von Sandrarts
Academie der Bau-, Bild- und Mahlerey-Knste von 1675, Munich, 1925, 233. The documents show that only Bolgi, Mochi, and Bernini himself were affected by delays in the
delivery of marbles (Pollak, Nos. 1722f.); Duquesnoy in fact received his marble and began
working long before the others (p. 124 above).
166
vations have a corollary in the realm of style, and help to explain a phenomenon such as the appearance, on the one hand, of violently broken
drapery in the Longinus, and, on the other, of a pronounced classicism in
the Helen. These apparently contradictory innovations are in fact enrichments of Berninis formal vocabulary, just as the emotions the figures
display are enrichments of his expressive range. The crossing of Saint Peters
marks a vast widening, or, better, maturing, of Berninis vision.
In the last analysis, however, the chronological importance of the crossing may lie less in the diversity of the individual elements than in the
common bond by which they are related. In Saint Peters, for the first time,
Bernini treats a volume of real space as the site of a dramatic action, in
which the observer is involved physically as well as psychologically. The
drama takes place in an environment that is not an extension of the real
world, but is coextensive with it. And because the statues act as witnesses,
the observer is associated with them and hence, inevitably, becomes a participant in the event. In this way, Bernini charged the space with a
conceptual and visual unity so powerful that it overcomes every change in
plan and disparity of style.
167
Appendix I
Checklist of projects for Baldachins, Ciboria, and Choirs in the apse of Saint
Peters under Paul V and Gregory XV (16051632).
As far as possible the entries pertaining to structures over the tomb are given
first (nos. 115), to those in the choir second (nos. 1627). Within this division
the order is roughly chronological, except that entries related to the same project
are listed together. No. 28 includes projects submitted under Urban VIII in competition with Bernini.
1. Project for a tabernacle in the crossing and a choir screen in the apse, anonymous
drawing. Bibl. Vat., Arch. Cap. S. P., Album, Pl. 4 (Alfarano, De basil. vat.,
ed. Cerrati, 25n., Fig. 3 opp. p. 48; W. Lotz, Die ovalen Kirchenrame des
Cinquecento, RmJbK, 7, 1955, 72 ff., 73 Fig. 47; J. Wasserman, Ottaviano
Mascarino and His Drawings in the Accademia Nazionale di San Luca, Rome,
1966, 66 no. 234) (Fig. 29).
Plan for the completion of Saint Peters with an oval atrium. Shows a
screen with an altar flanked by two columns at the entrance to the apse; two
groups of four columns, each group supporting a cross groin, flank the altar in
the crossing. The total of ten columns suggests that the ancient spiral columns
were intended (cf. n. 27 above). Cerrati associates the plan with a manuscript
project by the architect Frausto Rughesi, a connection that has rightly been rejected by Lotz. Lotz attributes the drawing to Ottaviano Mascarino and dates
it before 1606. The attribution to Mascarino is rejected by Wasserman. A date
at the beginning of Paul Vs reign that is, 1605/1606 seems probable,
since, as far as we know, the idea of a tabernacle over the tomb and a choir
screen with altar in the apse did not appear before that time.
2. Project for a ciborium in the crossing, ca. 1620, drawing by Borromini, Vienna,
Albertina, Arch. Hz., Rom, Kirchen, no. 1443 (Fig. 14).
The drawing proposes a ciborium with a polygonal cupola supported by
straight columns over the tomb, to which a portal below gives entrance. Four
allegories of virtues stand on the attic. The absence of lateral wings shows that
168
it was intended for the crossing. The absence of an altar indicates that the high
altar was to be located in the apse, where presumably the ancient spiral
columns would be used.
The project seems certainly to date from early in Pauls reign, since the
confessio built during the middle years is not taken into account. In that case
the sheet would be a copy by Borromini of an earlier project (omitting the portion beneath the pavement), devised perhaps at the time the arrangements for
the tomb and high altar were first being debated, that is, 16051606. The author of the project was doubtless Carlo Maderno, architect of Saint Peters and
Borrominis early mentor. The redrawing may have been made at the end of
Paul Vs reign, when we know the question was reopened. It would thus be
contemporary with another drawing by Borromini (Fig. 28; no. 26 below) of
a project under Paul V, also presumably Madernos, for a ciborium in the apse,
of which a model was actually built. It is conceivable, however, that the present redrawing was made a few years later when, in competition with Bernini,
it seems another idea of Madernos was revived (see n. 55 above).
Barring the unlikely possibility that, in the original scheme, Maderno contemplated having ciboria with cupolas both over the tomb and in the choir, it
is reasonable to associate this project with the one reported by Fioravante
Martinelli, in which Maderno would have decorated the high altar with spiral
columns and a canopy (see pp. 83 f. and n. 53 above).
Finally, it should be noted that the design closely anticipates Borrominis
later projects for the ciborium and confessio in the Latern (cf. Portoghesi,
Borromini nella cultura europea, Figs. 263 ff.).
3. Model of baldachin over the tomb, 1606. Cf. pp. 80 f. above.
4. Canonization of Francesca Romana, 1608, fresco. Bibl. Vat., Galleria di Paolo V
(Taja, Descrizione, 456; Siebenhner, Umrisse, 309 n. 224) (Fig. 19).
From a series carried out under Paul V. Shows the baldachin of Paul V essentially as in no. 7, though without temporary decorations.
5. Canonization of Carlo Borromeo, 1610, engraving by Giovanni Maggi. Bibl.
Vat., Coll. Stampe (Figs. 2, 24).
The apparatus for the canonization was designed by Girolamo Rainaldi,
and is described in M. A. Grattarola, Successi maravigliosi della veneratione di
S. Carlo, Milan, 1614, 218 ff. (A payment to Rainaldi for designs, probably for
the canonization, is recorded in September, 1610; Pollak, Ausgewhlte Akten,
79 no. 40 not December as given in Orbaan, 79). The strands of lilies
wound around the staves are mentioned by Grattarola (p. 229), who notes that
medallions with images of the saint were placed above both the east and the
west faces of the baldachin. The medallions appear only on the east face here
and in the anonymous engraving of the event (no. 6); they are not shown in
the Vatican fresco (no. 7). Grattarola does not mention the angels flanking the
medallions in Maggis print, and they are not shown in no. 6.
169
6. Canonization of Carlo Borromeo, 1610, anonymous engraving (Fig. 3).

Differs from no. 5 in that the kneeling angels flanking the medallion atop
the baldachin are omitted here. Also, this print shows tasselled canopies above
the upper reliquary niches in the western piers, which are omitted by Maggi.
This view corrects the misleading impression given by Maggi that the placards
with standing figures of the saint were hung in the upper niches; in fact, they
were suspended from the crown-shaped chandeliers. Finally, this engraving
omits the dome of the ciborium in the choir, which Maggi includes.
7. Canonization of Carlo Borromeo, 1610, fresco. Bibl. Vat., Galleria di Paolo V
(Taja, Descrizione, 460; Siebenhner, Umrisse, 309) (Fig. 20).
Shows the baldachin of Paul V with strands of lilies wound around the
staves.
8. Interior of Saint Peters, ca. 1610, engraving by Giovanni Maggi.
Shows the baldachin of Paul V with the four angels, essentially as in nos.
5 and 6. The supports are decorated with spiral windings which, although
there are no lilies, suggest a connection with the canonization of Carlo
Borromeo.
This is one of a series of ten prints by Maggi illustrating major Roman
churches. The first state of these engravings is known only from a set of modern post cards of very poor quality, published by a Roman antiquarian
bookshop, now defunct. Subsequent printings of the engravings are known,
though with some lacunae and various alterations (Rome, Bibl. Vitt. Em.,
18.4.c.23, dated 1651; in these sets the old baldachin and background have
been cancelled and replaced by Berninis baldachin in its final form. The Santa
Maria Maggiore print has been published (see n. 106 above), as has that of San
Lorenzo fuori le mura (A. Muoz, La basilica di S. Lorenzo fuori le mura,
Rome, 1944, ill. on p. 71). The engravings were discussed by G. Incisa della
Rocchetta (Due quadri di Jacopo Zucchi per Santa Maria Maggiore, Strenna
dei Romanisti, 10, 1949, 290 f. n. 2), to whom I am most grateful for lending
me his set of the precious post cards.
9. Medal of Paul V, 1617. Bibl. Vat., Medagliere (Buonanni, Num. pont., II, 506
f.) (Fig. 21).
The obverse of the medal is inscribed with the thirteenth year of Pauls
reign (which began on May 29, 1617, the anniversary of his coronation); it was
doubtless struck to commemorate the opening of the confessio (Pastor, XXVI,
402; cf. Siebenhner, Umrisse, 308). Torriggio, Sacre grotte vaticane, 37,
records that several of the medals were inserted alongside the commemorative
inscription in the confessio, which is dated 1617 (Forcella, Iscrizioni, VI, 144
no. 529). The elaborate engraving after the medal usually reproduced
(Buonanni, Num. templ. vat., Pl. 48), apart from the other changes, shifts the
viewpoint and places special emphasis on the baldachin.
10. Longitudinal section of Saint Peters, 1618, vignette on the engraved map of
170
Rome by Matthus Greuter (Fig. 4).
Gives a view of the baldachin of Paul V, and a sketchy plan of a ciborium
and screen in the choir. The ciborium is partially cut off at the bottom of the
poorly preserved map of 1618 in the Bibl. Vitt. Em., Rome (reproduced in A.
P. Frutaz, Le piante di Roma, Rome, 1862, II, Pl. 286), but appears complete
in the 1625 reprint in the British Museum.
The visible north wing of the screen is represented in the plan as though
it were a straight, uninterrupted wall. The ciborium has fourteen columns
arranged in pairs roughly in a circle, except that four columns form a straight
line at the front.
The design shown here cannot be identified with any other ciborium project
known to me.
11. Canonization of Ignatius of Loyola, et al., 1622, drawing. Vienna, Albertina,
Arch. Hz., Rom, Kirchen, no. 780 (Fig. 22).
Unfinished. Details of the temporary installation are virtually the same as
in nos. 14 and 15, for which it is evidently a preparatory drawing. The main
difference from our point of view is that the baldachin still appears to be that
of Paul V; the staves are shown straight and unadorned. No angels are depicted at the base.
12. Canonization of Elizabeth of Portugal, 1624, anonymous engraving. Bibl. Vat.,
Arch. Cap. S. P. (Fig. 23).
Inserted in a manuscript diary of Saint Peters by Francesco Speroni
(Diarium Vaticanum Anni Iubilaei MDCXXV, 1626, MS. D 14, kept in the
Chapter Archive in the new sacristy; cf. Pollak, 96, 635). The print is a variant
of Fig. 30 (see p. 93 above). The differences are minor, except that the present
version shows the baldachin of Paul V, rather than Berninis early project. This
is particularly odd in view of the fact that the baldachin begun under Gregory
XV had been built by October, 1624 (no. 13). The anomaly is perhaps to be
explained by assuming that the engraving was done, in anticipation of the canonization, before the latter baldachin was actually erected and before Bernini
had fixed the design of his project. In fact, the day of the canonization was evidently not yet determined, since in the inscription below, a blank space
appears where 22 is added in Fig. 30; the latter also adds various decorative
details that are absent here.
13. New model for a baldachin, built 16221624.
Discussed above, pp. 88 f. A payment on June 22, 1622, to the woodworker G. B. Soria is quoted by Pollak (Ausgewhlte Akten, 107), who reports
the latest payments, the last on October 11, 1624 (Pollak, nos. 35, 984 ff.).
The payments in fact form a continuous series beginning June 18, 1622 (Arch.
Fabb. S. P., I Piano, Ser. 1, Vol. 236, Spese 162123, and Vol. 240, Spese
162324). Hence there can be no question that the same work was involved.
The payments are authorized by Carlo Maderno.
171
The baldachin is described in a document published by Pollak, no. 35.

This account carries the date 1621, which has been interpreted as an error for
1624, when the final payment was made (Pollak, 17 n.1). The date probably
indicates, however, that it was intended to begin construction in 1621 (cf.
Siebenhner, Umrisse, 318), though payments do not actually start until
June, 1662. The work may well have been put off until after the quintuple
canonization in March, 1622. It seems likely, in any event, that the plan to rebuild the model dates from before the end of Paul Vs reign (d. January 28,
1621); this was certainly the case with its counterpart, the ciborium in the
choir, for which also the final accounting was made only under Urban VIII
(no. 27).
This baldachin is described by Buonanni (Num. templ. vat., 127) as follows: Nihil tamen Paulo regnante effectum est, sed postquam Urbanus VIII.
Pontificiae Dignitatus Thiaram accepit anno 1623, umbellam firmis hastis sustentatam decoravit, quas Hieronymus Romanus suo scalpro foliato opere exornavit,
& anno 1625. Simeon Obenaccius Florentinus auro circumtexit.
14. Canonization of Ignatius of Loyola, et al., March 12, 1622, engraving by
Matthus Greuter. Rome, Archive of Santa Maria in Vallicella (Fig. 5).
P. Tacchi-Venturi, in Canonizzazione dei santi Ignazio di Loiola, 62 n. 3,
first called attention to this poorly preserved print, of which our Fig. 5 is a detail. Practically identical with no. 15, except that this is inscribed Superiorum
permissu Romae 1622 Matthae Greuter exc. cum Privilegio in the frame of the
cartouche with the inscription below the central panel. Also, the canopies
above the reliquary niches appear more clearly here, and the rectangular edges
of the figural representations in the niches are indicated. According to the inscription, the decorations for the canonization were designed by Paolo
Guidotti. A preparatory drawing is in Vienna (Fig. 22; no. 11).
15. Canonization of Ignatius of Loyola, et al., 1622, anonymous engraving (Fig. 6).
Reproduced initially, without a source, by C. Clair, La vie de Saint-Ignace de
Loyola, Paris, 1890, Pl. following p. 422; after him by P. Tacchi-Venturi, in
Canonizzazione, Pl. opp. p. 56 (cf. pp. 62 ff.), and Mle, Concile, Fig. 57 (cf.
p. 100).
I have been unable to find a copy of this print, which is evidently a variant of no. 14.
16. Project for a choir screen with an altar, anonymous drawing. Windsor Castle,
no. 5590 (Fig. 34).
Kindly brought to my attention by Howard Hibbard. A transverse section
of Saint Peters through the transept. Shows a screen across the apse in the form
of a triumphal arch with three openings. Two allegorical figures recline in a segmental pediment above the central arch, which contains an altar. Four angels
holding candelabra stand on an attic above the main entablature; these provide
precedence for the standing angels on Berninis baldachin and on no. 28c. The
172
17.
18.
19.
20.
use of a flat screen without a domical ciborium over the altar parallels the Uffizi
project attributed to Maderno (no. 25). Probably dates from the beginning of
Paul Vs reign.
Project for a baldachin with spiral columns, by Carlo Maderno.
Described by Fioravante Martinelli; cf. above, pp. 83 f., 88, 95 ff. n. 53.
Martinelli notes that this project was intended for the high altar. It was probably to be placed in the choir, since spiral columns are included, as in nos. 18,
19, 20, etc. The baldachin may well have been meant to accompany Madernos
project for a ciborium with straight columns over the tomb where no altar was
envisaged (Fig. 14; no. 2); if so, it would date ca. 16051606.
Drawings by Ludovico Cigoli for a ciborium in the choir, 16051606. Uffizi,
A2635 (680 475 mm.), 2639r and v (Figs. 25, 26).
Discussion of these drawings (two plans and an elevation) was an important contribution by Siebenhner, Umrisse, 310 ff.; cf. V. Fasolo, Un pittore
architetto: Il Cigoli, Quaderni dellIstituto di Storia dellArchitettura, no. 1,
1953, 7 nn. 4, 6.
Cigoli envisaged an octagonal, domed ciborium placed slightly in front of
the apse, supported by ten spiral columns, two pairs at the front corners, three
at each of the rear corners; a balustraded screen would have extended back in
concave arcs to the corners of the apse. Siebenhner (p. 316) assumed that
Cigolis ciborium was the one of which a model was actually built. But the
gratings in the base and the floor around the ciborium show that Cigoli
favoured shifting the tomb along with the high altar, a proposal that was rejected (see the Avviso quoted n. 16 above).
Model of ciborium over the high altar in the choir, 1606.
Discussed pp. 80 ff. above. Enough of the superstructure of the centrepiece appears in Maggis engraving (Figs. 2, 24) to show that it was polygonal.
Probably there were pairs of columns at the corners, and the centrepiece was
flanked by wings with others. We know that this ciborium used spiral columns,
and in 1635 we are told that there were ten of them (see the quotations n. 27
above). The reconstructed model of 16221624 (cf. no. 27) had ten spiral and
four additional straight columns. Two very similar projects are known (Fig. 27,
no. 20; Fig. 79, no. 23; Appendix II) in which all the columns are spiral, some
of them evidently imitations of the originals. It is possible that the 1635 reference is to the reconstructed model of 16221624 (cf. no. 27), which certainly
had ten spiral columns, rather than the original of 1606, which may thus have
had more. Nevertheless, for independent reasons neither no. 20 nor no. 23 can
be identified with the model of 1606, though they may well reflect it. The centrepiece also seems to be echoed in no. 28c (Fig. 35). (See Addenda and Fig.
28A.)
Project for a ciborium, anonymous. Vienna, Albertina, Arch. Hz., Rom,
Kirchen, no. 767 (Fig. 27).
173
The centrepiece recalls that in the model actually built (Fig. 24; no. 19),
though the details of the dome are different. The project is also extremely close
to that of Ferrabosco (Fig. 79; no. 23; Appendix II), and shows what the latter
must have been like before the alterations made under the influence of
Berninis first project. Two figures, evidently Peter and Paul, stand on the attic.
21. Model for a choir stall in the apse, 1618.
Adi 20 8bre 1618. Conto delli lavori fatti per servitio della R: a Fabrica di
S. Pietro fatti da m Gio: Battista Soria.
....
Per haver fatto il modello, per il Choro da farsi in S. Pietro, fatto dAlbuccio
scorniciato di noce, fatto tr ordini per li Canonici et Beneficiati, et Chierici
et in pezzi da disfar tutto, con il Baldacchino fatto con grand.ma diligenza
mta15
(Arch. Fabb. S. P., I Piano, Ser. 1, Vol. 14, Materie diverse, fols. 232r, 233v).
The woodworker G. B. Soria built a model for a choir stall of three levels,
with a baldachin, presumably for the papal throne; the stall was designed to be
dismountable, which indicates that it was intended for the main apse. The
model is probably to be identified with the project for a choir, also dismountable and with three levels, by Martino Ferrabosco, recorded in his book on
Saint Peters (no. 22). The model is probably further to be identified with one
mentioned in an invoice submitted by Soria early in Urban VIIIs reign: Per il
primo modello fatto per le sedie del coro che si diceva fare nela Tribuna
20 (Pollak, 18 no. 35; on the date of the document see above, no.
13).
22. Project for a choir stall in the apse, by Martino Ferrabosco (Ferrabosco,
Architettura di S. Pietro, Pls. XXVIII, XXIX; cf. Appendix II).
The plan and elevation show three rows of seats, the perspective view only
two. The caption explains that the project was intended to permit shifting the
sacristy from its place on the north side of Madernos nave, where it proved unsuitable, to the place intended for the canons choir on the south. The stalls
were to be dismountable; the reason given for this varies slightly between the
manuscript version of the caption . . . acci potessero [le sedie] servire per
le funtioni Pontoficie nelli giorni solenni, et ordinariam.te p il Clero . . . (Bibl.
Vat., MS. lat. 10742, fol. 374r) and the printed version . . . accioch
listesso luogo potesse servire ancore per le Funzioni Pontoficie nelle Festivit
pi solenne . . . The project is probably to be identified with a model for a
dismountable choir with three rows of seats built in 1618 (no. 21).
Though Ferraboscos project was never carried out, it is still the practice in
Saint Peters to erect a temporary choir in the apse when necessary (see n. 43
above).
23. Project for a ciborium, 16181620, by Martino Ferrabosco (cf. Figs. 79, 80).
Ferraboscos project is discussed in Appendix II. A likely assumption is that
174
it was initially prepared to accompany his scheme for a choir in the main apse,
which can be dated with good reason to about 1618 (see no. 21). A terminus
ante quem of 1620 is provided by the intended publication date of Ferraboscos
volume on Saint Peters. Discounting the alterations made to the design later
in imitation of Berninis project, it is very close to the anonymous study in the
Albertina, Vienna (Fig. 27; no. 20), which may be taken as a general guide to
Ferraboscos original intentions. Both projects probably reflect the model of
1606 (Fig. 24; no. 19). The main difference, apart from details of decoration,
is Ferraboscos addition of an attic storey on the wings.
24. Project for choirs in the crossing and apse, 1620, by Papirio Bartoli (S. Scaccia
Scarafoni, Un progetto di sistemazione della confessione di San Pietro in
Vaticano antecedente al Bernini, Accademie e biblioteche dItalia, 1, 192728,
no. 3, pp. 15 ff.; cf. most recently H. Hibbard and I. Jaffe, Berninis Barcaccia,
BurlM, 106, 1964, 164 n. 21, and the bibliography cited there) (Fig. 12).
Bartolis Discorso, richly illustrated, is known in various manuscript copies
in Rome: Bibl. Vitt. Em., MS. Fondi Minori 3808 (to which our citations
refer), and Bibl. Vat., MS. Barb. lat. 4512, fols. 1643. Bartoli proposed constructing a pontifical choir in the crossing, immediately behind and including
the confessio and high altar, in the form of a navicella, or boat. In the apse he
contemplated a coro de canonici. The tabernacle over the high altar was to be a
ships mast with billowing sail, executed in bronze and decorated with reliefs of
the Passion foggia della Colonna Traiana (Discorso, int. 1, fol. 5r). The seats
in the pontifical choir were to be collapsible, to permit a view into the navicella when it was not in use.
The date of the project, 1620, is provided by a passage in which Bartoli
estimates that it could be completed in four years, in time for the jubilee of
1625 (ibid., fol. 23r). The illustrations, engraved by Matthus Greuter, were
completed only in 1623, by Bartolis nephew. In one of these (ibid., fol. 88),
the Barberini coat of arms was added to the ships rudder, doubtless with a view
to submitting the project to Urban VIII in competition with Bernini; the case
thus closely parallels that of Martino Ferraboscos project (Appendix II).
25. Project for choirs in the crossing and apse, attributed to Carlo Maderno. Florence,
Uffizi, Gab. dei disegni, 265A (Fig. 13).
Shows a choir installation with two altars in the apse; a flat screen in front
includes ten (spiral?) columns. In the crossing immediately behind the confessio (shown in its final form) is a rectangular, colonnaded enclosure, presumably
also a choir. The altar at the tomb inside the enclosure is shown underground,
and no tabernacle appears above. The project may be dated after the completion of the confessio in 1617 (n. 35 above); the scheme as a whole is closely
analogous to that devised by Papirio Bartoli in 1620 (no. 24).
26. Project for a ciborium, ca. 1620, drawing by Borromini. Vienna, Albertina,
Arch. Hz., Rom, Kirchen, no. 766 (Fig. 28).
175
Can be identified with the model painted by G. B. Ricci, who submitted

his account early in the reign of Urban VIII (no. 27). The drawing shows ten
twisted columns and four additional straight columns (omitting the surface
decoration on all of them). The inscription on the frieze shows that the project was designed before Paul Vs death (January 28, 1621). The exact time of
Borrominis arrival in Rome is not certain. Heretofore, his presence in the city
has not been attested before March, 1621, when he appears in the documents
of SantAndrea della Valle (N. Caflisch, Carlo Maderno, Munich, 1934, 141 n.
102). Howard Hibbard recently found his name listed among the workmen at
Saint Peters toward the end of 1619 (November 23December 6) well before
Paul Vs death; Arch. Fabb. S. P., I Piano, Ser. I, Vol. 218, Stracciafogli
161622, fol. 57v. We may also note that the scarpellino Leone Garua, with
whom Baldinucci reports that Borromini lived when he came to Rome, was
killed in a fall at Saint Peters on August 12, 1620: Die 12 Augusti [1620] M.r
Leo Garovius de Bisone longobardus Carpentarius cecidit ex fabrica S.ti Petri dumetiretur et statim obijt sed prius recepit extrema- untione- eius corpus fuit sepultus in hac nr-a eccl.a (Rome, Arch. Vicariato, S. Giov. Fior., Liber Defunct.
160026, fol. 61v).
Though Borrominis authorship of the drawing is unquestionable, it is not
likely, if only because of his extreme youth and subordinate position, that he
was responsible for the project. Most probably, the drawing, like no. 2 (Fig.
14), was made for Carlo Maderno who, as architect of Saint Peters, signed
Riccis invoice for work on the model.
27. Reconstructed model for a ciborium in the choir, ca. 16221624.
Described in an account of work by the painter G. B. Ricci, undated but
submitted in the reign of Urban VIII (Pollak, p. 12). The document makes it
clear that this model was a reconstruction of the earlier one (no. 19); it included a lantern, an octagonal cupola (fatt a scaglione con 8 cartellini
scorniciato), four apostles on the cornice, four frontispieces with the papal
arms, an inscription with the popes name in the frieze, four oval windows, figurative decorations in the triangles of the four arches. In addition, Ricci says
he made four columns with fluting and floral decorations, and fourteen
pedestals. Candelabra stood on the architrave above the columns, and there
was a balustrade around the altar. From another source we know the model had
ten of the original spiral columns (see n. 27 above).
The model is recorded in the drawing by Borromini in Vienna (Fig. 28;
no. 26). This bears Paul Vs name in the frieze, which shows that it was designed before his death in January, 1621. Execution was delayed, as in the case
of the new baldachin model over the tomb (no. 13), and probably for the same
reasons. The account containing the description includes other work by Ricci
begun much earlier; payments to him for cartoons of the choir stuccos occur
as early as May, 1621 (cf. n. 71 above).
176
28. Projects made in competition with Bernini, ca. 1624.
A. Anonymous project for a baldachin. From Modo di fare il tabernacolo.
See n. 55 above.
B. Project by Teodoro della Porta.
Two months before payments to Bernini begin, Teodoro della Porta, the
son of Guglielmo, in a letter to the Congregation dated May 12, 1624, says
that he will make a disegno e modello del Baldachino e suo sostentamento per
lAltar magg(io)re di S. Pietro che haver la simetria, e decoro che conviene secondo le bone regole dellarte dellArchitettura senza far ingombro et
impedimento alla veduta della celebratione (Pollak, no. 1052). In a letter dating before January 1, 1624, he complains bitterly against provisional works in
Saint Peters, et in particolare nellAltare magg(io)re che stato fatto e rifatto
quattro volte diversam(en)te con molta spesa sempre buttata via per modo di
provisione come hora segue medemam(en)te (Pollak, 71 no. 60).
I tentatively identify a drawing in Vienna (Fig. 35; no. 28c) with Della
Portas project.
C. Project for a ciborium, 16231624. Vienna, Albertina, Arch. Hz., Rom,
Kirchen, X-15 (H. Egger, Architektonische Handzeichnungen alter Meister, I,
Vienna-Leipzig, 1910, 12 Pl. 29, with attribution to M. Ferrabosco) (Fig. 35).
A domed ciborium resting on spiral columns, closely similar to the centrepieces in nos. 1820, 23, 26 (Figs. 2628, 79). The main differences from
the other designs are that the lateral wings are absent here, as is also the drum
between the attic and the cupola. Angels are shown standing on the attic above
the columns.
I suspect that the drawing is a kind of pastiche based on the earlier projects and incorporating certain of Berninis ideas. The absence of the lateral
wings shows that it was intended as a free-standing structure in the crossing,
doubtless for the high altar. But only under Urban VIII was Paul Vs decision
to move the high altar to the apse rescinded. The project must therefore date
either from the very beginning of Pauls reign, before the decision was made,
or from that of Urban. That the latter is the case is strongly suggested by the
design itself. The absence of the drum above the attic creates a considerably
lower proportion than in any of the other known projects for ciboria, whereas
in the crossing even more height was needed. The most likely assumption is
that the spiral columns shown were not to be the originals but imitations of
them on a bigger scale; enlargement of the whole structure permitted elimination of the drum to achieve the lower proportion required when the
counterbalancing effect of the wings was lost. The design thus deals with the
same aesthetic problem, by similar means, as does Berninis baldachin (see
above, p. 97), but in the form of a conventional domed ciborium. A further
point is that the angels on the superstructure serve no function whatever (not
even to hold candelabra, as in no. 16), as if they were taken over from Berninis
177
project and deprived of their raison dtre.

If the argument presented here is correct the attribution to Ferrabosco
falls, since he died before Urban VIII was elected (Beltrami, Ferabosco, 24).
A possible alternative candidate is Teodoro della Porta, who early in 1624 complained of Berninis project and offered to design a baldachin according to the
good rules of the art of architecture without obstruction or impediment to the
view of the service (see no. 28B). Interestingly enough, the lantern has an
onion-shaped crown which suggests the curvature of the final crown of
Berninis baldachin.
D. Project by Agostino Ciampelli.
Mentioned by Fioravante Martinelli; cf. p. 95 and n. 53 above.
E. Project by Martino Ferrabosco.
Revised version of the original project; cf. no. 23 and Appendix II.
F. Project by Papirio Bartoli.
Originally planned in 1620; cf. no. 24.
178
Appendix II
Martino Ferraboscos engraved project for the
Saint Peters ciborium
I have omitted from consideration in the body of this paper a project for the
Saint Peters ciborium that has played an important role in discussions of the history of the monument since the late seventeenth century. This is a design (Fig. 79)
recorded in a volume of engravings, plans, elevations, and projects for Saint Peters
by Martino Ferrabosco, published in 1684 by Giovanni Battista Costaguti.175 The
title page of the 1684 edition says that the work was first issued in 1620, and although the engraving of the ciborium bears the arms of Urban VIII (elected August
6, 1623) 1620 has been taken as the terminus ante quem. Ferraboscos activity in
Rome is documented with certainty from February, 1613.176 He was buried on
August 3, 1623, during the conclave that elected Urban VIII.177
Knowledge of designs such as Cigolis and the model of the ciborium in the apse
(Figs. 2, 24, 26) makes it clear that the engraved project is not nearly so original as
had been thought. The domed central feature, the projecting colonnaded wings,
the spiral columns are all derived from earlier sources. But the engraving also shows
certain elements that closely parallel Berninis first baldachin. The spiral columns
in the engraving are specifically of the sacrament type; on the underside of the
dome, clouds with rays that may emanate from a dove of the Holy Spirit are visible; the lantern of the dome is covered by a pergola-like cupola with open ribs, and
this supports a crowning figure of the Risen Christ. The caption to the plate in the
Ferrabosco, Architettura, Pl. XXVII.

Information H. Hibbard. Cf. Beltrami, Ferabosco, 23; U. Donati, Artisti ticinesi a
Roma, Bellinzona, 1942, 405 ff. The plan of a wooden model for a circular confessio projected by Ferrabosco is reproduced in Buonanni, Num. templ. vat., Pl. 45; cf. Beltrami,
Ferabosco, 28, Fig. 4. Assuming the attribution is correct, Ferrabosco must have been in
Rome at least by 1611, when Madernos confessio was begun (cf. n. 35 above).
177
Beltrami, Ferabosco, 24.
175
176
179
1684 volume says explicitly that the design was Ferraboscos, that it was shown to
Urban VIII before he built the bronze baldachin, and that comparison with the latter shows it influenced Berninis design.178 Filippo Buonanni in 1696 reproduces
the project, and adds that the pope rejected it because it occuppied too much
space.179
There is no reason to doubt that a design by Ferrabosco existed and that it was
shown after his death to Urban VIII. Bernini had other competition as well.180 But
no copy of the 1620 edition of the Architettura has ever been found.181 In fact, there
was no 1620 edition, at least not in the form of a published book. This is evident
from a draft for the preface and captions to the Architettura preserved in a manuscript of materials by and pertaining to one Carlo Ferrante Gianfattori (alias
Ferrante Carli), whom Paul V had appointed to write a history of the basilica to accompany Ferraboscos engravings.182 This draft is in a uniform hand, but it is clear
from the phraseology that the preface was written first by Ferrabosco himself, after
Paul Vs death (January 28, 1621).183 Appended to the preface is the following statement: Questopera f lasciata da Martino Ferrabosco imperfetta ridotta a fine a
spese di Mons. Costaguti con disegno dAndrea Carone.184 In a passage elsewhere
Gianfattori says of Ferrabosco: iamque universum opus per vices et intervalla distractum ad umbilicum fere perduxerat, cum brevi morbo terris, eripitur.185
It is therefore certain that no 1620 edition was actually published, and that the
work was not altogether complete when Ferrabosco died. Since the engraving of the
Ibid., 27: Disegno di Ferrabosco. Questo ornamento stato fatto da Urbano VIII . . . al
quale prima di far lopera f fatto vedere il presente disegno, in qualche parte imitato, come
dallopera medesima si riconosce.
179
Fuerat etiam Pontefici oblata alia ornamenti idea, in qua collocabantur columnae
vitineae, quibus olim Divi Petri Confessio extrinsecus ornabantur . . . sed cum Templi Aream
nimis in longum protensa inutiliter occuparet, ineptam extimavit. (Buonanni, Num. templ. vat.,
130.)
180
See the competing projects listed in Appendix I, no. 28.
181
Cf. L. Schudt, Le guide di Roma, Vienna-Augsburg, 1930, 155; but see n. 186 below.
182
Bibl. Vat., MS. lat. 10742, fols. 370 ff. The preface was published in part (and with
some errors in transcription) by H. Egger, Der Uhrturm Pauls V, Mededeelingen van het
nederlandsch historisch Instituut te Rome, 9, 1929, 94 f. Cf. also the relevant passage in a manuscript biography of Paul V by G. B. Costaguti the elder in the Costaguti archive, published
by Pastor, XXVI, 492.
183
Ho final.te p gr del S.o Dio tiratala fine, e distribuite le tavole in pi parti . . . havendo fatte vedere alc.e delle pti tavole alla S.M. di Paolo Vo le qli erano in sua vita finite, gli
piacquero in modo, che command si attendesse al fine, e volse che fossero vestite dhistoria
da persona giudicata p lettere, e p guid.o habile tanto carico, f Ferrante Carlo. (Bibl. Vat.,
MS. lat. 10742, fol. 370v.)
184
Ibid. I have been unable to identify Andrea Carone.
185
Beltrami, Ferabosco, 28, n. 6.
178
180
ciborium bears Urban VIIIs arms it may well have belonged to the unfinished portion.186 The captions in the manuscript draft are similar to, but not identical with
those in the 1684 edition. The draft of the caption for a tabernacle that would have
been included as Plate XXIX shows that it was produced during the early stages of
work on Berninis baldachin; this it praises, and lays no claim to an influence on
Bernini: . . . hoggi dalla S. di N.S.P.P. Urbano 8o si arricchisce di un baldacchino
sostentato da 4 colonne di metallo.187 A probable terminus ante quem for the addition of the papal arms is the death of Mons. Costaguti, Sr. (uncle of the Mons. G.
B. Costaguti, Jr., who finally published the work in 1684) on September 3, 1625.188
By this time, as the engraving of Elizabeth of Portugals canonization in March indicates (Fig. 30; see above, p. 93), Berninis project was public knowledge.
This is precisely the period when Gianfattori was working on his history of the
basilica, which he also left unfinished. It has been shown that his work on the basilica is an outright plagiarism of Jacopo Grimaldi.189 A few years later it was reported
186
There is in the Bibliotheca Hertziana in Rome a volume, acquired after Schudts
publication (Le guide di Roma, 1930), with a frontispiece identical to that of the 1684 edition but bearing the following inscription: Alla S.ta di N.S. P P Paulo Quinto. Libro de
larchitettura DI SAN PIETRO nel Vaticano FINITO Col disegno di Michel Angelo
BONAROTO ET DAltri Architetti expressa in piu Tavole Da Martino Ferabosco. In
Roma Lanno 1620 NEL VATICANO. Con licenza, e Privilegio. The volume contains
the same plates as the 1684 edition, including the ciborium project with the arms of
Urban VIII! The differences from the 1684 edition are that there are no text or captions,
some of the plates are arranged differently, there is an additional plate (elevation of one
of the little domes and the attic), and two plates that have coats of arms in the 1684 edition are without them here. The volume also contains at the end various other engravings
of the sixteenth and later seventeenth centuries pertaining to Saint Peters. The binding is
stamped with the arms of Cardinal Francesco Nerli (elevated Nov. 29, 1669, d. Nov. 6,
1670; cf. P. Gauchat, Hierarchia catholica medii et recentiores aevi, Regensburg, 1913 ff.,
V, 5).
Ferraboscos engravings, including the frontispiece, are here clearly in their original proof
state, ready for publication. The fact that even here the ciborium bears the arms of Urban
suggests that the plate in its first, pre-Barberini state was unfinished.
The coats of arms in other plates in the 1684 edition were added later, but before the
publication: on Pl. IV, the atrium of Old Saint Peters, the arms of Card. Vincenzo Costaguti
(elevated July, 1643, d. Dec., 1660; Gauchat, Hierarchia catholica, IV, 26); on Pl. V, interior of Old Saint Peters, the arms of Card. G. B. Pallotta (elevated Nov., 1629, d. Jan., 1668;
ibid., 23).
187
Bibl. Vat., MS. lat. 10742, fol. 375v.
188
Moroni, Dizionario, XLI, 263; Pastor, XXVI, 482 n. 2, adds some further information on the elder Costaguti. The second G. B. Costaguti later became cardinal.
189
See Ch. Heulsen, Il circo di Nerone al Vaticano, in Miscellanea Ceriani, Milan, 1910,
264 ff. On Gianfattori cf. also A. Borzelli, LAssunta del Lanfranco in S. Andrea della Valle giudicata da Ferrante Carli, Naples, 1910.
181
that Gianfattori was the author of attacks against Bernini concerning the dome of
Saint Peters, and had a mortal hatred of the artist.190
Suspicion that besides the addition of Urbans arms the engraving may have
been altered in imitation of Berninis project receives strong support from three
considerations. A drawing in the Albertina (Fig. 27) shows a project in which the
essential elements are virtually identical with those in the engraving.191 Yet it differs
from the print, apart from the absence of the attic on the wings, in that precisely
the major details which the engraving has in common with Berninis design the
sacramental columns, the open ribbed pergola, the Risen Christ, the Holy Spirit
in the dome are missing. Secondly, the columns in the print are of the sacramental type, implying that all but two were to be newly made. It seems more
reasonable to assume that Ferraboscos original intention, as Buonanni specifically
states,192 was to reuse the original columns, and that their decoration in the engraving was either added (if the print was unfinished), or changed. Finally, and
most significant, the engraving itself shows a crucial reworking: between the central buttresses of the lantern traces of a globe supported on a tapering base are
clearly visible (Fig. 80). Thus, the lantern, the pergola, and the Risen Christ were
all an afterthought.
I would suggest that the engraving was initially a project by Ferrabosco for a
ciborium-screen, perhaps in conjunction with his project for the choir in the main
apse,193 intended to be placed at the entrance to the apse. When Urban was elected
and plans for a permanent structure over the tomb altar in the crossing were developing, the engraving was submitted,194 after having been finished or altered to
accommodate the same symbolism as Berninis baldachin.
Addenda
1. To n. 27 and Appendix I no. 19. In the first volume of his catalogue of the
drawings of Borromini, which has now been published (Francesco Borromini. Die
Zeichnungen, Graz, 1967, 14, col. 1, n. 3), H. Thelen refers to a drawing of the ci-
Fraschetti, Bernini, 71 n. 1: Le scritture che si vedono intorno alla Cupola di San

Pietro derivano da Ferrante Carli, ch nemico del Cavaliere Bernino et che vorrebee vederlo esterminato. (Letter of the Mantuan ambassador, Jan. 3, 1637.)
191
Appendix I, no. 20.
192
Quoted n. 179, above.
193
See Appendix I, nos. 21 ff.
194
And rejected because the wings were an obstruction in the midst of the crossing (cf.
n. 179 above).
190
182
borium model built in 1606 in the choir of Saint Peters. The drawing (Fig. 28A)
is part of an album dated 16131616 and attributed to the French Jesuit architect
Franois Derand (J. Guiffrey and P. Marcel, Inventaire gnral des dessins du Muse
du Louvre et du Muse de Versailles. cole franaise, V, Paris, 1910, no. 3598; it
should be noted that the attribution to Derand has been challenged by H. von
Geymller, Die Baukunst der Renaissance in Frankreich, Stuttgart, I, 1901, 309 f.,
followed by P. Moisy, Larchitecte Franois Derand, Jsuite lorrain, Revue dhistoire
de lglise de France, 36, 1950, 150 ff.). The drawing shows the elevation and plan
of the centrepiece, and bears the inscription, plan et elevation de la chapelle quon
a fait a St pierre sur le grand autel ou il j a huit coulonnes torse et a chaque coulonne
un tel piedestal.
2. To n. 53. Thelen (Borromini Zeichnungen, 98 f.) and his collaborators determined that the marginal corrections in Fioravante Martinellis manuscript
guidebook were originally written by Boromini himself, whose penciled handwriting, subsequently erased but faintly visible, they were able to decipher beneath the
transcript in ink. In transcribing the original comment on the passage concerning
the baldachin, Martintelli inadvertently omitted from the last sentence, recording
Ciampellis criticism, a phrase which explicitly confirms the view (pp. 95 f. above)
that the fusion of the canopy with the cornices of the columns was part of a deliberate effort to create a hybrid form grammatically execrable comprising
both a baldachin and a ciborium. Borrominis original sentence ran as follows (italics mine): . . . diceua che le baldacchini non si sostiengono con le colone ma con
le haste, et che il baldacchino non ricor(r)a asieme con la cornice dele colone, et in ogni
modo uoleua che lo regessero li angeli.
3. To n. 60. on the Successa medal (Fig. 38) see also Krautheimer, Corpus basilicarum (cited n. 159 above), II, 1, p. 4, n. 1. The doubt expressed by Franchi de
Cavalieri concerning the authenticity of the medal may be dismissed. The question
had been raised in De Rossis time, and the main import of his study was that the
medal, far from being unusual as a type, belonged to a large class of such votive
pendants. The famous ivory casket from Pola, discovered subsequently, on which
the reconstruction of the Constantinian ciborium depends in part, confirms the validity of the structure depicted on the medal, if not also its connection with Saint
Peters. (On the Pola casket, see most recently T. Buddensieg, Le coffret en ivoire
de Pola, Saint-Pierre et le Latran, CahArch, 10, 1959, 157 ff.) The notion that the
medal was found only in 1636 is based on a misreading of Mntriers letter, and
the possibility that it came from the Verano catacomb was offered by De Rossi
purely as a hypothesis, suggested by the representation of the martyrdom of St.
Lawrence that appears on the reverse.
4. To n. 66. According to the calculations of T. C. Bannister, the Constantinian
shrine at Saint Peters itself reproduced exactly the size and shape given in The First
Book of Kings for the Holy of Holies of Solomons Temple (The Constantinian
Basilica of Saint Peter at Rome, JSAH, 27, 1968, 29).
183
5. To n. 114. In a paper delivered at the annual meeting of the College Art

Association of America, January, 1968, Professor Olga Berendsen pointed out an
intriguing precedent for the final version of the crown of the baldachin, in a
catafalque erected in 1621 in Santi Giovanni e Paolo, Venice, for the obsequies of
Cosimo II de Medici, of which the crown consisted of similarly curved ribs surmounted at the apex by a regal diadem (Orazione di Giulio Strozzi recitata da lui in
Venetia nellesequie del Sereniss. D. Cosimo II. Quarto G. Duca di Toscana. Fatte dalla
Natione Fiorentina il d 25. di Maggio 1621, Venice, 1621, ills. opp. pp. 4, 5, 19).
Dr. Berendsen plans to enlarge upon the analogy in a separate article.
6. To n. 134. Besides Nava Cellini, see Mezzetti, in Lideale classico (cited n. 119
above), 363, and J. Hess, Kunstgeschichtliche Studien zu Renaissance und Barock,
Rome, 1967, 137.
184
Bibliography of frequently cited sources

Alfarano, T., De basilicae vaticanae antiquissima et nova structura (Studi e testi,
XXVI), ed. M. Cerrati, Rome, 1914.
Armellini, M., Le chiese di Roma dal secolo IV al XIX, 2 Vols., Rome, 1942.
Baglione, G., Le vite de pittori, scultori et architetti (1st ed., Rome, 1642), facsimile ed., ed. V. Mariani, Rome, 1935.
Baldinucci, F., Vita del Cavaliere Gio. Lorenzo Bernino (1st ed., Florence, 1682), ed.
S. Ludovici, Milan, 1948.
Bartoli, P., Discorso sopra una forma di coro per le funtioni ponteficie che si potria fare
nel tempio di S. Pietro in Vaticano che riuscira molto vago, et misterioso e pieno di
devotione, Rome, Bibl. Vitt. Em., MS. Fondi Minori 3808, interni 1 and 2.
Beltrami, G., Martino Ferabosco Architetto, LArte, 29, 1926, 2337.
Borea, F., Domenichino, Florence, 1965.
Brauer, H., and Wittkower, R., Die Zeichnungen des Gianlorenzo Bernini, 2 Vols.,
Berlin, 1931.
Braun, J., Der christliche Altar, 2 Vols., Munich, 1924.
Buonanni, F., Numismata pontificum romanorum quae a tempore Martini V usque
ad annum MDCXCIX, 2 Vols., Rome, 1699.
, Numismata summorum pontificum templi vaticani fabricam indicantia,
Rome, 1696.
La canonizzazione dei santi Ignazio di Loiola Fondatore della Compagnia di Ges e
Francesco Saverio Apostolo dellOriente. Ricordo del terzo centenario XII Marzo
MCMXII. A cura del Comitato romano ispano per le centenarie onoranze, Rome,
1922.
Collectionis bullarum, brevium, aliorumque diplomatum sacrosanctae basilicae
Vaticanae . . ., 3 Vols., Rome, 17471752.
Donesmondi, I., Dellistoria ecclesiastica di Mantova, 2 Vols., Mantua,
16121616.
Ettlinger, L. D., The Sistine Chapel Before Michelangelo, Oxford, 1965.
Ferrabosco, M., Architettura della basilica di S. Pietro . . . posta in luce lanno
MDCXX. Di nuovo dato alle stampe da Mons. Gio. Battista Costaguti . . ., Rome,
1684.
Forcella, V., Iscrizioni delle chiese e daltri edificii di Roma, 14 Vols., Rome,
18691884.
Fransolet, M., Le S. Andr de Franois Duquesnoy, la Basilique de S. Pierre au
185
Vatican 16291640, B de lInstitut historique belge de Rome, 13, 1933,

227286.
Fraschetti, S., Il Bernini, Milan, 1990.
Grimaldi, J., Instrumenta autentica translationum sanctorum corporum & sacrarum
reliquiarum . . . 1619, 2 Vols., Rome, Bibl. Vat., MS. Barb. lat. 2733.
, Opusculum de sacrosancto Veronicae sudario, de lancea . . ., 1618, Rome,
Bibl. Vat., Archivio del Capitolo di S. Pietro, MS. H 3.
Hess, J., Notes sur le sculpteur Franois Duquesnoy, La revue de lart, 69, 1936,
2136.
, ed., die Knstlerbiographien von Giovanni Battista Passeri, Leipzig-Vienna,
1934.
Kauffmann, H., Berninis Hl. Longinus, in Miscellaneae Bibliothecae Hertzianae,
Munich, 1961, 366374.
, Berninis Tabernakel, MnchJb, 6, 1955, 222242.
Magnuson, T., Studies in Roman Quattrocento Architecture (Figura, IX), Stockholm,
1958.
Il modo di fare il tabernacolo, vero baldachino, Rome, Bibl. Vat., MS. Barb. lat.
4344, fols. 26r and v.
Moroni, G., Dizionario di erudizione storico-ecclesiastica da S. Pietro sino ai nostri
giorni, 103 Vols., Rome, 18401861.
Nava Cellini, A., Duquesnoy e Poussin: Nuovi contributi, Paragone, 17, no. 195,
1966, 3059.
Orbaan, J. A. F., Der Abbruch Alt-Sankt Peters 16051615, JPKS, 39, 1919,
Beiheft.
, Documenti sul barocco in Roma, Rome, 1920.
Panciroli, O., Tesori nascosti dellalma citt di Roma, Rome, 1625.
Pastor, L., The History of the Popes, 40 Vols., London, 19231953.
Pollak, O., Ausgewhlte Akten zur Geschichte der rmischen Peterskirche
(15351621), JPKS, 36, 1915, Beiheft.
, Die Kunstttigkeit unter Urban VIII, ed. D. Frey et al., 2 Vols., Vienna,
19281931.
San Carlo Borromeo nel terzo centenario della canonizzazione MDCXMCMX
(Periodical published November, 1908December, 1910).
Severano, G., Memorie sacre delle sette chiese di Roma, 2 Vols., Rome, 1630.
Siebenhner, H., Umrisse zur Geschichte der Ausstattung von St. Peter in Rom
von Paul III bis Paul V (15471606), in Festschrift fr Hans Sedlmayr,
Munich, 1962, 229320.
Taja, A., Descrizione del palazzo apostolico vaticano, Rome, 1750.
Torriggio, F. M., Le sacre grotte vaticane, Rome, 1635.
Five New Youthful Sculptures by Gianlorenzo Bernini

and a Revised Chronology of His Early Works*
N 1606 the Archconfraternity of the Piet, proprietor of the Basilica of

San Giovanni dei Fiorentini in Rome, determined to erect a hospital
N.B. A bibliography of frequently cited sources, given short titles in the footnotes, and
a list of abbreviations will be found at the end of this article.
* It gives me great satisfaction to record the debt I have incurred to Professor Italo Faldi
of the Soprintendenza alle Gallerie of Rome. He has facilitated and encouraged my efforts,
often at unconscionable expenditures of his time and energy, in a spirit that can only be
described as fraternal. I deem it a privilege that my contribution may be regarded as an
extension of Faldis own revolutionary work on Berninis early chronology.
The substance of this article was first presented in a lecture delivered at the American
Academy in Rome in January 1996. I am grateful to Professor Frank E. Brown, the
Academys Director, for providing that opportunity. The Marchese Giovanni Battista
Sacchetti, President of the Archconfraternity of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini, and Professor
Guglielmo Matthiae, Soprintendente alle Gallerie del Lazio, gave their ready cooperation in
matters concerning the restoration and installation of the busts found at San Giovanni. The
costs of cleaning, restoring, and installing the busts were covered by a contribution from
Washington Square College, New York University; Professor H. W. Janson and Dean
William E. Buckler were instrumental in obtaining the funds. Thanks are due to Prince
Urbano Barberini, who gave his consent nearly a decade ago to my researches in the archive
of the Barberini family, preserved in the Vatican Library; to my wife, Marilyn Aronberg
Lavin, whose labors brought to light the bulk of the documents I shall cite from the
Barberini archive (Mrs. Lavin will soon publish the seventeenth-century Barberini inventories); and to Dott. Carlo Bertelli, Director of the Gabinetto Fotografico Nazionale in Rome,
who, in effect, placed at my disposal that organizations expert personnel and resources.
After this article was set in type a book by C. DOnofrio, Roma vista da Roma, Rome,
1967, dealing in part with the same material presented here, became available to me; the
work is largely polemical and, while it provides useful new information concerning the
period, it contains nothing that affects my conclusions.
FIVE EARLY BERNINIS
187
flanking the south side of the church, between it and the Tiber.1 The confraternity had been founded in the fifteenth century, and the hospital, one
of many such national institutions in Rome, was to provide charitable aid
and hospitality to Florentines, whether pilgrims or permanent residents in
the Holy City, in need of assistance. Construction of the hospital began in
December 1607.2 It was a fairly imposing structure of three stories, with a
main central entrance and a balconied window above, flanked on either side
by two smaller doorways.3
The funds for the construction and maintenance of the hospital were to
come chiefly from donations made by members of the Florentine community in Rome. The three important donors in the first half of the seventeenth century, all of whom were honored by the confraternity with
commemorative monuments closely related to one another in type and in
physical location. The first of the three was Antonio Coppola, who is
described in his commemorative inscription as an eminent surgeon.4
Coppola died on February 24, 1612, at the age of seventy-nine, having
willed worldly goods to the hospital.5 He was the first person to do so, and
1
M. M. Lumbroso and A. Martini, Le confraternite romane nelle loro chiese, Rome, 1963,
164 ff.; Rufini, S. Giovanni de Fiorentini, 6 ff., 2425, G. Moroni, Dizionario di erudizione
storico-ecclesiastica, Rome, 1840 ff., 11, 29697.
2
ASGF, Busta 310, Scritture diverse Spettanti alla V. Chiesa Compagnia della Piet et
Ospedale di S. Gio. deFiorentini, fol. 120.
3
The faade of the hospital is shown in a mid-eighteenth-century engraving inscribed
Barbault del. and D. Montagu sculp. (Rome, Palazzo Venezia library: Roma. XI. 38. IX
2). The faade of the church, by Alessandro Galilei, was built in 173334 (cf. Rufini,
3435). A photograph showing the central portal of the hospital during the demolition
(1937) is in the Gabinetto Fotografico Nazionale, Rome (E. 21746).
4
See note 6 below for the inscription.
5
A copy of Coppolas will (along with that of Antonio Cepparelli) is found in ASGF,
Busta 606; it is notarized May 30, 1611, by Bartolomeus Dinus, notary of the Camera
Apostolica.
On February 19, 1612, five days before he died, Coppola also gave the funds for building the Cappella della Madonna in the transept to the right of the high altar in San
Giovanni. The contract for the chapel, with Matteo Castelli, was signed on August 30, 1612,
and on June 3, 1614, Simone Castelli accepted final payment for the work. (Documents,
including a signed drawing by Castelli, in ASR, 30 Notai Capitolini, Not. Bart. Dinius,
Busta 24, fols. 6768, 440 ff.; cf. Rufini, 59 ff. Photograph of the drawing: Gab. Fot. Naz.,
Rome, E. 42132).
188
in recognition of this signal benefaction the confraternity determined to

erect an appropriate inscription and a marble portrait bust in the hospital.6
The second benefactor with whom we shall be concerned was Antonio
Cepparelli. A member of a noble patrician family of Florence, he died on
April 18, 1622, at the age of sixty-five, having also left a legacy to the hospital.7 The confraternity again decided to record its appreciation in the form
The inscription reads as follows:
ANTONIO . COPPOLAE . FLORENTINO
CHIRVRGO . INSIGNI
QVI . PRIMVS . OMNIA . SVA . BONA
XENODOCHIO . RELIQVIT
EIVSDEM . XENODOCII . DEPVTATI
QVIBVS . MANDATA . TESTAMENTI . EXECVTIO
OPTIMO . BENEFACTORI . POSVERE
ANNO . M . DC . XIIII . MENSE . IVNII
VIXIT ANNIS LXXIX
OBIIT . DIE . XXIIII . FERRVARII
M . DC . XII
(Forcella, VII, 16, No. 30).
Coppola was buried in the nave of the church, where his tomb inscription, which he had
prepared six years before his death, is still to be seen:
D.O.M
ANTONIVS . DE . COPPOLIS
CHIRVRGVS . FLORENTINVS
ANNOS . NATVS . LXXIII
CASVM . FVTVRE [sic] . MORTIS
ANIMO . REVOLVENS
VIVENS
MONVMENTVM . POSVIT
ANNO . SALVTIS . M . DCVI
OBIIT . DIE . XXIIII . FEBRVARII
M . DC . XII
AETATIS . SVAE . LXXVIIII
(Ibid., No. 29).
7
Cepparellis death is recorded in the Libri dei Morti of the parish of SS. Celso e
Giuliano, where he had died in the Inn of the Sign of the Cat:
A di 18 Aprile. Antonio Cepparello gentilhomo fiorentino di eta di anni 70 incirca
alla Camera locanda della insigna della gatta doppo ri.i tutti li ss.ti sacramenti et raccoman.ne di anima mori et fu septto a S. Giovanni di fiorentini
(Rome, Archivio del Vicariato, SS. Celso e Giuliano, Morti dal 1617 al 1624, fol. 98r), and
in that of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini (ibid., San Giovanni dei Fiorentini, Liber III
Defunct. ab Anno 1600 ad 1626, fol. 63v).
Cepparelli was born on March 27, 1557 (Florence, Archivio dellopera del duomo,
Maschi dal 1542 al 1561, Lettere A G, fol. 37v).
6
FIVE EARLY BERNINIS
189
of a portrait bust and accompanying inscription.8 Both the record of the

deliberations of the confraternity on this occasion and the inscription itself
specifically state that the new monument was made in emulation of that to
the earlier Antonio (see Appendix, Doc. 20). This provision was carried out
literally, since the two monuments were similar in form and were installed
next to each other in a room in the hospital, and since, as we shall see, the
same artist executed the busts.
The third benefactor was Pietro Cambi, who died in 1627, to whom the
hospital also dedicated a portrait bust and inscription. The bust, which
The commemorative inscription in the hospital, now lost, is recorded:

ANTONIO . CEPPARELLO
PATRITIO . FLORENTINO
HOSPITALE
PIAE . AEMVLATIONIS
ALTERIVS . ANTONII
MONVMENTVM
STATVIT
ANNO . FVNDATAE . SALVTIS . M . DC . XXII
Cepparelli was also buried in the nave of the church, with the following inscription, still
extant:
D. O. M.
ANTONIO CEPPARELLO
CLARA NATALIVM NOBILITATE
FLORENTIAE GENITO
ILLVSTRI PIETATIS EXEMPLO
ROMAE EXTINTO [sic]
XENODOCHIVM NATIONIS
AETERNAE MEMORIAE TVMVLVM
REDDIDIT
A QVO MAXIMI PATRIMONII
CVMVLVM ACCEPIT
CETERISQVE
QVI . HVIVS . MAGNANIMITATEM
PIE . AEMVLATI
POSTERIS . DOCVMENTVM
RELIQVERINT
SIBI . MONVMENTVM . MERVERINT
AN . SAL . MDCXXII
8
190
repeats the form of the Coppola portrait, was executed during 16291630
by Pompeo Ferrucci (Fig. 10).9
The location of the monuments is given in a manuscript description of
the churches and pious institutions in Rome written toward the middle of
the seventeenth century by Giovanni Antonio Bruzio. Bruzio copied the
inscriptions, and noted that the memorials were in the hospital, at the side
overlooking the Tiber, above the door leading to the balcony; the monument to Coppola was in the center, that to Cepparelli on the right, and that
to Pietro Cambi on the left.10 In 1876 the inscriptions were polished by
Forcella, who also records the existence of the portraits. Their authorship
seems to have been quite lost to history; they are not mentioned by
Berninis biographers, and he is not named on the few occasions when they
appear in Roman guidebooks.11
In 1937 the hospital was demolished to make way for the present structure.12 The three busts and the inscription commemorating Coppola were
salvaged and deposited in the sub-basement of the church by some far-
Docs. 24 ff. The inscription to Cambi, now lost, bore the date 1627; it is transcribed
in Forcella, VII, 24, No. 5. On Ferrucci, cf. V. Martinelli, Contributi alla scultura del
Seicento; II. Francesco Mochi a Piacenza; III. Pompeo Ferrucci, Commentari, 3,1952, 44 ff.
10
Sono poi nel do ospedale dalla parte che risponde sopra il Tevere sopra la Porta,
-p la quale sentra nella Renghitia queste memorie sotto i busti fatti di marmo dei
mentovati Benefattori, e prima nel mezzo parimente intagliata in marmo . . . [Coppolas
inscription] . . . a man destra . . . [Cepparellis inscription] . . . a man sinistra . . . [Cambis
inscription] . . . (BV, ms Vat. lat. 11888, fol. 321v).
On Bruzio, cf. C. Huelsen, Le chiese di Roma nel medio evo, Florence, 1927, xlvii ff.
Two balconies appear in various views made at the end of the century by Vanvitelli,
showing the back of the hospital and church (G. Briganti, Gaspar van Wittel, Rome, 1966,
illus. 83, 85, 9697; cf. 202 ff., Nos. 89 ff.
11
Baldinucci includes in the list of works appended to his biography of Bernini, Teste
fino al num. di 15
luoghi diversi (Vita, 179). The memorials are mentioned, without
indication of authorship, by C. B. Piazza, . Eusevologio romano; overo delle opere
pie di Roma, Rome, 1698, 126; C. L. Morichini, Deglistituti di pubblica carita e distruzione
primaria in Roma, Rome, 1835, 65; A. Nibby, Roma nellanno
MDCCCXXXV111, Parte Seconda Moderna, Rome, 1841, 157.
12
ASGF, unnumbered volume concerning the new building; cf. fascicules labeled
Licenza abitabilit (documents dated November 5, 1937) and Cerimonie sulla Posa della
prima Pietra e della inaugurazione uffiziale del nuovo fabbricato (May 1938).
9
FIVE EARLY BERNINIS
1. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Bust of Antonio Coppola,

Rome, San Giovanni dei Fiorentini
(photo: David Lees, Rome).
191
192
2. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Bust of Antonio Coppola.

Rome, San Giovanni dei Fiorentini (photo GFN).
193
FIVE EARLY BERNINIS
3. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Bust

of Antonio Coppola (detail).
Rome, San Giovanni dei
Fiorentini (photo GFN).
4. Roman Portriat.
Rome, Museo delle Terme.
194
sighted individual, who also took the precaution of writing the subjects
names on the busts in pencil, making the identifications positive.13
13
Over-all heights of the busts: Coppola 67 cm.; Cepparelli 70 cm.; Cambi 74 cm.
During their stay in the basement, at some point when the walls and ceiling were redecorated, the busts were heavily splashed with whitewash. Wherever it touched, the whitewash
left the marble surface irrevocably discolored. Otherwise, the busts are almost perfectly preserved, the only exceptions being the missing left ear of Coppola and left tip of Cepparellis
collar. Photographs of the busts before cleaning, with the areas of whitewash covering the
penciled names removed, are in the Gab. Fot. Naz., Rome.
The key to the discovery, which took place in September 1966, was a 4-volume manuscript catalogue of the archive compiled by Giuseppe Tomassetti (Catalogo delle Posizioni,
Pergamene e Scritture esistenti nellArchivio dei Pii Stabilimenti di S. Giovanni della
Nazione Fiorentina, compilato negli anni 18771879; cf. Rufini, 29). The alphabetical
index, under Bernini, refers to the payments for the bust of Cepparelli (cf. Parte Ill.
Ospedale e Consolato, 103). I first became aware that the Coppola monument had existed
from the reference to it in the decree of the confraternity commissioning that to Cepparelli
(Doc. 20). In turn, the existence of both of them in the nineteenth century, as well as that
to Cambi, was confirmed by the entries in Forcellas Iscrizioni (notes 6, 8, 9 above), where
the busts are also mentioned. Tomassettis index refers to the payments for the Cambi bust,
but the Coppola monument seems to have escaped him entirely.
The portraits came to light when, upon my inquiry, Commendatore Massimiliano
Casali, secretary of the Confraternity, recalled seeing certain busts in the basement years
before, and led me to them. Professor Faldi saw to their removal from the basement and to
their cleaning and restoration. This was carried out by Signor Americo Bigioni, restorer at
the excavations at Ostia. The procedure was as follows: (1) In order to avoid possible corrosion the original iron hooks in the backs of the busts of Coppola and Cambi (photographs
in the Gab. Fot. Naz., Rome), which had been held in place by a filling of lead, were replaced
by bronze rings. (2) The busts were washed and the hard calcium deposits of the whitewash
were removed with a scalpel. (3) To remove greasy dirt the surface was cleaned with alcohol,
carbon tetrachloride, and acetone. (4) The busts were then treated with a transparent acrylic
polymer consolidant, trade name Pantarol. (5) To eliminate the blanched effect left by the
chemical solvents and restore a certain lucidity to the surface, a final coating of natural
beeswax was applied.
Though I am not qualified to judge from a technical point of view, the visual results of
stages 35 are to my mind unfortunate. The beeswax combined with the Pantarol gave the
white-grey Carrara marble a yellowish cast and satinlike texture. I am also not convinced that
it was necessary to remove the original iron hooks, since the lead filling had effectively prevented corrosion at the point of insertion into the marble.
In January 1967 the busts of Coppola and Cepparelli were permanently installed on the
piers flanking the entrance to the sacristy of San Giovanni. They were placed on two consoles, contemporary but certainly not the originals, that were also found in the basement
storeroom. The original inscription honoring Coppola was placed under his portrait, and
under that of Cepparelli a copy with the text taken from Forcella. The bust of Cambi was
placed in the archive of the confraternity.
FIVE EARLY BERNINIS
195
The first reference to the Coppola bust (Figs. 13, 79) occurs in a
record of the meeting of the confraternity on March 8, 1612, about two
weeks after his death. Let four scudi be paid for the bust (casso) of wax
made for the head of the said Messer Antonio Coppola and let Piero Paolo
Calvalcanti along with Signor Francesco Ticci commission the sculptor
Bernini to make the marble head of the said Messer Antonio Coppola, to
be placed in the hospital. (Doc. 1). Four months later the bust must have
been finished, for at the meeting of the confraternity on July 16, 1612, the
following action was taken: A check was issued to pay the sculptor Bernini
that which is due him for the marble head of Messer Antonio Coppola, and
the amount was left blank, and an order was given to Signor Andrea
Pasquali that he along with Signor Francesco Ticci try to pay as little as possible. (Doc. 2). The price had been settled a month later when, on August
10, 1612, fifty scudi were paid to Pietro Bernini, to cover the entire cost of
the bust (Doc. 4). During August and September payments were made for
a gesso mold of Coppolas head and for his painted portrait (Docs. 3, 5).
According to the inscription the monument was installed in June 1614; the
inscription itself was not actually paid for until the end of the following year
(Doc. 6).14 The reason for this delay was probably that the hospital was not
yet completed during 16131614, as payments to various workmen show.15
These records are of considerable interest even apart from the fact that
they help to identify the author of the bust and fix very precise dates for its
A fourth bust was also found in the basement, where it still remains; it is a curiously
archaizing work, sixteenth-century in type, but with a complex and asymmetrical treatment
of the drapery that suggests a later period. It is perhaps to be identified with a bust of
Antonio Altoviti recorded by Forcella along with a commemorative inscription, dated 1698;
the location, whether in the hospital or in the church, is not given (Forcella, VII, 35,
No. 83).
14
The number of letters specified in the stonecutters bill (Doc. 6a) corresponds to that
in the preserved inscription, i.e., 225. The present dimensions (835 x 560 mm.) are smaller
than those mentioned (43/4 x 41/2 palmi = 1059 x 1003 mm.), indicating that the inscription
was cut down, probably when the other monuments were added to form a group. The
dimensions of the Cambi inscription were 780 x 353 mm. (31/2 x 17/12 palmi; cf. Doc. 28).
Roman palmo = 223 mm.
15
One payment may perhaps refer to the railing of the balcony of the room in which the
monuments were installed (see note 10 above): p avere rimesso sotto lo ispidale el chancello
chon mia ranpini echiodi eseghato la ispaliera delli ufiziali che si divida in 2 pezi erimesso le
banche atorno che erano chavate p el fiume 1 (Conto di lavori fatti p servizio dello
ispidale di san giovanni de fiorentini fatti dalli 20 di aprile 1613 insino alli 22 di febraro
1614); ASGF205, near the beginning of the volume. Other payments to muratori and
scarpellini for work during 161214 occur in the same volume.
196
execution March to July 1612. The references to wax and gesso forms
show that the portrait was based on a death mask made before Coppola was
interred. The order to pay for the portrait (Doc. 2) has two features that are,
in my experience, unique. The decree provides that a blank check
(mandato in bianco) be issued; this is the first time I, at least have encountered a bank draft of this kind in payments of the period. Furthermore, the
representatives of the confraternity are ordered to try to pay as little as possible. This, too, is new to me, and indicates that the price for the bust had
not been agreed upon in advance. Both these exceptional features suggest
that the circumstances of the commission were unusual. In 1612 Pietro
Bernini was fifty years old and one of the leading sculptors in Rome, having recently completed two major papal commissions.16 The confraternity
would scarcely have been in a position to deal with an artist of Pietro
Berninis stature in the manner implied by the blank check and the order to
pay as little as possible especially for a commission that had already been
accepted and carried out. On the other hand, this is exactly what one would
expect if the person who actually executed the work was a minor.
Gianlorenzo Bernini was born on December 7, 1598.17 At the time of the
commission of the Coppola bust his age was thirteen years and three
months. We know of several other instances during the following years in
which the father, acting as an agent, received the payments for work done
by his prodigious son.18
Even apart from the peculiarities of the financial arrangements, however,
and even if the bust itself were not preserved, we could deduce which
Bernini carved it. Pietro Bernini never made portrait busts. None are men-
16
The Assumption of the Virgin (160710) and the first version, now lost, of the
Coronation of Clement VIII for the chapel of Paul V in Santa Maria Maggiore (see note 37
below).
17
Berninis birthdate is recorded by Baldinucci and Domenico Bernini; Fraschettis effort
to find the baptismal record in Naples was fruitless (Bernini, 2 n. 1).
18
We shall discuss two such occasions below (pp. 246 and 265): the angels for Sant
Andrea della Valle, 1618, for which Gianlorenzo later received a retrospective payment on
his own (Doc. 17a); and one of the payments for the bust of Cepparelli, 1622, made out to
Gianlorenzo and signed for by Pietro (Doc. 22b). In later years, at Saint Peters, Pietro
became simply an administrator for work done under his sons direction (Pollak, II, passim;
cf. H. Hibbard and I. Jaffe, Berninis Barcaccia, BurlM, 106, 1964, 169), and received a
number of payments on behalf of Andrea Bolgi (Muoz, 459). Cf. also the case of the portrait of Cepparelli by Pompeo Caccini, whose son accepted the payment (below, note 120).
FIVE EARLY BERNINIS
197
tioned in the sources, none are recorded in the documents throughout his
long life, and none are preserved.19 A portrait presumably by him does exist,
which we shall consider shortly (cf. Fig. 12 and note 37; but it is of a very
special kind, and later than the bust of Coppola. The documents alone
would thus confront us with the choice either of imagining the bust to be
a work of the father, who never before and never afterward did a thing of
this kind, or of assuming it to have been in fact executed by the son, who
became one of the greatest portrait sculptors of all time and concerning
whom the early sources consistently tell us that it was precisely his amazing
precocity as a portraitist that brought him his first, childhood fame.20 We
have no less than three monuments executed jointly by the son and the
father before Pietros death in 1629, and in each case it was the son who did
the portrait bust, while the father was responsible for the accompanying figures.21 A significant point also, is that the bust of Antonio Cepparelli,
ordered by the confraternity a decade later with the specific intention of
emulating the first memorial, was commissioned from Gianlorenzo. Finally,
documentary evidence for Gianlorenzos authorship of the Coppola bust is
afforded by a payment made by the confraternity in May 1634 (Doc. 29).
A woodworker was then paid for installing in the basement of the hospital
two terra-cotta portraits, doubtless the preparatory models for the busts of
Coppola and Cepparelli. The document makes no distinction in the
authorship of the terra cottas, saying that both were by the hand of
Bernini. The workman was paid for the bases, iron clamps, etc., made for
maintenance of the two clay heads made by the hand of Bernini, which are
kept under the hospital. . . .22
The portrait of Coppola is an unforgettable image of an emaciated old
man with sunken cheeks and cavernous eye sockets. The spidery fingers
cling without force or tension to the drapery that envelops the figure like a
shroud. Here, the difference between life and death has been obliterated. It
is the figure of a man in suspended animation, emotionless and timeless, yet
For the bibliography on Pietro see Pope-Hennessy, Catalogue, 122. Significantly
enough, the one portrait bust attributed to him in a seventeenth-century (French) source,
that of Cardinal de Sourdis in Bordeaux, is actually the work of Gianlorenzo (see note 100
below).
20
Discussed below, pp. 202 ff.
21
See the works for Cardinal de Sourdis in Bordeaux, the tomb of Cardinal Dolfin in
Venice, and that of Cardinal Bellarmino in the Ges, discussed below.
22
Unhappily, I found no trace of the two models.
19
198
with the penetrating effect that only the spectre of death can have upon the
living.
The bust is a challenge to the very notion of juvenilia, by which we
mean works displaying characteristics attributable to the artists youth
alone, independent of his own personality or the period in which he lived.
The stiff posture, the relatively small head poked on the long, barrel-like
torso cut in an arc at the bottom elements such as these lend the bust a
quality of abstraction common in childrens art that might, conceivably,
lead one to suspect it was the work of an adolescent It would also have to
be admitted, however, that the portrait owes much of its disquieting effect
to these same elements. A somewhat analogous problem is raised by the fact
that the bust was made from a death mask. It might be argued that the mask
made possible a greater degree of realism than would have been attainable
otherwise. But the spectral quality of the image as a whole cannot be
explained in this way, since it depends as much on the pose and composition as on Coppolas physical features. Bernini seems to have been caught
by the idea of infusing in what is ostensibly the portrait of a living person
some of the deathliness of a corpse.23
If it is astonishing, to say the least, that a thirteen-year-old could conceive and execute an image of such affective power, it is equally disconcerting to realize that the work constitutes an important innovation in the history of modern portraiture. In the course of the sixteenth century in Rome
there had developed an austere, classical tradition of portraiture characterized, especially toward the end of the century, by compact, tightly drawn silhouettes, hard surfaces and sharp edges, and psychological effects of an
often aggressive intensity (cf. Fig. 6).24 Although this type continued well
into the first quarter of the seventeenth century, after about 1600 there is
evidence of a tendency to mitigate its severity, with softer textures and more
relaxed facial expressions.25 The Coppola bust takes its point of departure
from this phase of the development. With its closed outline and simple,
almost geometric shapes it adheres closely to the classical tradition (which,
indeed, Bernini never entirely forsook). In other respects, however, it
The underlying attitude is essentially the same as that which led Bernini in later years
to develop his famous speaking likenesses to preserve the vitality of the living.
24
The development is made sufficiently clear in Grisebachs Rmische Portratbsten der
Gegenreformation, cf. 19 ff.; it should be borne in mind that Grisebachs survey is confined
almost exclusively to portraits made for tombs, and omits papal portraits entirely.
25
Ibid., 2324, 150.
23
FIVE EARLY BERNINIS
199
reflects a spirit fundamentally different from that which had prevailed in

Rome in the wake of the Counter Reformation.
To begin with, the form of the bust, cloaked around the shoulders with
the right hand emerging to grasp the edge of the drapery at the front, is
based on an authentically classical portrait type that had developed from
Greek representations of philosophers, poets, and orators (Fig. 4).26 It has
been thought that Bernini revived this ancient formula a good many years
later, in his portrait of Giovanni Vigevano in Santa Maria sopra Minerva
(Fig. 46); later still he used it again, with variations, in the bust of Thomas
Baker in the Victoria and Albert Museum.27 The device is one of several
Bernini adopted in his lifelong concern with the problem of suggesting the
missing parts of the body.28 Yet, he always avoided an effect of arbitrary
truncation; in the Coppola portrait the curvature and rounded forward
edge of the lower contour assure that the observer perceives the bust as an
ideal, self-sufficient form, not as a kind of fragment.29
Bernini was not the first to study this ancient portrait type. His interest
in it had been anticipated in two busts of members of the Pio da Carpi family in Santa Trinit dei Monti in Rome, made in the latter part of the sixteenth century (Figs. 5, 6).30 There is, however, a profound difference in the
B. M. Felletti Maj, Museo nazionale romano. 1 ritratti, Rome, 1953, 149, Fig. 297; cf. K.
Schefold, Die Bildnisse der antiken Dichter Redner und Denker, Basel, 1943, 9293, 10203. The
motif also occurs frequently in the portraits on ancient sarcophagi and funereal reliefs.
27
Cf. Wittkower, 1953, 2021, who was the first to emphasize the dependence on
Roman prototypes. On the dating of the bust of Vigevano, see below; on the Baker bust,
Wittkower, 1966, 208, No. 40, Pl. 64.
The formula was also adopted by Giuliano Finelli for his bust of Michelangelo
Buonarroti, Jr., in the Casa Buonarotti in Florence. We may note that this portrait must have
been made during Buonarrotis visit to Rome in 1630 (A. Nava Cellini, Un tracciato per
lattivit ritrattistica di Giuliano Finelli, Paragone, 1960, No. 131, 19), as is evident from a
letter written on December 28 of that year by Finelli to Buonarroti, acknowledging the latters praises: . . . e se i Pittori, e gli scultori e i gentilli.mi sono ritornati a rivedere il ritratto,
e gli sono mostrati invidiosi si assicuri da scritore, che gli sono, che hano la vera emulatione
all Originale . . . (BLF, MS Buonarroti 42, No. 910).
28
On this point, see Wittkower, 1953, 21.
29
Contrast Baccio Bandinellis bronze bust of Cosimo I de Medici recently published by
Heikamp (Pls. 45, 47, 48), which gives something of the effect of an ancient statue fragment; in the draft of a letter to the Duke, Bandinelli anticipates the objection that it seems
incomplete by suggesting that arms and legs might easily be added (Heikamp, 58).
30
Grisebach, 100 ff. Professor James Holderbaum called my attention to the fact that the
bust of Cardinal Pio da Carpi is a documented work, 156768, by Leonardo da Sarzano (A.
Bertolotti, Artisti Subalpini in Roma nei secoli XV, XVI e XVII, Bologna, 1884, 102;
26
200
interpretation of the classical formula. In the earlier works it is used for

what might be called ulterior motives. Cardinal Pios hand is extended in a
gesture that invites the beholder to prayer at the altar, and the hand of
Cecilia Orsini holds a rosary that serves to demonstrate her piety. In
Berninis portrait there are no such ulterior motives. Although Coppolas
dress is modern, the purely expressive significance of the classical device,
which creates a mood of contemplative introspection, is understood and
retained. Coppola is psychologically disarmed, so to speak, and this feeling
of intimacy is one of the factors that most clearly distinguish the bust as a
new departure. The fresh and unvitiating approach to the art of antiquity,
also, is characteristic of Berninis early work, as we shall have occasion to
observe again.
While the study of antiquity played an important role in the conception
of the Coppola bust, many aspects of its style can also be traced to Berninis
father. This may be seen from a comparison with Pietro Berninis relief of
the Assumption of the Virgin in the sacristy of Santa Maria Maggiore in
Rome (16071610), a work that had itself made an important contribution
to the transformation of Roman sculpture in the first decade of the century
(Fig. 27).31 Here we find similarly flat, angular folds of drapery that establish linear patterns of movement; beards and hair that are not described in
detail but are treated as coherent masses from which tufts emerge; and most
especially, an extraordinary bravura of technique with daring perforations
and undercuttings that create an intricate play of shadows and emphasize
the fragility of the stone (cf. Fig. 3).
Yet the Coppola bust has none of the outr visual and expressive effects
of Pietros relief. An initial insight into the peculiar stylistic quality of the
portrait is suggested by the scarcely perceptible deviation of the head to the
left of the central axis; at the same time, the eyes turn slightly to the right.
Optical refinements of this kind, exquisite in their subtlety, pervade the
whole work. At some point in his life Coppola must have received a blow
to the cranium, and a special fall of light is necessary to study the complex
configuration of the depression it left in his forehead (Fig. 7). The rings
cf. W. Gramberg, review of Grisebach, ZfK, N.F., 6, 1937, 50). Cecilia Orsinis bust must be
a decade later; she died in 1575.
Miss Ann Markham has called my attention to Holbeins portrait of Hermann
Hildebrandt Wedigh in Berlin, dated 1533, which may be derived from the same classical
bust type, though here the left hand is included as well (Hans Holbein d. J., Klassiker der
Kunst, BerlinLeipzig, n.d., Pl. 98).
31
See the documents in Muoz, 46667.
FIVE EARLY BERNINIS
201
around the irises of the eyes are not sharp and clear, but irregular and
tremulous. The lachrymal ducts at the corners of the eyes are not reproduced in their actual shape, but their watery sparkle is faintly suggested by
two small drill-holes.32 The transition from skin to hair and to the tufted
mass of the beard is practically invisible. The tiny mounds on the buttons
of Coppolas garment are only vaguely separated from the larger spheres
below (Fig. 9). The fingernails are barely defined. The marble is nowhere
brought to a high polish, but is abraded to give a slightly granular texture;
light, instead of being reflected, is broken up by the crystalline structure of
the surface, and the result is a veiled effect, smooth yet soft and translucent.33
This particular kind of optical refinement, the muted impressionism, as
I am tempted to call it, seems to have been Gianlorenzos creation; it introduced a new attitude toward sculptural form, and marks a significant stage
in the young Berninis development.
Finally, it should be emphasized that the innovations we have noted in
the Coppola bust the suggestion of a whole rather than a severed body,
the psychological intimacy, and the effect of solid form dissolved by light
are closely interconnected. Together they serve to establish a direct, unselfconscious relationship between the spectator and the subject.
32
This device occurs, with the holes drilled much more deeply, in Pietros Assumption
relief (the right eye of,the Virgin, Fig. 26, and the right eye of the angel facing right in the
embracing pair to the left of center, Fig. 28), where it is doubtless meant to accent the corner of the eye from a distant viewpoint. (The relief was originally intended for the outside
faade of the Cappella Paolina.) Such drill-holes often appear singly in Roman imperial
sculpture, and in this form they were well known in the early seventeenth century
(Grisebach, 59, 61; cf. also Fig. 29). But I have found no precedent for their use in pairs.
Gianlorenzo used the device again in the Santoni bust (Fig. 11; see below).
33
Pietros Assumption relief provides an interesting illustration of the experimentation
with surface textures passed on from father to son. Pietro left the surface without the final
polish; the parallel hatchings of a fine-clawed chisel, the next to last stage in the execution,
are visible uniformly throughout (Figs. 26, 27, 28). This device also must have served to
strengthen the forms seen from afar. In establishing the final payment for the work, which
had already been installed in the sacristy, the appraisers offered a higher sum to be paid when
Pietro gave it its final polish so that it would not collect dust and blacken with time, a procedure that evidently was not carried out. Ironically, the situation was almost duplicated
years later when Gianlorenzo used the same technique for his figure of St. Longinus in Saint
Peters (Wittkower, 1966, Pl. 43). A reference to this treatment is apparent in a petition submitted in 1642 by Francesco Mochi requesting that weekly dusting of his figure of St.
Veronica be discontinued; the statue being finished in all its parts, dust has no place to
attach itself (Pollak, II, 451, No. 1754).
202
One of the most important implications of the Coppola bust for our
understanding of Berninis development is that it confirms the early biographers accounts of his precocious genius.34 Filippo Baldinucci and
Berninis son, Domenico, report in their biographies of the artist that his
first work in Rome was the portrait of Monsignor Giovanni Battista
Santoni in Santa Prassede (Fig. 11). Baldinucci says that Bernini executed
the bust shortly after he completed the tenth year of his age, and
Domenico Bernini mentions it in connection with works made when his
father was ten. It was owing to the succcess of this portrait, we are told, that
the boy was introduced to the Borghese pope Paul V in whose presence he
drew a head. This was the beginning of his fabulous career.35
The earliest date that modern writers have been willing to assign to the
bust of Santoni is 1613, and usually 16151616 is given.36 Comparison
34
A portrait that must have been made almost simultaneously with that of Coppola is
mentioned by Domenico Bernini (p. 20). He reports that before Monsignor Alessandro
Ludovisi (later Pope Gregory XV) left Rome to take up the archbishopric of Bologna, he had
Gianlorenzo carve his bust. Ludovisi became archbishop of Bologna in March 1612.
35
Baldinucci, 7475, La prima opera, che uscisse dal suo scarpello in Roma fu una testa
di marmo situata nella chiesa di S. Potenziana [he correctly lists it as in Santa Prassede in his
catalogue, p. 176]; avendo egli allora il decimo anno di sua et appena compito. Per la qual
cosa . . . (continues the account of the meeting with Paul V). Domenico Bernini, 8 ff.,
recounts the meeting with Paul V first, and then continues (p. 10), Haveva gi egli dato
principio a lavorare di Scultura, e la sua prima opera f una Testa di marmo situata nella
Chiesa di S. Potenziana, & altre picciole Statue, quali gli permetteva let in cui era di dieci
anni, e tutte apparivano cos maestrevolmente lavorate, che havendone qualcheduna veduta
il celebre Annibale Caracci, disse, Esser egli arrivato nellarte in quella picciola et, dove altri
potevano gloriarsi di giungere nella vecchiezza.
In his journal of the artists visit to France in 1665, Chantelou reports Bernini himself
as relating that the episode with Paul V took place when he was eight years old, and that the
work which aroused the Popes interest was a head of St. John (evidently a confusion with
Giovanni Battista Santonis Christian names); cf. Chantelou, 84.
Santonis name is often mistakenly given as Santori. The cause of the error lies with the
consistorial acts, the decrees of the papal consistory which include appointments of bishops
and from which the various published episcopal lists are compiled; these, however, are copies
made from the original sources, now lost, after the consistorial archive was founded by
Urban VIII. In these acts the name is spelled with an r, doubtless a copyists error. The correct spelling appears in the inscription of the Santoni monument itself (see below, note 40)
and in all the contemporary documents, such as those concerning the elder Santonis nunciature in Switzerland, which include letters bearing his own signature (cf. P. M. Krieg, Das
Collegium Helveticum in Mailand nach dem Bericht des Nuntius Giovanni Battista
Santonio, Zeitschrift fr schweizerische Kirchengeschichte, 25, 1931, 112 ff.) and in Cardinal
Ottavio Bandinis original nomination of the younger Santoni to the bishopric of Policastro
(BVAS, Acta Miscell., vol. 98, fol. 331).
FIVE EARLY BERNINIS
203
with the Coppola bust shows that there are many similarities, as, for example, the use in both cases of the double drill-holes at the corners of the eyes.
There is a further similarity between the two works in that the bust of
Santoni also owes a considerable debt to ancient portraiture. In the powerful sideward thrust of the head, the knitted eyebrows and penetrating grimace, and in the peculiar treatment of the hair and beard which envelop the
face with tightly packed nodules of light and dark, it recalls the familiar
busts of the emperor Caracalla.37 Santonis locks, moreover, though different in form from those of Coppola, have a similarly gentle, granular texture,
and depart radically from the meticulously defined and polished strands or
curls typical of sixteenth-century portraits in Rome.
Nonetheless, despite its similarities to the bust of Coppola, that of
Santoni is clearly earlier. The sharp features and somewhat exaggerated grimace have many sixteenth-century precedents, as do the small cut of the
torso and the polished skin. In general, the soft impressionism of which we
have spoken is here less developed, and it is evident that essentially
Baldinucci and Domenico Bernini were right. In fact, I think it can be
shown that the date specified by Baldinucci, early 1610, was exactly right.38
Here I follow the lead of Grisebach, who suggested that investigation of the
life of Giovanni Battista Santonis nephew, Giovanni Antonio, who ordered
the work, might reveal the occasion for the commission long after the
sitters death and hence its date.39 The elder Santoni, who had died in
1592, had been bishop of Tricarico. The inscription on the monument says
36
The earlier dating is that of Fraschetti, 11; cf. Wittkower, 1966, 17374, No. 2
(161516). The frame of the Santoni monument is exactly copied in another funeral inscription in Santa Prassede, commemorating a man who died in 1614 (Forcella, II, 509,
No. 1537).
37
An analogous facial expression appears on the head of Clement VIII in Pietro Berninis
relief of the Popes coronation on his tomb in Santa Maria Maggiore (Fig. 12). There was a
time when, because of this similarity, I thought the Popes head might have been the work
of Gianlorenzo, and this may indeed be the case. But the relief dates 161214 (cf. Muoz,
46970), that is, after the bust of Coppola. I now suppose Pietro was here taking a leaf from
his sons book. An earlier version of the Coronation relief is mentioned in documents of
161112 (Muoz, 469).
38
Although Bernini had lived ten years on December 7, 1608, he did not cease being ten
years old, i.e., he did not complete the tenth year of his age (cf. note 35 above) until his
eleventh birthday in December 1609. This way of reporting a persons age is still common
in Italy.
39
Grisebach, 152.
204
that it was erected in his honor by his nephew, who is himself described as
bishop of Policastro.40 The younger Santoni was named bishop on April 26,
1610, and he must have ordered the memorial to celebrate his achievement
of the same rank as his uncle.41 The bust would thus have been carved early
in 1610, just as Baldinucci says.
Another work that must be dated much earlier than heretofore is the
under life-size group of the Amalthean goat suckling the infant Jupiter and
a satyr, in the Villa Borghese in Rome (Fig. 15). Since it was first identified
thirty years ago, it has been universally recognized as one of Berninis earliest works, and has generally been placed close to the Santoni bust c. 1615.42
This dating seemed to find confirmation with the discovery in the Borghese
archive of a carpenters invoice, dated August 18, 1615, which includes a
base for the group.43 The bust of Coppola now rules out so late a date. There
are certain analogies with the Santoni bust (compare the hair on the goats
projecting leg with that above Santonis forehead),44 but the skin is here even
harder and more highly polished, and the transitions between forms still
sharper. There are also awkward passages; the satyrs left hand is out of
drawing (Fig. 13), and the goats turned-under right front hoof is shown
incongruously flat and concave (not visible in Fig. 15). In fact, the documents provide good reason to suppose that the Borghese group dates perhaps half a year earlier than the Santoni portrait. In the same invoice of
1615, the woodcarver who made the base for the Amalthean Goat listed a
base for a comparable group of Hellenistic inspiration, also still in the Villa
Borghese, by an unknown sculptor of the period, showing three sleeping
putti (Fig. 14).45 In this case, however, a payment is preserved for the purchase of the group, in June 1609.46 Evidently it was acquired for one purSee Forcella, II, 507, No. 1530.
K. Eubel, Hierarchia ecclesiastica, Padua, 1913 ff., II, 284.
42
R. Longhi, Precisioni nelle gallerie italiane, Vita artistica, I, 1926, 6566; cf.
Wittkower, 1966, 173, No. 1. The attribution to Bernini is based on a reference to it as
Berninis first famous work, in J. von Sandrarts Teutsche Academie of 1675, ed. A. R. Peltzer,
Munich, 1925, 285.
43
Faldi, 1953, 146, Doc. XII.
44
Cf. Wittkower, 1966, 173, who also emphasizes the similarities to the putto heads in
the frame of the Santoni monument.
45
Faldi, 1954, 1314, No. 6; cf. 14, Doc. III. The group, of which many duplicates are
known (partial list in Faldi), seems to be by the same hand as the groups of wrestling putti
in the Doria Gallery attributed to Stefano Maderno (see below).
46
Ibid., 14, Docs. I, II.
40
41
FIVE EARLY BERNINIS
205
pose in that year and then was put on a base of its own six years later. There
is little doubt in my mind that Berninis group formed part of the same decorative program and that it, too, was made early in 1609.47 The work may
well have been among the picciole Statue which Domenico Bernini
appends to his reference to the Santoni bust, saying that his father made
them at the age of ten, and that they were seen and much admired by
Annibale Carracci.48 In that case, the dates would correspond perfectly,
since Carracci died in July 1609.
In 1961 Antonia Nava Cellini published a life-size figure of a little boy
with a delicious smile and two buck teeth, who is seated astride a dragon,
pulling its mouth apart (Figs. 1618).49 A hole runs from the bottom
through the mouth of the dragon, showing that it was intended as a fountain, and there are one or two rust stains indicating that it may have been
used as such for a time. Nava Cellini attributed the work, which is now in
a private collection in New York, to Pietro Bernini, and supposed, very reasonably, that the sculpture had been made for the Borghese family, one of
whose emblems is a winged dragon. She suggested a relatively late date,
about 1620, and observed, significantly, that the father was here working
under the influence of the son.
Documents from the Barberini family archive, now in the Vatican
Library, indicate that the work is by Gianlorenzo, not Pietro Bernini. The
group corresponds exactly to the description of a sculpture that appears
repeatedly in the inventories of the Barberini family art collections throughout the seventeenth century. It is mentioned in 1628 as having come from
the house of Don Carlo Barberini, brother of Maffeo Barberini, who had
become Pope Urban VIII in 1623: Un putto a sedere sopra un drago moderno al nat[ura]le.50 In an inventory begun in 1632 by Nicol Menghini it
47
It is worth noting that in October 1609 the Pope purchased a considerable collection
of antique sculptures that had belonged to the sculptor Tommaso della Porta (cf. Pastor,
XXVI, 448).
48
Quoted in note 35 above.
49
Unopera di Pietro Bernini, Arte antica e moderna, 1961, 288 ff.
50
BVAB1, fol. 28, Diverse statue venute di Casa dellEcc.mo S.r D. Carlo, the entry
dated July 28, 1628. The house referred to here was the palace in the Via dei Giubbonari;
it had originally belonged to Maffeo, who gave it to his brother shortly after his election to
the papacy (BVAB, Ind. II, Cred. II, Cas. 29, Mazz. IX, Lett. C, No. 3, Seconda donazione
fatta da Papa Urbano VIII al IEccsm.o D. Carlo Barberini, Sept. 22, 1623). The brothers
are later reported as having built the Giubbonari palace jointly (cf. Pastor, XXVIII, 30). As
5. Leonardo da Sarzano, Bust of Cardinal Pio da Carpi.

Rome, Santa Trinit dei Monti (photo: Bibl. Hertziana, Rome).
6. Bust of Cecilia Orsini. Rome, Santa Trinit dei Monti

(photo: Bibl. Hertziana, Rome).
206
7. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Bust of Antonio Coppola (detail).

Rome, San Giovanni dei Fiorentini (photo: GFN).

FIVE EARLY BERNINIS
207

10. Pompeo Ferrucci, Bust of Pietro Cambi.

208
11. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Bust of Giovanni Battista Santoni.

Rome, Santa Prassede (photo: Foto Unione, Rome).
12. Pietro Bernini, Coronation of Clement VIII (detail).

Rome, Santa Maria Maggiore (photo: Alinari).
FIVE EARLY BERNINIS
209
210
13. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Amalthean Goat (detail). Rome, Galleria Borghese

(photo: GFN).
14. Three Sleeping Putti. Rome, Galleria Borghese (photo: Alinari).
FIVE EARLY BERNINIS
15. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Amalthean Goat.

Rome, Galleria Borghese (photo: Alinari).
211
212
16. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Boy with Dragon.

New York, private collection (photo: L. A. Foersterling, St. Louis).
FIVE EARLY BERNINIS
213
17. Gianlorenzo Bernini,

Boy with Dragon (detail).
New York, private collection
(photo: L. A. Foersterling,
St. Louis).

St. Louis).
214

St. Louis).
20. Hercules Killing the Serpents.

Rome, Museo Capitolino
(photo: Anderson).
FIVE EARLY BERNINIS
21. Attrib. to Stefano Maderno, Three Wrestling Infants.

Rome, Palazzo Doria (photo: GFN).
215
216
is listed as Un putto qual tiene un drago alto palmi 21/2 fatto dal Cavalier
Bernini.51 Two and one-half palms is 55.7 cm.; this is precisely the height
of the New York piece. In 1632, Bernini was overseeing the last stages of
construction of the Barberini palace, and Menghini, himself a sculptor, was
administrator of Cardinal Francesco Barberinis sculpture collections.52
The latest entry is in an inventory of the Popes grand nephew Cardinal
Carlo Barberini, made in 1692, in which the figure is identified as Hercules:
Un ercoletto intiero sedere sopra un Drago, che con una mano li rompe
la bocca.53 In the margin next to this entry the following note was added:
Donato Filippo V. Re di Spagna da S[ua] E[ccelenza] in occ[asi]one della
Leg[atio]ne di Napoli. The event alluded to here is the arrival in Naples in
1702 of Philip V of Spain. The Kings arrival was an important occasion,
and Pope Clement XI named Cardinal Carlo Barberini as his legate extraordinary to go to Naples and welcome the visitor.54 The Cardinals legation
we shall see, the sculpture was in all probability commissioned by Maffeo, remaining in the
Giubbonari palace until it was transferred to Cardinal Francesco Barberini, the Popes
nephew, in 1628.
51
BVAB2, fol. 7v. This entry was published by Pollak, I, 334, No. 960, and the connection with the work published by Nava Cellini was made independently by M. and M.
Fagiolo dellArco, Bernini, 1967, Schedario, No. 3. The sculpture is also listed in the inventory of 1651: Un altro Putto del naturale, che tiene un Drago -p la Bocca alto p.mi 21/2
(BVAB3, fol. 1).
52
On Menghini, cf. Pollak, 1, 3, 164; 11, 131, 499 ff. To the list of his works given in
Thieme-Becker (XXIV, 389) should be added a lost marble relief of the dead Christ surrounded by angels in San Lorenzo in Damaso commissioned by Cardinal Francesco
Barberini (A. Schiavo, Il palazzo della Cancelleria, Rome, 1964, 99, 103) and a bust of St.
Sebastian on a gray marble base in San Sebastiano fuori le Mura, popularly attributed to
Bernini, but which is very likely identical with a sculpture by Menghini mentioned in the
1692 inventory of Cardinal Carlo Barberini: un busto di un S. Sebastiano con pieduccio di
bigio antico del Menghini (BVAB4, fol. 262). Cardinal Francesco Barberini had been
responsible for the new altar of St. Sebastian in the basilica (G. Mancini and B. Pesci, San
Sebastiano fuori le mura, Le Chiese di Roma illustrate, No. 48, Rome, n.d., 37, cf. 69,
Fig. 20).
53
BVAB4, fol. 242. The work is mentioned by the Swedish architect Nicodemus Tessin
the younger in the diary of his second visit to Rome (168788) as follows: . . . ein
Christkindlein mit dem dracken von einem discipel vom Cav. Bernini (Siren, 168). Tessins
references to Berninis work in the Palazzo Barberini are generally rather garbled: he lists
Mochis bronze equestrian statuette of Carlo Barberini as by Bernini (ibid., 165), Berninis
St. Sebastian (see below, p. 231 f.) as by Giorgetti (p. 167), the two putti by Gianlorenzo
from the Barberini chapel in SantAndrea della Valle (see below, pp. 232 ff.) as by Pietro
Bernini (p. 167).
54
Cf. Pastor, XXXIII, 2829, with bibliography; Bottineau, 250 ff.
FIVE EARLY BERNINIS
217
and the ceremonies held in Naples are described in many reports and dispatches, published and unpublished. These include lists of the numerous
sumptuous gifts from the Pope and from the Cardinal legate himself, and
foremost among the latter was Berninis little putto with dragon. In
Cardinal Carlos own official report of the legation, we find Una statuetta
rapresentante un Ercholetto che sbrana il serpente in eta puerile opera del
s[igno]r Cavaliere Lorenzo Bernini.55 A member of the Kings suite says in
a published account that the Cardinal inoltre presentogli unaltra bellissima statua, che rappresenta unErcole, che spezza un serpente, scolpita in
finissimo marmo bianco similmente dun sol pezzo, per mano del
Bernini.56 I have found no subsequent trace of the sculpture until the first
decade of the present century, when it appeared in a private collection in
Paris as by an anonymous French sculptor of the eighteenth century. How
it came about that this once so prestigious work lost its identity and disappeared remains a mystery.57
Equally mysterious is the destination and meaning of the piece. It is
clearly based on the classical motif of the infant Hercules killing the snakes,
for which the dragon has been substituted (Fig. 20).58 It must surely have
had something to do with the Borghese, and we may question where a
BV, MS Barb. lat. 5638, Legatione del Card: Carlo Barberini al R di Spagna Filippo
V. LAnno 1702, fol. 174, Notta delli regali fatti da s.e. nella Cita di Napoli in ochasione
della sua Legatione al R Filippo Quinto.
56
A. Bulifon, Giornale del Viaggio dItalia dell Invittissimo e gloriosissimo Monarca Filippo
V. Re delle Spagne e di Napoli, etc., Naples, 1703, 171. Other references to the gift are found
in BV, MSS Barb. lat. 5638, fol. 288v, 289; 5041, fol. 38v; 5408, fol. 21; MS Urb. lat. 1701,
fol. 38v, 39; BVAS, MS Bolognetti 64, p. 486; F. Biandini, Descrizione della solenne legazione
del Cardinale Carlo Barberni a Filippo V . . . , Rome, 1703, ed. P. E. Visconti, Rome,
1858, 81.
57
Bottineau, 250 n. 274, connected the work given by Cardinal Carlo Barberini to
Philip V with that described in the Barberini inventory entry published by Pollak, and states
that he found no reference to it in the Spanish kings inventories.
In 1905 the sculpture was purchased from the Gallerie Semp in Nice (now defunct) by
the Baron Lazzaroni, who kept it in his house in Paris. On the Barons death in 1934 it was
brought to Rome and in 1955 it was sold to a Florentine art dealer. (Information from Sig.
Torre, administrator of the Lazzaroni properties, Palazzo Lazzaroni, Via dei Lucchesi 26,
Rome.) It was acquired by the American collector in 1966.
58
The classical theme has been treated at length by O. Brendel, Der schlangenwrgende
Herakliskos, Jdl, 47, 1932, 191 ff. On the piece in the Capitoline, of which the right arm
and snake and right foot are restorations, cf. H. Stuart Jones (ed.), A Catalogue of the Ancient
Sculptures Preserved in the Municipal Collections of Rome. The Sculptures of the Museo
Capitolino, Oxford, 1912, 12829.
55
218
connection with the Barberini can be found. A clue, at least, seems to be

provided by a poem written by Maffeo Barberini before he became pope. It
appears in the first edition of his poetry, printed in Paris in 1620.59 The
poem is about a bronze dragon that stood in the Borghese garden, and its
theme that this dragon is not a fearful monster who stands guard, but a
tamed host who welcomes the visitor to the delights of the garden:
I do not sit as guardian, but as a host to those who enter.
This villa is not more accessible to its owner than it is to you.
Later in the poem there is a reference to Hercules, through the Hydra.
The idea of the Borghese garden as a habitat of the tamed and gentle dragon
seems, indeed, to have been a theme basic to the conception of the villa. A
poem specifically linking this idea to Hercules and the garden of the
Hesperides is printed on the verso of the title page of Manillis description
of the villa in 1650:
Here in the garden of the Hesperides
the guardian dragon does not assail in anger
the wandering Hercules. . . .
Here, tired from his journey
And from so many noble labors,
Reposes Alcides [Hercules]. . . .60
59
Ill mi et Rev mi Maffaei S.R.E. Card. Barberini S.D.N. Signaturae Iustitiae Praefecti etc.
Poemata, Paris, 1620, 68:
Draco aereus in fronte laureti, in viridario
Illustrissimi Cardinalis Burghesij
Non sedeo custos, adsto venientibus hospes,
Non magis haec Domino, qum tibi Villa patet.
Hic requiem captare licet, passimque vagari,
Aris hc haustu liberiore frui,
Nec species animu turbet metuenda Draconis,
Non ego, quae flammis Hydra perempta cadat.
Non ego sum Python, feriant quem spicula; lauros
Ecce mihi credit Cynthius ipse suas.
60
J. Manilli, Villa Borghese fuori di Porta Pinciana, Rome, 1650:
Qui dHesperio Giardino
Drago custode non assale irato
Hercole peregrino:
FIVE EARLY BERNINIS
219
We have also the testimony of the official biographer of Urban VIII that
the Borghese garden was one of Maffeo Barberinis favorite haunts before he
became pope; he often foregathered there with his learned friends to discuss
art and literature.61 One can easily imagine him commissioning such a
sculpture as an allusion to the pleasures of the Borghese garden, where wild
nature had been dominated.
The sculpture belongs to the same category of genre or quasi-genre
groups inspired by Hellenistic art of which the Amalthean Goat provides an
example (Fig. 15). Works of this kind, in fact, enjoyed a veritable revival in
Rome around the turn of the seventeenth century; besides the three sleeping putti mentioned earlier (Fig. 14), we may note a pair of groups of three
wrestling putti attributed to Stefano Maderno in the Palazzo Doria in
Rome62 (Fig. 21) and two closely related groups of Bacchic putti, one of
which bears the initials of Pietro Bernini (Figs. 22, 2425; cf. also Fig. 23).63
Sculptures of this kind have a common stylistic denominator in that the
figures create complex interweaving forms that move outward in all directions. By contrast, Berninis groups seem clear and unencumbered. A single,
dominant entry into the world of the sculpture is provided by a member
that projects into the spectators space. From this point the eye is led in a
spiral movement back into the composition, where a transverse axis, in one
In quest HORTO beato,
Di Gioue lalto Augel fatto consorte
Amico arride le BORGHESIE porte.
Qui stanco dal camino,
E da tante sue nobili fatiche
Riposa Alcide, in queste piagge apriche.
61
A. Nicoletti, Della vita di Urbano Ottavo, I, BV, MS Barb. lat. 4730, 532; cf. Pastor,
XXIX, 422.
62
The attribution to Maderno is due to Riccoboni, 14243 (cf. Fig. 184 for an illustration of the group not reproduced here); the attribution is rejected by A. Donati, Stefano
Maderno scultore 15761636, Bellinzona, 1945, 5556.
63
The groups, whose present whereabouts is unknown, are mentioned by A. De
Rinaldis, LArte in Roma dal Seicento al Novecento, Bologna, 1948, 205, as having been in the
hands of the Roman dealer Sangiorgi. One (Figs. 2425), which bore the initials PBF on
the base, was published by Faldi, 1953, 144, Fig. 7. The other work (Fig. 22) came from the
Palazzo Cardelli, where it was seen by Fraschetti (431 n.), who identified it with an entry in
an inventory taken in 1706 of Berninis palace; it was reproduced in Galerie Sangiorgi.
Catalogue des objets dart ancien pour lanne 1910, 26 (where the Cardelli provenance is mentioned and the dimensions 90 x 85 cm. given). Cf. A. Santangelo, Gian Lorenzo Bernini
(attr.): Baccante, BdA, 41, 1956, 36970.
220
22. Attrib. to Pietro

Bernini, Bacchic group.
Whereabouts unknown
(from Galerie Sangiorgi).
23. Fountain in the garden

of the Palazzo Farnese,
Caprarola, drawing
(detail).
Paris, Bibl. Nat.
FIVE EARLY BERNINIS
24. Pietro Bernini,

Bacchic group.
Whereabouts unknown
(photo: lent by
Italo Faldi).
25. Pietro Bernini,

Bacchic group.
Whereabouts
unknown
(photo: lent by
Italo Faldi).
221
222
26. Pietro Bernini, Assumption of the Virgin (detail). Rome, Santa Maria Maggiore
(photo: Alinari).
27. Pietro Bernini, Assumption of the Virgin (detail). Rome, Santa Maria Maggiore
(photo: Alinari).
FIVE EARLY BERNINIS
27. Pietro Bernini, Assumption of the Virgin. Rome, Santa Maria Maggiore
(photo: Alinari).
28. Pietro Bernini,

St. John the Baptist
(detail).
Rome, SantAndrea
della Valle (photo:
David Lees, Rome).
223
224
30. Gianlorenzo Bernini, St. Sebastian. Lugano, Thyssen-Bornemisza

Collection.
FIVE EARLY BERNINIS
31. Gianlorenzo Bernini, St. Lawrence. Florence, Contini-Bonacossi Collection

(photo: GFN).

St. Lawrence (detail).
Florence, ContiniBonacossi Collection
(photo: GFN).
225
226
case the two figures of Jupiter and the satyr, in the other the puttos torso,
establishes a definite vertical plane facing the observer frontally. Strikingly
similar, also, is the cross-torso movement of the right arm of both the infant
Jupiter and the putto. Here, again, Bernini had some difficulty in rendering the infantile hand; the little finger of the puttos left hand is scarcely
articulated (Fig. 19), and that of the right hand seems flat and boneless.
Despite these analogies with the Amalthean Goat, it is evident that the
Boy with the Dragon is substantially later. A difference in date is suggested,
to begin with, by the analogies with the comparable works by Berninis
father. The Amalthean Goat, on the one hand, is related to Pietros signed
Bacchic group (Figs. 24, 25) in subject matter, in the conception of the figures and facial types (though Gianlorenzos are not so bulging fat), and in
aspects of technique such as the polished surfaces and the treatment of hair
and vine leaves. A relatively early date for Pietros sculpture is indicated by
its close similarity to a lost fountain group in the garden of the Palazzo
Farnese at Caprarola, where Pietro had worked at the beginning of his
career, which must have been made shortly before 1578 (Fig. 23).64 On the
other hand, the physical type of the Ercoletto, particularly the head, presupposes the angels in Pietros Assumption relief of 16071610 (Fig. 28, cf.
especially the head turned toward the left at the far left). At the same time,
the pudgy and expressively distorted forms of Pietros angels have been
greatly refined. With its impish but graceful smile and heavy overhanging
eyelids that veil the eyes, the putto displays, in even more sophisticated fashion, the kind of psychological intimacy and technical subtlety found in the
Coppola bust. (Compare, for example, the delicate striations and soft tufts
that mark the emergence of the hair from the head, Fig. 1; and the perforated locks in the back at the base of the skull, Fig. 3) Moreover, the stiffMr. Loren Partridge, who is writing a dissertation (Harvard University) on the Palazzo
Farnese at Caprarola, has brought to my attention the records of this fountain, whose theme
and composition were very similar to those of the signed Pietro Bernini group a goat
being milked by several putti (one of whom, evidently the infant Hercules, held a snake).
The fountain is recorded in a description of a papal visit to the palace in 1578 (J. A. F.
Orbaan, Documenti sul barocco in Roma, Rome, 1920, 386), in an anonymous drawing in
the Bibl. Nat., Paris, which Mr. Partridge has generously allowed me to publish (Fig. 23),
and in a painted vignette in the palace attributed to Antonio Tempesta (photo: Gab. Fot.
Naz., Rome, E. 57825). Pietro Bernini is said by Baglione, 304, to have gone to Caprarola
under Gregory XIII (157285), working there for a summer. Though Baglione mentions
only his activity as a painter, it is tempting to see in the fountain an early work by Pietro
himself (born 1562), or at least the prototype for his other groups of this kind.
64
FIVE EARLY BERNINIS
227
ness of pose that marked both the figures in the Amalthean Goat and the
Coppola bust is here replaced by an easy, flowing movement.
A likely date for the work is suggested by a comparison of the treatment
of the boys hair with that of the figure of John the Baptist which Pietro
Bernini executed for Maffeo Barberini as part of the decorations in the family chapel in SantAndrea della Valle in Rome (Fig. 29). Fundamentally,
they are very different; the hair of the fathers work consists almost entirely
of circular curls with deep drill-holes at the center of each whorl, whereas
in the sons there are no circular curls and practically no drill-holes.
Nevertheless, the frothy effect created by fragile undercuttings and continuous, wavy grooves on the surface is similar in both, and they must be very
close in date.
Heretofore, we have had no firm date for Pietro Berninis statue of the
Baptist; but documents in the Barberini archive, which contains many
records of the decoration of the chapel, make it possible to fix the period of
execution with some accuracy. The commission for a statue of the Baptist
had originally gone to Nicol Cordier, the French sculptor working in
Rome;65 Cordier died, however, in November 1612, leaving the figure only
blocked out. Pietro Bernini probably began work in the latter part of 1613,
when he was given credit for the unfinished block which he agreed to accept in
partial payment for the new figure of the Baptist he was to execute in another
piece of marble; the sculpture was finished and set in place by May 1615.66
65
Cordiers contract, dated October 17, 1609, is preserved (BVAB5, No. 80). Cordier
received an initial down-payment of 50 scudi on the same date (BVAB6, p. 8). Another
payment of 50 scudi was made to Cordiers heirs on June 15, 1613 (BVAB7, p. XXXI).
66
Pietro Bernino deve dare Scudi Sessanta di mta che -p tanto sie Contentato di Pigliare
un Pezzo di Marmo abbozzato da Niccolo cori detto Franciosino -p fare un San Gio: Batta et
detti Scudi Sessanta di mta Sono -p a buon conto delli 300 che sie contentato della fattra di
una Statua di San Gio: Batta che far deve in un altro pezzo di Marmo. . . . (BVAB7, p. 126;
undated, but the entry is repeated on p. 31 of the same volume, immediately following the
payment of June 1613 to Cordiers heirs, cited in the preceding note.)
Pietro received final payments of 200 and 40 scudi respectively on May 25 and June 20,
1615 (BVAB9, p. 24). A workman was paid on May 5, 1615, for installing Pietros Baptist
in the chapel (BVAB 8, p. 4).
A recollection of these events occurs in Fioravante Martinellis manuscript description of
Rome (c. 1662; see Bibliography), p. 17. In a marginal addition to the text it is stated that
Pietro continued and finished the work begun by Cordier: fu principiato dal franciosino
Nicol Cordiere, ma p difetto di morte f seguitata e terminata [by Pietro Bernini]. Though
possible, it seems unlikely that Pietro failed to adhere to the original intention (see the
228
Thus, a date about 1614 seems most likely for Gianlorenzos Boy with the
Dragon.67
preceding note) of using a different piece of marble. The same thing happened a few years
later, as we shall see, when he again accepted a piece of marble in partial payment for the
four putti for the side doors of the chapel, which were carved from a different block (see
below).
67
What must have been a closely related work by Gianlorenzo is recorded in various inventories of the Ludovisi collection: Un Puttino di marmo bianco, qual piange che una vipera l
morsicato alto p.i 22 [sic] in Circa con un balaustrato di marmo bigio alto p.i 4 et un piedistallo di marmo bianco che in ogni facciata vi un quadretto di marmo mistio (BVASABL,
Prot. 611, No. 43, Con segna di massaritie, statue, e Pitture della Vigna di Porta Pinciana a
Gio. Ant.o Chiavacci Guardarobba, dated November 2, 1623, p. 45); Un puttino di marmo
piangente sedere in una mappa di fiori morzicato d una vipera, sopra una base di marmo
mischio mano del Cavalre Bernino (January 28, 1633, published by T. Schreiber, Die
antiken Bildwerke der Villa Ludovisi in Rom, Leipzig, 1880, 31); Un Putto moderno opra del
Sig.r Cavalier Bernino, siede tr lHerba morso da un serpe (BVASABL, Prot. 611, No. 56,
Inventario di tutte le Massaritie, Quadri, et altro, che sono nel Palazzo del Monte posto nella
Villa Porta Pinciana che era del Cardinal del Monte, al pnte dellEcc.mo Pnpe Don Nicol
Ludovisi, April 28, 1641, fol. 46v); n2. putti uno del Bernino, e laltro dellAlgardi long. p.mi
2,. di marmo (my transcription) (before 1644, first published by L.-G. Plissier, Un inventaire
indit des collections Ludovisi Rome [XVIIe sicle], Mmoires de la Socit nationale des antiquitaires de France, 6th ser., 3, 1893, 200; on the date cf. K. Garas, The Ludovisi Collection of
Pictures in 16331, BurIM, 109, 1967, 287 n. 3).
According to Bellori a companion piece for this sculpture, a boy riding on a tortoise and
playing a reed pipe, was one of Alessandro Algardis first works in marble; Bellori also gives
allegorical interpretations of the two works: Fecevi [i.e., Algardi, for the Villa Ludovisi] dinventione un putto sedente di marmo, appoggiato ad una testudine, e si pone li calami alla
bocca, per suonare, inteso per la sicurezza; di cui simbolo la testudine, e linnocenza del
fanciullo, che suona, e riposa sicuro. Questo gli f fatto fare dal Cardinale, per accompagnamento di un altro putto, che duolsi morsicato da un Serpente ascoso fr lherba, inteso
per la fraude, e per linsidia; e si qui descritto per essere delle prime cose, che Alessandro
lavorasse in marmo; benche fuori del leccellenza. (G. P. Bellori, Le vite de pittori, scultori et
architetti moderni, Rome, 1672, facs. ed. Rome, 1931, 389.) In fact, Algardis piece, which
is now lost, is mentioned along with Berninis in the Ludovisi inventories cited above (except
that of 1623). Algardi was paid for his sculpture on December 24, 1627: E a di 24 di
Dicembre 50 m.a pagati ad Alessandro Algardi scultore per prezzo di un Puttino di
Marmo fatto -p nro serv.o, et messo in da Vigna (BVASABL, Libro Mastro B, 162529,
p. LXI). Cf. Y. Bruand, La Restauration des sculptures antiques du Cardinal Ludovisi
(16211632), MlRome, 68, 1956, 413.
Berninis Putto morsicato has recently come to light, and was acquired by the Staatliche
Museen, BerlinDahlem; the publication by U. Schlegel (Zum Oeuvre des jungen Gian
Lorenzo Bernini, Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen, 9, 1967, 274 ff ) appeared after the present
article had gone to press. Though Schlegel fails to identify the sculpture with that mentioned
in the 1633 Ludovisi inventory which she quotes, she ascribes it to Gianlorenzo.
But she regards it as contemporary and forming a pair with the Boy with a
FIVE EARLY BERNINIS
229
Two closely related works follow, the St. Lawrence on the Grill in the
Contini-Bonacorsi Collection in Florence, and the St. Sebastian in the
Thyssen collection in Lugano (Figs. 3032).68 Larger in scale than the genre
groups, yet under life-size, they form a kind of transition to the monumental series for Scipione Borghese that begins at the end of the second decade
of the century. Both show the soft, translucent treatment of the marble
found in the Coppola bust and the Boy with the Dragon, and the beards in
particular have the same emergent tufts as in the portrait. Clearly, no great
interval can separate the St. Lawrence and the St. Sebastian, though the
jagged, irregular locks of the former, which recall the treatment of the satyrs
hair in the Amalthean group, suggest that it is the earlier of the two. The St.
Lawrence belonged to Leone Strozzi, a wealthy Florentine living in Rome,
and both Baldinucci and Dominico Bernini record that Bernini made it
during his fifteenth year, that is, in 1614.69 This dating has been universally
Dragon, and she follows Nava Cellinis attribution of the latter work to Pietro Bernini, as well
as the date c. 1620. There can be little doubt that the Berlin figure, crying and defeated by
his adversary, is a kind of antitype to the smiling and victorious putto in New York; and to
my mind, the analogies in compositional system, etc., show that both works were conceived
by the same artist. However, in view of the differences in provenance, in dimensions (Boy
with Dragon: 55.7 high x 52 x 41.5 cm. [the height and width were given incorrectly by
Nava Cellini] vs. 44.8 high x 43.6 x 28.5 cm. for the Berlin piece), as well as in function (the
Berlin piece has no hole and therefore could not have been used as a fountain), it is unlikely
that they were made as a pair. Moreover, the differences in execution indicate a distinct time
lapse between the two sculptures. In particular, the treatment of the hair of the Berlin putto,
with soft, swirling locks marked by parallel striations, is extremely close to that of the
cherubs in Sant Andrea della Valle, of 1618 (see below, and Figs. 38, 39); this suggests a date
of c. 1617 for the Berlin sculpture, whereas we have seen that the Boy with a Dragon probably dates from about 1614.
68
Wittkower, 1966, 174, Nos. 3, 4, where they are dated 161617, 161718
respectively.
69
Baldinucci, 7778, D. Bernini, 15. The figure appears in a Strozzi inventory dated July
8, 1632: Un San Lorenzo sopra la graticola moderno (Florence, Archivio di Stato, Carte
Strozziane, Quinta Serie, Filza 786, Tomo XXXIV, Atti fatti per leredit del Sig. Leone
Strozzi, fol. 8v).
Baldinucci reports that the St. Lawrence was made for Leone Strozzi; according to
Domenico Bernini Gianlorenzo made it to honor the saint whose name he bore, and Strozzi
acquired the work subsequently. It may be more than coincidence that at the time Maffeo
Barberini was decorating his family chapel in SantAndrea della Valle (see below), Leone
Strozzi was preparing his family chapel across the nave in the same church, the second chapel
on the right (the bronze copies of Michelangelo sculptures that decorate the altar wall are
inscribed with the date 1616; cf. S. Ortolani, S. Andrea della Valle Le Chiese di Roma illustrate, No. 4, Rome, n.d., Fig. 20). Among the members of the Strozzi family buried in the
chapel was a well-known Cardinal Lorenzo Strozzi, named after the same saint (died 1571,
230
rejected by recent writers; but I no longer see any reason for doing so, especially since there is independent evidence to suggest that the St. Sebastian
was made in the following year. Here I take up a hypothesis offered by
Rudolf Wittkower that the St. Sebastian may have been executed in connection with the niche-like shrine commemorating that saint which adjoins
the main Barberini chapel, the first on the left in SantAndrea della Valle.70
The main chapel, dedicated to the Assumption of the Virgin, was built over
the apse of an earlier church honoring the martyr, at the point where his
body was supposed originally to have been discovered. In the small adjoining chamber, which is recessed into the interior faade of the present
church, this fact is recorded by a painting by Domenico Passignano of the
recovery of the martyrs body and a lengthy inscription bearing the date
1616. Berninis St. Sebastian was owned by the Barberini, and was first
inventoried in 1628 along with the Boy with the Dragon.71 Although there
is no reference to the figure in the documents concerning the chapel, it is
tempting to suppose that Bernini undertook the work, perhaps on his own
initiative, having in mind the space now occupied by Passignanos
painting.72
Of particular significance is the fact that the St. Sebastian shrine was not
at the outset part of the plan for the chapel. No mention of it is made in
the original contract of 1604 with the marble workers, nor does the painting of St. Sebastian appear in Passignanos contract of the same date, which
includes only his works for the main chapel illustrating the life of the
inscription in Forcella, VIII, 261, No. 652). We shall discuss presently the possibility that
Berninis St. Sebastian was made with the Barberini chapel in mind, before the decoration
was completed, but was then kept in the Barberini private collection; something of the sort
may have happened in the case of the St. Lawrence.
70
Wittkower, 1966, 174.
71
Un San Bastiano minore del naturale legato ad un tronco posto a sedere frezzato con
suo scabellone minore dellaltri (BVAB1, fol. 28. In the case of the St. Sebastian, as in that
of the Boy with the Dragon, the attribution to Bernini first occurs in 1632 in Menghinis
inventory: E piu un San Bastiano di palmi 41/2 alto fatto dal Cavaliere Bernini (BVAB2,
fol. 7v; cf. Pollak, I, 334, No. 960).
72
St. Sebastian: 99 cm. high (Aus der Sammlung Stiftung Schloss Rohoncz, Catalogue,
CastagnolaLugano, 1949, 96, No. 418); height of Passignanos picture: c. 180 cm. Cf.
Wittkower, 1966, 174.
FIVE EARLY BERNINIS
231
Virgin.73 On the other hand, Passignanos picture was paid for in October
1617, and it must have been in place for the inauguration of the chapel in
December 1616.74 If Bernini did conceive his figure for the same location,
1615 would thus be a very likely date. This would be the first of no less than
five works by Gianlorenzo that were intended for the chapel but were then
kept in the Barberini private collection.
A further point of interest for the date, and perhaps even for the formal
conception of the St. Sebastian, is suggested by the block of marble roughed
out by Cordier as a John the Baptist and accepted as a down-payment for his
own figure by Pietro Bernini. Judging from the payments, Cordiers figure
must have been about one-third complete.75 It is not clear from the documents exactly when the block was transferred to the Bernini studio, but it
was certainly there by June 1615.76 This corresponds to the presumed date
of execution of the St. Sebastian, and it seems possible that the block was
cut down and adapted by the younger Bernini. The St. Sebastian is unusual,
if not unique, in that the saint, instead of standing bound to a tree or column, is shown reclining upon a rocky base.77 Such a setting is appropriate
73
The Capitoli with the marble workers, dated November 29, 1604, stipulates that the
wall on the faade side, which contained a spiral staircase, be sealed: et perche da una
banda dove hora e la lumaca, la porta v murata dovria detta porta essere incrostata di
mischio . . . (BVAB5, No. 80, fol. 4).
Passignanos contract is found in BVAB5, No. 79. Cf. O. Pollak, Italienische
Knstlerbriefe aus der Barockzeit, JPKS, 34, Beiheft, 1913, 30 ff.
74
On October 27, 1617, Passignano received 100 scudi for la Tavola di San Bastiano
messo nella Cappelletta piccola di San Bastiano annessa alla Cappella grande di Santo
Andrea della Valle . . . (shortly after increased to 160 scudi; BVAB9, p. XXIII).
On the dedication, cf. Pastor, XXVIII, 32; a plenary indulgence for the chapel was
decreed on December 7, 1616 (BVAB5, No. 82).
75
We noted that Cordier and his heirs received a total of 100 scudi; the price for the
work stipulated in Cordiers contract was 300 scudi. See above, note 65.
76
One of the entries of the final payment of June 20, 1615, to Pietro (see note 66 above)
shows that Cordiers block had been delivered to him by then: . . . a m. Pietro Bernini
Scultore Scudi quarta di mta che Insieme un marmo bianco Sbozzato gia dal q. Niccolo Cori
et fattolo condurre nella sua Casa di Santa Maria Magg.re et Aprezzatolo di Sessanta di mta
Sono il re.o delli di Trecento che haver doveva . . . -p la Statua di San Gio: Batta che ha fatto
p
- la Cappella di Santo Andrea della Valle . . . (BVAB8, p. VI).
77
Painted depictions of St. Sebastian seated in isolation appear in the Caravaggio school
in the early seventeenth century: cf. a St. Sebastian in Prague by Carlo Saraceni (T.
Gottheimer, Rediscovery of Old Masters at Prague Castle, BurIM, 107, 1965, 606, Fig. 12;
A. Moir, The Italian Followers of Caravaggio, Cambridge, Mass., 1967, II, 135); the St.
Sebastian with an Executioner in the Museo di Capodimonte, Naples, attributed to
232
to John the Baptist as an allusion to his sojourn in the desert; Pietro

Berninis own St. John is seated on a rocky throne, as is the Baptist later
made by Francesco Mochi, hoping to replace Pietros figure.78 All five of the
other statues in the chapel are also more or less seated,79 so it is practically
certain that Cordiers figure was shown thus as well. It may be that
Gianlorenzo, whether by choice or necessity, retained the seated posture
and rocky formation in utilizing Cordiers unfinished work.
Toward the end of the second decade the young Berninis style began to
undergo a profound change. This is perceptible in the third and fourth of
the new works to be discussed here.80 On February 7, 1618, Pietro Bernini
signed an agreement with the then Cardinal Maffeo Barberini to make four
cherubs to be placed on the lateral arches of the Barberini chapel (Doc. 9).81
The agreement says that the four cherubs were to be made from newly quarried white marble to be supplied by Pietro, and they were to be approximately 1.11 m. high. Pietro then goes on to state that, having himself
already made the terra cotta models of the cherubs, nude with various flourishes (svolazzi) of drapery, he promises to execute the sculptures before July
1619, by my own hand, and by the hand of my son, Gianlorenzo. In par-
Bartolomeo Schidone, who died in December 1615 (Moir, I, 242; II, Fig. 312); and
Honthorsts St. Sebastian of c. 1623 in the National Gallery, London (J. R. Judson, Gerrit
van Honthorst, The Hague, 1959, 8889). I have found none, however, in which the saint is
shown seated on a rocky base, and which certainly precedes Berninis figure.
78
Cf. W. Mller, Johannes der Tufer in der Hofkirche zu Dresden, JPKS, 47, 1926,
112 ff. See below, note 85.
79
Mary Magdalene by Cristoforo Stati; St. Martha by Francesco Mochi; St. John the
Evangelist by Ambrogio Buonvicino; portraits in niches in the St. Sebastian shrine of the
Popes brother Carlo, attributed to Mochi (Martinelli, 1951, 231), and uncle Mons.
Francesco, by Stati.
80
As far as I can see, documented collaboration between father and son begins in the
intervening years, 161617, notably, in the pair of herms from the Borghese garden, executed AprilJuly 1616, in which Gianlorenzo is said by an early source to have carved the
baskets of fruits and flowers (V. Martinelli, Novit berniniane. Flora e Priapo, i due
Termini gi nella Villa Borghese a Roma, Commentari, 13, 1962, 267 ff. see the just comments of Wittkower, 1966, 270). To this period also belong, in my view, the splendid,
under life-size figures of the Four Seasons in the Villa Aldobrandini at Frascati, discovered
and soon to be published by F. Zeri; here the underlying conception of the figures appears
to be Pietros while Gianlorenzo participated in the final execution.
81
This document and Doc. 12 were found independently and are alluded to by C.
DOnofrio, Note berniniane 2. Priorit della biografia di Domenico Bernini su quella del
Baldinucci, Palatino, 10, 1966, 206 caption.
FIVE EARLY BERNINIS
233
tial payment, he accepts a piece of white statuary marble.82 This is the first
document so far known in which Gianlorenzo is mentioned. The fact that
Pietro bound himself legally, in a written guarantee, to employ his son in
executing the final sculptures bears witness to the truly fabulous appeal of
the young prodigys work. A few months later, in a letter we shall discuss
presently, Maffeo Barberini himself speaks even more eloquently to the
same point.
Pietro promised to furnish the sculptures in eighteen months. In fact,
they were finished and mounted in place within six months, by July 1618
(Doc. 12). Subsequently, in inventories of the Barberini collections a pair of
life-size cherubs by Gianlorenzo Bernini is variously listed, starting in 1632
in the inventory by Menghini: Eppiu dui petti [putti] del Naturale a sedere
con un pannino che li cingie fatti dal Cavalier Bernini.83 The inventory of
1651, also made by Menghini, explains that these cherubs had once decorated the papal chapel: Due Putti, che erano sul frontespitio della
Cappella di Papa Urbano al naturale alti p.mi 4.84 It would seem, therefore,
that two of the cherubs were made by Gianlorenzo and were subsequently
removed from the chapel, as a souvenir of his work there. Of the cherubs
presently in the chapel the two on the left are clearly of somewhat later date
and replace those that had been removed (Fig. 34). There is good reason,
stylistic as well as documentary, to suppose that they were executed about
1629 by Francesco Mochi (cf. Fig. 35).85
82
Baldinucci, 153, says that works by Luigi Bernini, Gianlorenzos brother, were also to
be seen in SantAndrea della Valle; there is no evidence for this in the documents for the
Barberini chapel I have seen.
83
BVAB2, fol. 7v; cf. Pollak, I, 334, No. 960.
84
BVAB3, fol. 1. The figures are mentioned by Tessin, Jr., as by Pietro Bernini: Zweij
kinder von marmer von dess Cav. Bernini vatter (Siren, 168). They appear in the inventory
of 1692: Due puttini di marmo bianco a sedere con gambe in cavalcate (BVAB4, fol. 245);
and they were still in the palace in 1755: due Angeli moderni ([G. Monti] Nuova descrizione
di Roma antica e moderna, Rome, 1755, 220).
85
I reproduce for comparison one of the putti on the bases of Mochis equestrian statues
in Piacenza. According to Passeri, Pope Urban commissioned Mochi to make a St. John the
Baptist for the Barberini chapel (ultimately brought to Dresden, see above, note 78) to
replace that by Pietro Bernini; this must have been after his return from Piacenza in 1629
(cf. Passeri-Hess, 133 and n. 1). In fact, in a document dating sometime after 1628, a marble block for a St. John for the chapel in SantAndrea della Valle is recorded, which must certainly have served for Mochis figure (Pollak, I, 22, No. 86). The same document includes
another block also for the Barberini chapel, to be used for a putto.
For the preceding observations, see Martinelli, 1951, 231 and n. 1, who also attributes
these two putti to Mochi (miswriting right for left). Martinelli, following P. Rotondi,
234
33. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Cherub over the right-hand pediment.

Barberini chapel, SantAndrea della Valle, Rome (photo: David Lees, Rome).
34. Attrib. to Francesco Mochi, Cherubs over the left-hand pediment.
Barberini chapel, SantAndrea della Valle, Rome (photo: Museo Vaticano).
FIVE EARLY BERNINIS
35. Francesco Mochi, Putto.

Piacenza, base of
Farnese monument
((from Dedalo, 5, 192425, 115).

Cherub over the
right-hand pediment.
Barberini chapel, SantAndrea
della Valle, Rome
235
37. Pietro Bernini, Angel. Rome,

Palazzo Quirinale,
Cappella Paolina (photo: GFN).
236
FIVE EARLY BERNINIS
237
38. Cherub over the

right-hand
pediment (detail).
Barberini chapel,
SantAndrea
della Valle, Rome
(photo: David Lees,
Rome).
39. Cherub over the

right-hand
pediment (detail).
Barberini chapel,
SantAndrea
della Valle, Rome
(photo: David Lees,
Rome).
238
40. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Neptune and Triton.

London, Victoria and Albert Museum.
239
FIVE EARLY BERNINIS

Flight from Troy (detail).
Rome, Galleria Borghese
(photo: GFN).

Flight from Troy (detail).
Rome, Galleria Borghese
(photo: GFN).
43. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Bust of Camilla Barbadori.

Copenhagen, Statens Museum for Kunst.
44. Tomaso Fedeli after Gianlorenzo Bernini, Bust of Antonio

Barberini. Rome, SantAndrea della Valle
(photo: F. Rigamonti, Rome)
240
45. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Flight from Troy (detail).

Rome, Galleria Borghese (photo: GFN).
46. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Bust of Giovanni Vigevano.

Rome, Santa Maria sopra Minarva (photo: GFN).
FIVE EARLY BERNINIS
241
47. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Bust of Cardinal Dolfin.

Venice, San Michele allIsola (photo: Bhm, Venice).
48. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Bust of Cardinal Escoubleau de Sourdis.

Bordeaux, Muse des Beaux-Arts (photo: Giraudon, Paris).
242
49. Nicol Cordier, Bust of St. Peter. Rome, San

Sebastiano fuori le Mura (photo: GFN).
50. Attrib. to Alessandro Vittoria, Bust of Gaspare Contarini.

Venice, Santa Maria dellOrto (photo: Alinari).
FIVE EARLY BERNINIS
243
244
On the basis of these facts, it might be assumed that the son executed
one pair and the father the other. The two cherubs on the right (Figs. 33,
36, 3839), however, are not in the style of Pietro Bernini. In designing the
models for the figures Pietro must have repeated the formula of his angel in
the Pauline chapel of the papal palace on the Quirinal hill, which he had
made a year before (Fig. 37).86 But the cherubs are composed in such a fundamentally different way that we must entertain the possibility that they,
too, were executed by Gianlorenzo. Whereas the body of Pietros angel is
twisted and extended laterally so as to conform to a flat, frontal plane, the
SantAndrea cherubs are organized in depth, and the lower legs project forward over the edge of the pediment. We have observed this method of composition in Gianlorenzos work before, and, indeed, in their poses and the
rhythmic movement of their bodies the cherubs are closely similar to the
Boy with the Dragon.
An analogous point can be made concerning the physical types of the
figures. The angels in Pietros Assumption relief (Fig. 28) have bloated bodies and faces, with strange, withdrawn glances. They contrast markedly with
the sweet, open visages much more classical in feeling of
Gianlorenzos infantile types, which we have seen developing in the
Amalthean Goat and the Boy with the Dragon. The SantAndrea cherubs
continue this development toward lither and more extroverted types. Yet,
they are subtly differentiated one from the other so as to form a counterpoint of mood and action. The right leg of the left-hand cherub is drawn
up tightly, and its diminutive, catlike features seem to be mimicked in the
crinkling drapery folds; its mischievous liveliness and intensity recall the
Boy with the Dragon. The cherub on the right has a more expansive grace of
pose and countenance, and more easily flowing drapery; its emotional
awareness has a direct descendant in the figure of Ascanius in the Flight
from Troy group in the Borghese Gallery (Figs. 4142). Gianlorenzo, we
now know, received payment for this sculpture in October 1619, little more
than a year after the SantAndrea cherubs were finished.87 The comparison
Studi intorno a Pietro Bernini, Rivista dellInstituto di archeologia e storia dellarte, 5, 1936, 361
n. 8, further rejects the attribution of the right-hand putti to Pietro Bernini (Muoz, 451).
The cherubs on the left pediment are substantially larger (left 94 cm. high, right 90 cm.)
than those on the right (left 70 cm., right 75 cm.).
86
Pietro received payments for the Quirinal angel during the second half of 1616, and
final payment in January 1617 (Muoz, 470).
87
Faldi, 1953, 141.
FIVE EARLY BERNINIS
245
is so close as to justify in itself attributing the cherubs to Gianlorenzo. The

kind of contrapuntal balance created by the cherubs was to characterize
Berninis paired figures ever after; indeed, he seems consciously to have
echoed them toward the end of his life, at the opposite end of the psychological scale, in the mourning angels for the Ponte SantAngelo, which are,
so to speak, the alter egos of the pair in SantAndrea.
The drapery of both cherubs, caught by a wind and twisted into billowing, spiral folds, reflects the svolazzi of the models by Pietro Bernini mentioned in the agreement to execute the figures in marble. They may be
taken, pars pro toto, as an indication of the stylistic relation between father
and son, since we can form a good idea of what Pietros drapery flourishes
must have been like from the spiral folds that embellish his works both
before and afterward (Figs. 28, 37);88 they are invariably small, flat,
cramped, and angular in conformation. In the SantAndrea cherubs, by
contrast, the twisted drapery ends project dramatically out into the surrounding space, in different directions. Such great, turbulent swirls become
a hallmark of the succeeding sculptures by Gianlorenzo; they occur repeatedly in the Neptune and Triton from the Villa Montalto in Rome, of about
16201621 (Fig. 40), in the Pluto and Prosperine of 16211622, and in the
Apollo and Daphne of 16221624.
Finally, from the technical point of view also, the cherubs occupy an
important place in Berninis early development. On the one hand, the soft,
granular treatment of the surfaces again recalls the Boy with the Dragon. At
the same time, they display many features that we shall see taken up and
developed in the sculptures that follow. There is little of the veiled, blurry
effect found in the earlier work; it is as though an object seen through a
photographic lens, previously slightly diffused, is being brought into focus.
The hair no longer consists of continuous, undulating waves but of separate, clearly defined locks whose shapes are marked by concentric striations.
Evidently, working from his fathers models, Gianlorenzo made all four
cherubs this, I suspect, in accordance with Maffeo Barberinis own wish.
Pietros collaboration, envisaged in the contract, must have consisted in
helping his son bring the work to its speedy conclusion. Two of the figures
were then dismounted and became put of the Barberini private art collec88
In the Assumption relief spiral drapery ends are seen at various points about the large
angel placed diagonally at the right. See also the drapery of the allegory by Pietro at the right
side of the Dolfin monument in Venice, 162122 (below, note 100).
246
tion, and are now lost. The other two were left to adorn the chapel. It is significant of the value attached to them that the two allowed to remain in the
chapel were those on the right, the more advantageous position, readily visible to the visitor as he enters the church.
The father, it will be noted, continued in 1618 to receive payment,
regardless of the sons contribution. On the other hand, Gianlorenzo himself acknowledged the final quittance for his labors, in April of the following year, 1619. He was then paid fifty scudi for his bust of Maffeo
Barberinis mother (which we shall consider presently) to be placed in the
chapel, by which payment the Cardinal also discharged the remainder of his
obligation to Gianlorenzo for all the works that he may have made for me
together with his father up to the present day (Doc. 17a). The works
covered retroactively in the last phrase can only have been the cherubs. The
consideration was a token one (but the more significant therefore) since the
sum was the same as had been paid seven years before for the bust of
Antonio Coppola alone. The document is of further interest because it
marks Gianlorenzos first appearance independent of his father; it is also the
first recorded payment to him, and he is given the title of Scultore.
This last circumstance suggests what is the probable explanation for the
peculiar terms of the contract and for the retroactive recognition of
Gianlorenzos work; namely, that at the end of 1618 or early in 1619
Gianlorenzo had been admitted to the marble workers guild. Until he
became a member of the Universit dei Marmorari he was still an apprentice, not yet a maestro. There is no record of precisely when he was enrolled in the organization, to which he became much attached, and to
which he made handsome gifts later in his life.89 There are several pieces of
evidence, however, which taken together tend to confirm the date suggested
by the payments. One is a letter written from Rome to Florence in 1674,
when the question arose whether the unfinished Piet of Michelangelo now
in Florence Cathedral, which had until shortly before been in Rome, was fit
to be installed in the Medici chapel in San Lorenzo. The writer of the letter
defends the piece and in support quotes Berninis praise of it, which he
reports as follows: But that which Bernini told me, I know is most true,
and it is this: that the Christ, which is almost completely finished, is an inestimable marvel, not only in itself but because Michelangelo made it when
89
148.
Cf. A. M. Bessone Aurelj, I marmorari romani, Milan, etc., 1935, 196; Fraschetti, 102,
FIVE EARLY BERNINIS
247
he was past seventy years old; and that he [Bernini] having come of age, and
consequently become a master, because he had become one at an early age,
had studied it continually for months and months.90
Bernini thus acknowledges his special debt to the body of Christ in
Michelangelos work, having made a careful study of it at the time he
became a maestro; this, he says, occurred when he was a giovinotto.
Normally, admission to the Roman guilds took place between the ages of
twenty and twenty-five.91 Assuming the earlier date, he would have been
admitted following his twentieth birthday in December 1618. The reason
for this passionate interest in Michelangelo is suggested by another, equally
remarkable letter, written on October 12, 1618, by Maffeo Barberini to his
brother Carlo, who was then in Florence. In a postscript Maffeo says: The
Cavaliere Passignano once told me that Michelangelo Buonarroti still
possessed here, toward the Palazzo dAlessandrino, a statue begun by
Michelangelo, and that he might be parted from it. If it can be obtained
cheaply through Passignano, I would take it because the son of Bernini,
who is having a great success, would finish it.92 The passage testifies to the
phenomenal success Gianlorenzo was then having, and in particular to the
favor he enjoyed with Maffeo Barberini. It also reveals the hitherto
unknown fact that there was in Rome, owned by Michelangelos grandnephew, an unfinished work by or at least attributed to the master which,
perhaps most astonishing of all, the young Bernini was considered capable
of completing.93 It is reasonable to associate this project for finishing one of
Michelangelos works with the study of the earlier artist Bernini said he
Ma quello che ha detto il Bernino a me, so ch verissimo, et questo: che il Cristo

ch quasi finito tutto, una maraviglia inestimabile, no solo per se, ma per averlo fatto
Michelagnolo dopo laver passato let di 70 anni; e chegli uomo fatto, e consequentemente
maestro, perch cominci ad esserlo da giovinotto, vi aveva studiato s mesi e mesi continui.
Letter of Paolo Falconieri, November 17, 1674 (C. Mallarm, Lultima tragedia di
Michelangelo, Rome, 1929, 80).
91
See A. Martini, Arti mestieri e fede nella Roma dei Papi, Bologna, 1965, 49.
92
Mi disse una volta il S.r Caval.r Passignani che al Sr Michelangelo Buonarrti restava qui
verso il Palazzo dAless:no una statua comincta gi da Michelangelo, et che ne Sarebba fatto
fuori. Se si puo haver -p buon mercato sotto mano col mezo del medmo Passig:no la piglierei
lo
ta
-p che il fig. del Bernino che fa g riusc. la -p fetionerebbe. (BV, MS Barb. lat. 10078, fol.
75v) The letter was discovered independently by C. DOnofrio, who alludes to it in Un
dialogo-recita di Gian Lorenzo Bernini e Lelio Guidiccioni, Palatino, 10, 1966, 129.
93
The problem of identifying the work in question will be discussed by the writer in a
separate essay. Suffice it to say here that the most likely candidate seems to be the
90
248
undertook at the time he became maestro. In that case, the date of Maffeo
Barberinis letter, October 1618, would coincide with the other evidence
suggesting that Bernini was admitted to the marble workers guild at the
end of that year or early in the next, whereupon he became eligible to
undertake and receive payment for work in his own name.
We have been able to define in the works discussed so far a significant
phase in Berninis development between 1612 and 1618, that is, roughly
between his thirteenth and nineteenth year. It was a period of soft, impressionistic technique and psychological subtlety that emerged from the rather
strained expressiveness of the earliest efforts, and led to the monumental
drama of the groups made in the early 1620s.
The moment of change found in the SantAndrea cherubs is represented
in portraiture by the bust of Maffeo Barberinis mother, Camilla Barbadori,
recently discovered in the Statens Museum in Copenhagen (Fig. 43).94
Bernini was paid for this work, as we have noted, in April 1619, and he was
to install it in the Barberini chapel in SantAndrea. It was followed by a
companion bust of Camillas husband, Antonio, for which Bernini received
payment, under the same terms, in February 1620 (Doc. 18). Toward the
end of the decade, probably as part of the same campaign that included the
removal of the cherubs, the busts were also transferred to the Barberini private collection. They first appear there in an inventory entry of December
much-debated Palestrina Piet, which was in fact owned by the Barberini, though
Michelangelos authorship of the work is not thereby guaranteed.
The similarity of the legs of Berninis St. Sebastian to those of Christ in the Florentine
Piet has been emphasized (Wittkower, 1966, 174), and we may note the equally marked
resemblance between the overall pose of Berninis figure and that of Christ in the Palestrina
Piet. It is tempting to imagine the St. Sebastian as a kind of prospectus that led to the
extraordinary idea of having the young Bernini complete an unfinished work by
Michelangelo.
Among the possible sources for the St. Sebastian, incidentally, should be considered the
Louvre Piet by Annibale Carracci, as suggested recently by D. Posner, Domenichino and
Lanfranco: The Early Development of Baroque Painting in Rome, in Essays in Honor of
Walter Friedlaender, Marsyas, Suppl. Vol. II, New York, 1965, 144 n. 44. We may add that
the painting, which was in San Francesco a Ripa in Rome, was engraved by P. Aquila, with
a dedication to Bernini; cf. Mostra dei Carracci, ed. G. C. Cavalli, etc., Exhib. Cat., Bologna,
1956, 256, No. 112.
94
Martinelli, Commentari, 1956, 23 ff. It was dated 162627 by Martinelli and
Wittkower (1966, 19293, No. 24c); A. Nava Cellini proposed 1622 (Una proposta ed una
rettifica per Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Paragone, 17, 1966, No. 191, 2829).
FIVE EARLY BERNINIS
249
4, 1628, with yellow marble bases added (indicating they had originally
been placed in oval or circular niches).95 To replace the busts, oval medallions of porphyry with relief copies had been made early in 1627 (Fig. 44),
and these were installed in 1629 along with commemorative inscriptions in
the narrow passageway connecting the Barberini chapel with that adjoining
toward the east.96
In the bust of Camilla everything has become sharp and clear. The surfaces are smoothly polished; contours and incisions are rendered with a new
precision. The pose is strictly frontal, the drapery of the widows weeds falls
in nearly straight, symmetrical folds that veil the shoulders. There is a tense,
almost geometric abstraction that indicates a reaction against the earlier
softness and vagueness. A similar quality of strained rigidity combined with
smooth purity of shape and line pervades the Flight from Troy, which, as we
noted, was paid for in the fall of the same year, 1619.
The commission for the Flight from Troy may well have been the reason
for the delay in executing the bust of Antonio Barberini. This work has not
yet come to light, but to judge from Tommaso Fedelis copy on the porphyry relief medallion (Fig. 44) it provided a striking, and probably deliberate, contrast to the companion portrait of Camilla. As opposed to the
symmetrical arrangement of the earlier work, the shoulders were wrapped
in a cloak whose broken, irregular folds must have obscured the relationships between shoulders, arms, and torso.
The significance of these differences becomes evident in what seems to
have been Berninis next portrait, the bust of Giovanni Vigevano in Santa
Maria sopra Minerva (Fig. 46). A number of factors conspire to indicate a
95
BVAB1, fol. 28 (cited by Fraschetti, 140 n. 2, with a wrong date). The yellow
marble bases were paid for on March 31, 1629 (cf. Fraschetti, 140 n. 3, where the year is
omitted).
96
The porphyry reliefs of Antonio and Camilla were inventoried in the Barberini collection respectively in March and June 1627 (Fraschetti, 142 n. 1). They were paid for in
July 1627: A di 30 Lug. [1627] 75 mta in cro a Tommaso Fedeli scultore per sua mani~
fattura della testa lavorata in porfido basso rilievo ritratto della S ra Camilla madre di Sua Sta
come -p la stima fatta dal Bernino (BVAB, Arm. 86, Card. Franc., Libro Mastro A, 162329,
p. 170); Martinellis attribution of the reliefs to Tommaso Fedeli is thus confirmed
(Commentari, 1956, 25).
On July 28, 1626, Ferdinando Ruccellai, proprietor of the adjoining chapel, confirmed
the concession which he had made to Maffeo Barberini many years before of the passageway between the two chapels (BVAB5, No. 83). For the inscriptions under the medallions,
dated 1629, see Forcella, VIII, 266, Nos. 66869.
250
date of about 1620 for the Vigevano bust.97 The treatment of the mustache
and beard is extremely close to that of the head of Aeneas (Fig. 45). The
arrangement of the drapery seems to reflect that of the lost portrait of
Antonio Barbadori. As a terminus ante quem, we have the testimony of
Vigevanos will, drawn up in May 1622, in which he stipulates that he is to
be buried in his tomb newly made in the Minerva.98
Bernini here takes up again the classically inspired motif of the right
hand protruding through the enveloping drapery, which he had introduced
in the bust of Coppola. There are fundamental changes, however. The torso
is cut off at a higher level, and there is no hint of the existence of the right
arm beneath the drapery.99 The hand now grasps the drapery firmly, squeezing it into a cascade of deep, complicated folds. These folds, instead of running directly out to the edge, cartwheel fashion, seem constrained to follow
the semicircular curvature of the silhouette. The result of these devices is a
cramped effect, which makes us miss the forms that are not there. At the
same time, the vigorous gesture and slightly parted lips (compare the lips of
Ascanius and Aeneas, Figs. 42, 45) help to suggest an inner animation.
It will be seen that two complementary factors are involved at this stage
in the development of Berninis portraiture. Though the bust of Coppola
demonstrates that he was concerned virtually from the outset with the
problem posed by the truncated human body, he now seeks to make the
observer aware of the missing parts by emphasizing their absence. This negative effect, in turn, is enhanced by the now smoothly polished surfaces and
97
I return, in effect, to the date originally proposed by Reymond, 58, followed by
Wittkower, 1953, 21; Wittkower later shifted the bust to 161718 (1966, 17475, No. 5).
98
Il mio corpo voglio, che sia sepolto nella Chiesa di Sta Maria della Minerva di
Roma nella mia sepoltura fatta di novo.
Item per ragione di legato, et in altro miglior modo lascio alla Sig.a Laura Catani
mia socera la mia sepoltura Vecchia, essistente nella detta Chiesa della Minerva,
appresso alla detta Nova, dandoli faculta di posser levare la mia inscrittione che
nella lapide, et apporvi la sua nella qual sepoltura gi vi sepolto il quond Gioseffe
suo marito.
(ASR, 30 Notai Capitolini, Ufficio 28, Testamenti, Vol. 3 [Not. Vespignanus],
fol. 87)
For the inscription placed by Laura Catani on the earlier tomb slab, cf. Forcella, I, 476, No.
1848. Vigevano died in 1630; for the inscription on his tomb, ibid., 493, No. 1908.
99
The obscuring of a crucial part of the anatomy by an intricate mass of drapery became
one of Berninis most effective devices; see the St. Teresa and, in portraiture, the busts of
Francesco dEste and Louis XIV, where it serves to disguise the truncation of the body.
FIVE EARLY BERNINIS
251
clearly defined details, which serve to intensify the physical presence of the
figure.
In the two portraits that follow, Bernini begins to exploit the positive
implications of this approach. Both works, the bust of Cardinal Giovanni
Dolfin on his tomb in San Michele allIsola in Venice and that of Cardinal
Escoubleau de Sourdis in Bordeaux (Figs. 47, 48), are parts of joint enterprises carried out by father and son. While Gianlorenzo made the patrons
portrait, Pietro executed accompanying figures: two female allegories for
the Venetian cardinals tomb, a Virgin and an angel of the Annunciation for
the French prelate.100 There is good evidence, albeit circumstantial, for dating the portraits. Giovanni Dolfin, who had lived for many years in Rome,
returned finally to Venice in May 1621, where he died the following year;101
the bust must have been made shortly before his departure, i.e., early in
1621. Cardinal de Sourdis had come to Rome early in the spring of 1621,
and he left to return to France by July 1622;102 in all likelihood the portrait
was done toward the end of his stay.
In these works Bernini developed a distinctive, bow-shaped lower edge
which became characteristic of nearly all his portraits during the first half of
Both busts are listed in Baldinuccis catalogue of. Berninis works (p. 176). Pietro
Berninis allegories of Faith and Hope on the Dolfin tomb are mentioned by Baglione, 305.
The sculptures for De Sourdis are mentioned in 1669 by Charles Perrault, who attributes
the bust as well as the Annunciation figures to Pietro; Gianlorenzos authorship of the portrait is obvious and has never been questioned since the sculptures were published by
Reymond, 45 ff. See Wittkower, 1966, 182, Nos. 14, 16.
Illustrations of Pietros figures may be found conveniently in Venturi, Vol. X, 3, 92021.
The architect of the Dolfin tomb is unknown; it is illustrated as a whole in V. Meneghin, S.
Michele in Isola di Venezia, Venice, 1962, I, Pl. 65 facing p. 353; cf. 34041.
101
See Ciaconius, IV, cols. 357-58. Dolfins departure from Rome in May 1622 is mentioned in B. G. Dolfin, I Dolfin (Delfino) patrizi veneziani nella storia di Venezia dall anno
452 al 1923, Milan, 1924, 156; cf. Martinelli, Ritratti, 2728.
A letter written by Dolfin to Pope Gregory XV from Venice on September 25, 1621,
begins: Essendo piaciuto al Sig.re Dio di farmi capitare in Venetia lunedi prossimo passato
con perfetta salute, giudico mio debito darne riverente conto alla Santita Vra . . . (BV, MS
Barb. lat. 8785, fol. 4).
102
De Sourdis was not present at the conclave that elected Gregory XV (February 8,
1621; cf. Ciaconius IV, cols. 465 ff.), but he is mentioned in a diary of the papal master of
ceremonies as participating in a ceremony on April 25, 1621 (P. Alaleone, Diarium die 30
Octobris ad diem 2 Maij 1622, BV, MS Barb. lat. 2817, fol. 427). His departure from Rome
is established by a letter written by him to the Pope from Bordeaux on July 17, 1622: Son
giunto per la gra di Dio alla mia Chiesa con salute; et nel passar da Toloso vi trovai S. M.ta
Christma. . . (BV, MS Barb. lat. 7952, fol. 96).
100
252
51. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Bust of Monsignor Pedro de Foix Montoya.

Rome, Santa Maria di Monserrato, Spanish Seminary
(photo: GFN).
FIVE EARLY BERNINIS
253
52. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Bust of Monsignor Francesco Barberini.

Washington, National Gallery.

Bust of Monsignor
Francesco Barberini
(view from beneath showing
displacement of shoulders).
Washington, National
Gallery.
254
54. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Bust of Antonio Cepparelli,

(photo: GFN).
FIVE EARLY BERNINIS
255

Bust of Antonio Cepparelli,
Rome, San Giovanni
dei Fiorentini
(photo: GFN).
56. Attributed to Nicol

Cordier, Bust of a member of the
Aldobrandini family,
Rome, Santa Maria sopra
Minerva
(photo: GFN).
256
57. Benvenuto Cellini,

Bust of Cosimo I de Medici.
Florence, Bargello
(from Camesasca, Tutta
lopera dell Cellini, pl. 26).

Rome, San Giovanni dei
Fiorentini
(photo: GFN).
FIVE EARLY BERNINIS
59. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Bust of Antonio Cepparelli,

(photo: GFN).
257
258
30. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Bust of Cardinal Bellarmino.

Rome, Church of the Ges (photo: GFN).
FIVE EARLY BERNINIS

(photo: GFN).
62. Giovanni da Valsoldo,

Bust of Cardinal Albani,
Rome, Santa Maria del Popolo
(photo: GFN).
259
260
the 1620s, and which he employed, with variations, repeatedly thereafter.

The line flares upward and outward to form a sharp angle where it joins the
lateral profiles. This outward flare tends to increase with succeeding works
so that the point of intersection pierces the surrounding space in marked
contrast to the compact, self-contained silhouette of the earlier busts.103
Since the cut-off edge of the arms is relatively lower, more of the drapery
hanging from the shoulders appears, giving an apronlike suggestion of hollowness. Most important, the elegant, soaring curve has an effect of buoyancy that emphasizes the emptiness below. As a result the observer is made
aware of the absent arms and body, hence is encouraged to imagine their
existence. At the same time, a sense of fragmentation is avoided by the
regularity of the curve itself.
Bernini had first used the formula some years before, in the under
life-size bust of Paul V in the Borghese Gallery.104 There, however, the curve
rises more vertically, and the compactness of the outline is maintained.
Although the motif has a variety of possible forerunners, the elegance
and tension of Berninis curves seem most closely anticipated, curiously
enough, by the springlike scrolls that form the lower edges of Nicol
Cordiers busts of SS. Peter and Paul in San Sebastiano fuori le Mura
(Fig. 49).105 Whatever the specific prototypes, it seems likely that Berninis
interest in the device was revived by the peculiar nature of the Dolfin commission. In his will, Dolfin had stipulated that his tomb imitate those of the
103
An important role in this development, which culminates in the lateral flourishes of
the busts of Francesco dEste and Louis XIV, is played by the late (probably posthumous)
portraits of Paul V and the busts of Gregory XV (162122). Wittkower, 1966, 17576, No.
6(2), 17980, No. 12; Martinelli, Ritratti, 13 ff. The increasing breadth of Berninis portraits
has been observed by Rinehart, 442.
104
Wittkower, 1966, 172, No. 6 (1).
105
Venturi, X, 3, Figs. 53839. These were commissioned by Scipione Borghese and paid
for in 1608 (see the documents published by I. Faldi, La scultura barocca in Italia, Milan,
1958, 80). Cordier, in fact, seems to have been one of the most important influences on Berninis early development (on the St. Sebastian, see p. 231 f. above; on the Cepparelli bust, see
p. 265 ff. below). The bust of Camilla Barbadori should be compared with Cordiers head
of Luisa Deti in the Aldobrandini chapel in Santa Maria sopra Minerva (Venturi, x, 3, fig.
527; cf. Martinelli, Commentari, 1956, 28), and the Flight from Troy is inconceivable without Cordiers King David in the Cappella Paolina at Santa Maria Maggiore (Venturi, X, 3,
Fig. 534). There are echoes of Cordiers St. Sebastian in the Aldobrandini chapel (ibid., Fig.
533) in Berninis David (the armor) and St. Longinus.
FIVE EARLY BERNINIS
261
Contarini family in Santa Maria dellOrto in Venice.106 And in fact, the bust
of Gaspare Contarini, attributed to Alessandro Vittoria, has a lower silhouette of this basic type (Fig. 50).107
The Dolfin and De Sourdis portraits also show an increasing crispness
and precision in the treatment of details. Whereas Dolfins hair and beard
106
October 29, 1612: . . . se ci [i.e., death] aver in Roma voglio che il mio corpo sia
posto nella chiesa di san Marco di Roma, et poi in ogni caso voglio che si trasporti Venezia,
et si sepelischi nella chiesa di san Michel di Murano delli Monaci dellordine Camaldulense,
nella quale voglio, che linfrascritto mio herede sia tenuto, et debbia far fare quanto prima
un deposito tra le doi colonne di detta chiesa, nellistessa forma, che sono li doi depositi delli
sig.ri Contarini nella Chiesa della Madonna dellhorto in Venetia. (ASR, 30, Not. Cap. Uff.
10, Not. Franc. Micenus, fol. 281.)
Architecturally, there is a resemblance between the Dolfin tomb (cf. note 100 above) and
that of the Contarini (cf. F. Cessi, Alessandro Vittoria architetto e stuccatore [15251608],
Trento, 1961, 52, Pl. 40, with an attribution to Vittoria). The Dolfin tomb, moreover, conforms to a common Venetian type in that it frames the entrance to the church, with the sarcophagus placed high above. This may help to explain the design of the next tomb with
which the Berninis were involved, that of Cardinal Bellarmino in the Ges (see below); in
this case the architect is known Girolamo Rainaldi, who shortly afterward also seems to
have designed the Sfondrato tomb in Santa Cecilia, in which the same formula is repeated
(Bruhns, 31314, Fig. 235; for the correct date, cf. Martinelli, Contributi alla scultura del
seicento: IV. Pietro Bernini e figli, Commentari, 4, 1953, 148 n. 22).
107
Cf. Cessi, Alessandro Vittoria scultore (15251608). II Parte, Trento, 1962, 22 ff.
The significance of this fact becomes apparent when it is realized that the Dolfin bust
inaugurates a long dialogue that Bernini maintained with Venetian sculpture. The next
major advance in what I should call the positive approach to implied form took place toward
the end of the 1620s, in Berninis portraits of the Venetian cardinals Agostino and Pietro
Valier, now in the Seminary in Venice (for the date, see below at the end of this note). Here,
the busts are still broader and fuller, and the drapery is more complex and active; the result
is an uncanny illusion of hollowness, hence the imagined existence of the rest of the body.
The closest precedents for Berninis broad, voluminous torsos are in fact Venetian, and
particularly the portraits of Vittoria. More over, the fronts of Vittorias busts often have elaborate draperies arranged and cut so as to give a hollow, apronlike effect that anticipates
Bernini. Thus, an important aspect of the development of Berninis portraiture, in which he
moves away from the severe, tightly drawn silhouettes of Roman tradition, seems to reflect
Venetian influence (for a Florentine component, see below, pp. 266 f.). It can hardly be coincidental that two essential stages in this development, those represented by the Dolfin and
Valier busts, were reached in works made for Venetian patrons.
It should be emphasized that the comparisons with Vittorias portraits are never very precise; the relationship was one of spirit rather than detail. There are more specific connections
with Vittoria in Berninis works other than portraiture; compare Berninis figure of Daniel
in Santa Maria del Popolo with that by Vittoria in San Giuliano, Venice (Venturi, X, 3, Fig.
93, to which, however, should be added that in Rubenss painting now in Washington, GBA,
January 1966, Suppl., 50, Fig. 196), and Berninis St. Jerome in the Cathedral of Siena with
that by Vittoria in the Frari (Venturi, X, 3, Fig. 71).
262
have a flamelike quality reminiscent of the Vigevano bust, the hair and
beard of De Sourdis are defined by thin parallel incisions.108 What had been
abstract and generalized is now becoming minute and specific.
In the final group of works we shall discuss, one of which is the new portrait of Antonio Cepparelli in San Giovanni dei Fiorentini, Bernini seems
to draw the logical conclusions from the approach he had taken two or
three years before; the group may be said to mark the climax and end of his
early development. The first in the series is the portrait that adorns the
tomb of Monsignor Pedro de Foix Montoya, now in the Spanish seminary
in the Via Giulia, but originally in the Spanish national church of San
Giacomo degli Spagnuoli in Piazza Navona (Fig. 51). Montoya died in
1630, but it has always been recognized, for stylistic reasons, that the bust
must have been made substantially earlier.109 Documents from the archive
of the Confraternity of the Resurrection, which was the proprietor of San
Giacomo, provide evidence for a precise date.110 The minutes of the meetings of the confraternity record that in September 1622, Montoya peti-
The date of c. 1627 for the Valier busts proposed by Wittkower (1966, 194, No. 25) on
stylistic grounds can be supported by documentary evidence. The Vatican Library contains
some 32 letters written by Pietro Valier between March 1624 and February 1629 (he died
in Padua in April 1629). The letters were all written from north Italy and form a continuous series without significant interruptions, except for a period of a year between May 1626
and May 1627. Precisely during this period, on September 14, 1626, there is a letter by
Valier written from Rome. (1624:.March 13, June 1, 15, 30, August 29, October 20 [three],
November 16, December 26; 1625: March 3, August 23 [three], December 12, 20; 1626:
February 5, May 30, September 14 [from Rome]; 1627: May 29, October 15 [two]; 1628:
January 1, February 8, 15, 18, December 15, 18, 25, 31; 1629: February 1). Cf. BV, MSS
Barb. lat. 7794, 7797, 8781.
I share Wittkowers view that the two Valier busts are contemporary.
108
In this respect Bernini seems again to return to the early bust of Paul V, where the hair
and beard are also defined by fine parallel lines.
109
A terminus ante quem is provided by an anecdote recounted by Baldinucci, Domenico
Bernini, and Bernini himself (see note 114 below), according to which the bust was seen by
Cardinal Maffeo Barberini before he became Pope Urban VIII (August 3, 1623).
Cf. Wittkower, 1966, 181, No. 13, where the date 1621 is proposed.
110
A history of the confraternity and its benefactors is given by Fernndez Alonso
(279 ff.; on Montoya, cf. 31920), to whom I am indebted for facilitating my work in the
archive. The archive is housed in the library of the Instituto Espaol de Estudios Eclesiasticos, Via Giulia 151.
FIVE EARLY BERNINIS
263
tioned for permission to found a chaplaincy.111 He was, in turn, permitted

to erect his sepulchral monument in the church. In December 1622 the
confraternity decreed that construction of the tomb might not begin until
the contracts of the donation were executed.112 The act of the donation was
drawn up in January 1623; in it the location of the tomb is established, and
the church undertakes to care for the portrait, which seems to have been
already extant, and the rest of the monument in perpetuity.113 The bust was
therefore most probably made at the end of 1622.114
September 16, 1622: Le. yo el secretario un memorial, que decia como Mons.r Pedro
de Foix Montoia quiere fundar e esta Iglesia una Capellania anidiendo un Capellan mas y
cometieren. a los SS.a Bernardo de Cegama, y D.r Botnete y D. Pedro de Alarcon p.a que con
los SS.s Adm.res traten. del modo de esta fundacion con e dho mons.r (AIEE1191, fol. 91).
112
December 28, 1622: Quese concluia en el negocio de la Capellania de Mons.r Pedro
de Foix Montoia conforme a su memorial y a la relacion qhuzieron los SS.a. Adm.es. que es
la contenida en dho memorial qse me entrego y que en materia de comenar a fabricar en
su sepultura no pueda hazer cosa alguna hasta quese hagan los instrumentos dela dha fundacion (ibid., fol. 93v).
113
January 29, 1623:
Iten convenerunt quod dictus R.mus D. Petrus in dta ecclesia in eo loco qui est a latere effigiei Petri de Chacon possit construere suum sepulcrum cum ornamento pro
ut ipsi R.mo Dno Petro suis expensis bene visum fuerit cum facultate etiam apponendi in terra unum lapidem cum sua inscriptione etiam si corpus suum fuerit
repossitum in pariete vel etiam si extra Urbem defunctus et in quacumq. ecclesia
extra Urbem sepultus fuerit quern locum nomine pt ae eccliae ipsi Dni deputati
dto R.mo D. Petro liberum, et immunem concesserunt.
Iten erit obligata dicta ecclia quod si ptus locus in quo apponenda est effigies,
et sepultura aliquo casu seu eventu fuerit mutandus ad aliam partern dare in pta
ecclia alium locum ad effectum apponendi dictam effigiem ornamentum et sepulturam talem, et aeque bonum uti erat primus et manutenere, ac conservare ptam
effigiem et ornamenturn semper, et perpuo pro ut fuerit finita, et perfecta, ita quod
si fuerint rupta vel collapsa in partem, vel in totum teneatur dicta ecclesia illa reficere.
(Act notarized by Thomas Godover, AIEE635, No. 120, foll. 8990. The act was ratified
by the confraternity on September 10, 1623; ibid., No. 121, fol. 98.)
114
From Montoyas testament, dated May 27, 1630 (he died three days later), we learn,
that work on the tomb was still in progress: Item mando que la sepoltura donde a de estar
mi cuerpo enterrado sea en el muro de la dicha Santa Iglesia del Seor Santiago donde a de
estar el Deposito, que tengo hecho, y en tierra, al pie de la dicha Sepoltura, se ponga una
piedra, y en ella, o. en la que a de estar en la pared donde a de estar el cuerpo, se ponga esta
memoria, con las demas, que dejo instituidas y dotadas en la dicha Santa Iglesia de Seor
Santiago de Nuestra Naion Espaola (ibid., No. 148, fol. 4; for the inscriptions a short
one above the sarcophagus, a long one on the wall below the monument cf. Forcella, III,
247, No. 612).
111
264
What had remained of generalized abstraction in Berninis treatment of

form seems here to have disappeared, leaving only the impression of tight,
vivid precision. We feel confronted directly by reality, and the very sharpness of focus adds to the quality of inner tension and vitality the figure conveys. The hair consists entirely of fine, closely set lines that intensify the
effect of wiry tautness. While the drapery is in the main symmetrical, the
edge of the cloak (mantelletta) at Montoyas right is folded back.115 This is
counterbalanced in a dynamic, asymmetrical fashion by the bowed sash at
the waist, placed slightly to the right of center. The folds of the cloak hanging from the chest project forward, apronlike, and suggest an empty space
behind. There Bernini introduces the bow that falls startlingly over the
pedestal.116 By these devices, which work now in a positive rather than a
negative way, he encourages the mind to imagine that the body continues
below the waist.
The portrait of Monsignor Francesco Barberini (the uncle of Maffeo),
now in Washington, D.C., must have been conceived within a very short
time after the bust of Montoya (Fig. 52).117 The drapery arrangement of
According to Baldinucci, 76, and Domenico Bernini, 16, the bust was already in place
when Maffeo Barberini saw it; but the evidence of Montoyas testament seems to accord with
Berninis own recollection that Montoya left the bust in the artists studio for a long time
(Chantelou, 10203).
In a marginal note added to the manuscript of Fioravante Martinellis Roma ornata 63,
the architecture of the tomb is attributed to Orazio (not Niccol) Turriani; cf. Hibbard,
1965, 237 n. 64.
We may note here that the busts of the Anima Beata and Anima Dannata, originally in
San Giacomo degli Spagnoli, now in the Palazzo di Spagna, have no connection with
Montoya (Wittkower, 1966, 177, No. 7). They were left to the church by one of the benefactors, Fernando Botinete, who died in October 1632, and are listed in an inventory of
1680 (AIEE, Busta 1333, Invent de la yglesa y Sacrist que Sirvio hast. el Ao de 1680,
foll. 133 ff., cosas differentes de Sacristia, cf. fol. 134v: Mas dos Estatuas de Marmol blanco
del Bernino, con sus piedestales de jaspe, son dos testas que rapresentan la una la anima en
gloria, y la otra anima en pena & las quales vienen con lo quedejo el D.or Botinete a la
Iglesia). On Botinete cf. Fernndez Alonso, 32223.
115
Bernini seems to have borrowed this motif from the bust of Martino Azpilcueta in
SantAntonio de Portoghesi, where the folded-back edge serves to reveal the insignia on the
vest below (cf. Grisebach, 145).
116
The bow is carved from the same block of marble as the bust; the pedestal and flanking scrolls are a separate piece.
117
The bust is listed by Baldinucci, 176, and in 1627 in the inventory of Cardinal
Francesco Barberini (BVAB1, fol. 27; cf. Fraschetti, 140 n. 1); also in 1635 in Menghinis
inventory (BVAB2, fol. 23; cf. Pollak, I, 334, No. 961).
FIVE EARLY BERNINIS
265
Montoya is here repeated almost exactly, including the folded-back right

edge of the mantelletta. A different kind of rhythm is established, however,
by the heads turning to the right, while the pleated surplice protruding
from beneath the central opening of the cloak moves on a diagonal from
upper left to lower right. Most important, Bernini here introduces a slight
displacement of the shoulders; the left shoulder is forward with respect to
the right (Fig. 53).118 There is thus a subtle but insistent hint of movement.
The surface of the marble also is treated with greater ease and fluidity than
in the Montoya bust, and is given a somewhat porous luster.
The first reference we have to the bust of Antonio Cepparelli is on April
23, 1622, five days after his death, when the Confraternity of the Piet
determined to commission it from Bernini (Figs. 5455, 5859, 61). The
record is of interest, as we noted, because it refers to the earlier memorial to
Coppola: And let there be made a statue of marble with an inscription to
the said Signor Antonio to be placed in the hospital, like that of Coppola,
and Signor Girolamo Ticci was told to speak to the sculptor Bernini, that it
be made as soon as possible (Doc. 20).119 Berninis first payment of
twenty-five scudi was ordered in August the same year (Doc. 22a). The
receipt itself is preserved, and is also a fascinating document; it is made out
on the front to Gianlorenzo, while on the back it is signed by his father,
Pietro, acting as his agent (Doc. 22b).120 There seems then to have been
some delay, since Gianlorenzo received his final payment of forty-five scudi
only at the end of the following year, in December 1623 (Doc. 23).121 The
It is dated 1626 by Wittkower (1966, 19192, No. 24b), whereas Pope-Hennessy
(Catalogue, 127, Pl. 144) proposes 162425. The tendency to date the work too late, despite
its close similarity to the Montoya, presumably arose from the deceptive fact that it first
appears, along with the busts of Maffeos mother (which was also dated too late), father, and
niece, in the 1627 inventory. I hereby emphatically retract the doubt I once expressed
whether the bust is completely autograph (review of Wittkower, in AB, 38, 1956, 259).
118
The displacement may be gauged by the view from beneath showing the position of
the shoulders in relation to the base.
119
On June 21, 1622, the painter Pompeo Caccini was paid for making a portrait of
Cepparelli, recalling the portrait of Coppola that had been painted by Cosimo Dandini
(Docs. 21, 5). Caccini, a Florentine, seems not to be otherwise documented in Rome
(Thieme-Becker, V, 338).
120
Cf. also Doc. 22c. An analogous case was that of Pompeo Caccinis portrait of
Cepparelli, for which Pompeos son collected the money and signed the receipt (Doc. 21b).
121
The pattern of Berninis prices for portraits should be noted: 50 scudi for that of
Coppola (1612) and those of Camilla Barbadori and Antonio Barberini (161920), 70 scudi
for that of Cepparelli.
266
last reference in the documents is that of 1634, quoted earlier, concerning

the installation of the terra-cotta models for the two portraits by Bernini
(Doc. 29).
In composing the bust of Cepparelli, Bernini seems to have had in mind
a portrait attributed to Nicol Cordier of a member of the Aldobrandini
family, in the Aldobrandini chapel in Santa Maria sopra Minerva (Fig.
56).122 The resemblance includes not only details of costume and composition, notably the leather vest and the cape flung asymmetrically from the
front of the left shoulder to the back of the right, but also the physiognomical structure of the head and the handling of features such as the eyelids and cheeks. The choice of this asymmetrical prototype is significant,
and in interpreting it Bernini brought into play and made explicit the innovations that had been hinted at in the busts of Montoya and Francesco Barberini. The myriad wrinkles in the drapery are smoothed and simplified.
The portion of the cape covering the left shoulder hangs in straight folds
that form an insistent diagonal down the side of the chest, recalling the
turned-back edges of Montoyas and Barberinis mantellette. The edge of the
cape visible above the right shoulder is bent up so that instead of creating a
closed outline it slices the air like a fin.123 The edge of the cape returns to
view, in the form of a bent fold that moves diagonally across the lower right
part of the chest. This motif is a descendant of the diagonal folds underlying the arms of Coppola and Vigevano; though here it appears through the
armpit and does not interrupt the wide-flaring, bow-shaped lower silhouette, it anticipates the sideward-streaming masses on which the busts of
Francesco dEste and Louis XIV seem to float. Cepparellis cape thus creates
a series of asymmetrical but counterbalancing diagonal accents that rotate
around his body. Within this halo of motion, the head is turned markedly
to the right and inclined downward, and the right shoulder is thrust forward, the left back.
The drapery arrangement and the suggestion of movement make it possible to discern what now became an important new source of inspiration
for Berninis portraiture. In both respects the Cepparelli bust reveals a close
study of Florentine portraits of the preceding century, especially those of
The attribution to Cordier is due to Riccoboni, 112. For the costume see also the bust
of Michele Cornia in Santa Maria in Aracoeli, also attributed to Cordier (Venturi, X, 3,
Fig. 544).
123
Cf. the turned-up folds of drapery behind the shoulders of Francesco dEste and
Louis XIV.
122
FIVE EARLY BERNINIS
267
Benvenuto Cellini. In the famous bronze bust of Cosimo I deMedici in the

Bargello, the cloak similarly weaves from the front of the left shoulder
behind the back, and reappears in front at the lower right side (Fig. 57).124
The Florentines also had introduced an element of movement in their
busts, apart from the turn of the head, by showing one arm forward and the
other back.125 This, too, is a device that Bernini subsequently adopted,
though in radically altered form.126 It is important to observe, however, that
in the Barberini and Cepparelli busts there is no such overt action; the arms
hang vertically and nothing disturbs the figures ideal composure. On the
other hand, Bernini creates a more profound vitality by actually shifting the
relationship between the shoulders. And in the Cepparelli portrait he took
a giant step beyond even the bust of Monsignor Barberini in addition to
the displacement of the shoulders, the torso itself is rotated slightly to the
left. There are thus no straight axes, either in the horizontal or vertical
An analogous drapery arrangement occurs in Cellinis bust of Bindo Altoviti in the
Gardner Museum, Boston (see the illustrations in E. Camesasca, Tutta lopera del Cellini,
Milan, 1962, Pls. 66, 67).
Admittedly, it is difficult to assume that Bernini knew the Cosimo I bust firsthand, since
it was on the island of Elba from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century; however, a marble
replica attributed to Cellini himself has recently come to light (W. Heil, A Re-discovered
Marble Portrait of Cosimo I de Medici by Cellini, BurlM, 109, 1967, 4 ff.). The bust of
Altoviti was in Rome until the nineteenth century.
125
Cf. besides Cellini's portraits, that by Bandinelli of Cosimo I cited above, note 29. In
describing their busts of Cosimo, Cellini speaks of having given his lardito moto del vivo,
and Bandinelli of l moto suo . . . che distende uno braccio alu[n]chando la mano da pacifichare e popoli (quoted by Heikamp, 5758).
126
Moving arms occur first in the portraits of Urban VIII and Richelieu (cf: Wittkower,
1966, 14). In these cases it is the lower rather than the upper part of the arm that seems to
shift under the drapery; the device thus not only suggests movement, but also serves the illusionistic purpose of alluding to the lower extremities of the arms.
Berninis deep response to Florentine sixteenth-century sculpture in the early 1620s is
evident from the relationships, often noted, between his Neptune and Triton from the Villa
Montalto and Stoldo Lorenzis Neptune fountain in the Boboli garden; between the Rape of
Prosperine and Giambolognas Rape of the Sabines (though in fact Berninis direct source
seems to have been a small bronze Rape of Prosperine by Pietro da Barga in the Bargello); and
between the Apollo and Daphne and Battista Lorenzis Alpheus and Arethusa, now in The
Metropolitan Museum, New York. Cf. B. H. Wiles, The Fountains of the Florentine Sculptors
and Their Followers from Donatello to Bernini, Cambridge, Mass., 1933, 102; P. Remington,
Alpheus and Arethusa: A Marble Group by Battista Lorenzi, BMMA, 25, 1940, 61 ff.; I.
Lavin, Bozzetti and Modelli: Notes on Sculptural Procedure from the Early Renaissance
through Bernini, in Stil und berlieferung in der Kunst des Abendlandes. Akten des 21.
Internationalen Kongresses fr Kunstgeschichte in Bonn 1964, Berlin, 1967, III, 102.
124
268
planes. Perhaps for the first time in the history of the sculptured bust, the
whole body is conceived as if it were in motion. The figure has something
of the romantic air of a dashing cavalier. Yet, the movement is relaxed, and
the face, with its melancholy, world-weary expression (in his will Cepparelli
speaks of an illness with which he was afflicted)127 conveys the vaguely tragic
impression of a great reservoir of human energy that is past maturity.128
The final work we shall discuss is the portrait of Cardinal Roberto
Bellarmino in the Ges, which originally formed part of a large monument
placed in the apse of the church to the left of the main altar (Fig. 60). This
is one of the instances when the portrait was made by the young Bernini,
while the two flanking allegories were carved, partly or entirely, by the
Item: voglio che il Corpo mio morendo a Roma di questo male . . . (ASGF, Busta
606, Testament of Cepparelli, April 12, 1622, Not. B. Dinius, p. 3). On May 31, 1622, the
confraternity paid 3 scudi to Madonna Lena, a Bolognese, of the Inn at the Sign of the Cat,
where Cepparelli died (see note 7 above), for her services to him during his last illness:
. . . a ma lena bolognese Camera locanda alla gatta quanto lei ha da havere -p del q. Sig.r
Antonio Cepparelli metre stato in casa sua amalato, et -p tt.o servitio che lei pretende haverli
fatto nella malattia (ASGF205, middle of volume, 130 written on back).
128
Some further points concerning the Cepparelli bust should be noted. The form of the
cartouche on the base is close to that on the busts of Cardinal Dolfin, and more particularly,
because the ends are bent around the corners, to those of Cardinal de Sourdis, Francesco Barberini, and the early bust of Urban VIII (Wittkower, 1966, Pl. 32; also the disputed bust of
Antonio Barberini the elder, ibid., Fig. 30).
The surface of the Cepparelli bust has a gentle luster (somewhat marred by the discoloration caused by the coating of whitewash) that recalls the bust of Francesco Barberini and
looks forward to that of Cardinal Bellarmino. In this respect it is paralleled by that of Carlo
Antonio dal Pozzo recently rediscovered and published by Rinehart, 437 ff., though there,
to judge from photographs, the polish is more uniform. There is also a marked resemblance
in the physiognomies of the heads (Dal Pozzo had died in 1607); in the slightly parted lips;
in the treatment of hair, beards and collars; and in the shape of the silhouette. The two works
must be virtually contemporary.
The bulging pupils, which lend a powerful climax to the forward thrust of Cepparellis
head, have no real duplicates in Berninis portraits. He used rounded, convex pupils again in
various forms, however (Wittkower, 1966, Pls. 36, 61, 83, 91, Fig. 53). Instances of unique
or individualized treatment of the pupils are not unusual in Berninis work; e.g., the eyes of
Anchises and those of Gabriele Fonseca (ibid., Pls. 15,116).
A faintly incised line may be seen running vertically along the central axis at the back of
the Cepparelli bust (Fig. 61). It seems possible, especially in the absence of any horizontal or
vertical axes in the bust itself, that the incision served as a reference line for measurements
taken in the course of execution.
127
FIVE EARLY BERNINIS
269
father and another assistant.129 When the apse of the Ges was renovated
toward the middle of the nineteenth century, the tomb was dismantled, a
door inserted, and the portrait given an entirely new framework; the allegorical figures were lost.130
It has heretofore been possible to date the portrait only within relatively
wide limits. Bellarmino died on September 17, 1621, and we know from a
contemporary dispatch that the monument was not unveiled until August
3, 1624.131 Documents in the Jesuit archive now make the situation clear,
and show that the portrait has a most remarkable history. In his testament
Bellarmino had expressed the wish to be buried without pomp in the common grave of his Jesuit brothers. The general of the order complied with the
wish, but only for one year, at the end of which time he ordered that the
famous jurist and theologian, who was renowned for his ascetic piety and
was already being proposed for canonization, be provided with a fitting
memorial. His body was exhumed on September 14, 1622, and resealed in
a casket of lead.132 A diary of the church subsequently records that on
129
Cf. Wittkower, 1966, 182, No. 15. Baglione, 305, attributes the allegories (Religion
and Wisdom) to Pietro without distinction. Baldinucci, 76, 177, and Domenico Bernini,
16, attribute Religion to Gianlorenzo. Passeri, 247, speaks generically of Giuliano Finelli as
Pietros assistant in the work on the tomb. Fioravante Martinelli, 68, describes the work as
follows (I include the marginal corrections in parentheses): La statua della Religione, e della
Sapienza figure in piedi di marmo intorno al deposito del Card. Roberto Bellarmino (et il
suo ritratto) sono di Pietro Bernino, e del Cav.r Gio. Lorenzo (suo figlio, ma una di d.e figure fu lavorato sotto di lui da giuliano finelli Carrarino).
A seventeenth-century drawing of the tomb in its original form survives (illus. in
Fraschetti, 35; Bruhns, Fig. 237). The tomb is faintly visible in the painting by Andrea
Sacchi of the interior of the Ges, now in the Museo di Roma (1639; Pecchiai, Pl. IX opp.
p. 88).
130
On the restoration, cf. Pecchiai, 210 ff.
In the diary of the work on the apse the following references to the allegories are found,
under the date August 1621, 1841: Disfatto il Monumento del Ven: Card. Bellarmino, e
il suo Busto con le due statue laterali portate nelloratorio della Compa della B. Morte
(ARSI5, fol. 1); Furono traslocate da d.o Oratorio al Magazzino di S. Venanzio le due statue
che ornavano il Mausoleo del Ven. Card.e Bellarmino (ibid., fol. 5). The church of San
Venanzio, which stood near Piazza Santa Maria in Aracoeli, was recently demolished (M.
Armellini, Le chiese di Roma dal secolo IV al XIX, Rome, 1942, 1, 675 ff.); 1 have found no
trace of the warehouse mentioned.
131
Pollak, I, No. 332. G. Gigli refers to the tomb in describing, ex post facto, the death
of Bellarmino and the decorations in the Ges for the canonization of saints Ignatius of
Loyola and Francis Xavier (March 1622; Diario Romano, ed. G. Ricciotti, Rome, 1958, 54,
59).
132
The story is first told in published form by Fuligatti, 347 ff. Cf. also ARSI1, 2, 3.
270
August 3, 1623, the new sepulchre was begun;133 Berninis portrait must
therefore have been made during the twelve-month period between that
date and the unveiling in August 1624.
The sources also shed considerable light on Berninis conception of the
portrait. When the corpse was exhumed in 1622 a careful account of the
event was kept. It records that the body was found in part undecayed; the
head and torso were preserved intact, along with the arms and hands.134 This
fact is of great significance because bodily incorruption was one of the
important signs of divine grace. The body was reinterred at once, that is,
before Berninis portrait was made. The casket remained unopened thereafter until the dismantling of the tomb in the nineteenth century. Again a
record was kept, and it states that when the body was exposed it was found
in cardinals garb and in the same pose that Bernini had given the figure.135
It is clear, therefore, that the peculiar cut and pose of Berninis portrait
long to the waist and including arms and hands in an attitude of prayer
were intended as a specific reference to the grace of incorruptibility that was
accorded the future saint.136 The pious gesture and worshipful expression are
also intended to dramatize Bellarminos saintliness, in death no less than in
life. Berninis portrait was thus conceived as an instrument of propaganda
in the Jesuit orders campaign to achieve canonization for one of its most
illustrious members.
From the stylistic point of view Bellarmino seems to epitomize the development we have been tracing. The vivid precision of the Montoya is there,
but as in the Cepparelli the edges are not quite so sharp, the transitions
easier and more relaxed. It is as though in this series of portraits pent-up
tensions had been released. The Bellarmino, indeed, presents a veritable
counterpoint of movement: the hands forward, body and head to the left,
and shoulders inclined. Bernini here takes up once more the lead provided
August 3, 1623: Si comincio la sepoltura del Card.e Bellarmino (ARSI4, fol. 43v).
Il corpo era parte intiero parte corrotto. Il capo et il busto erano intieri con gran parte
delle braccia et mani. Il rimanente erano ossa con de nervi . . . La sera vestito con tonicella
pianeta stola et mani polo di taffetta pavonazzo fu collocato in una cassa di cipresso con
fodera di piombo et posato a sepellire . . . (ARSI2; cf. Fuligatti, 348).
135
. . . entro cassa di piombo non sigillata venne riconosciuto con gli abiti Cardinalizi e
nellattegiamento che presenta il Busto di marmo che soprastava nella nicchia del d.o
Monumento (ARSI5, August 1621, 1841, fol. 2v). Cf. Pecchiai, 210.
136
Bellarmino was finally canonized only in 1930; for a recent bibliography and summary of the controversies concerning his views on the temporal authority of the pope, cf.
Lexikon fr Theologie und Kirche, Freiburg, 1957 ff., II, cols. 160 ff.
133
134
FIVE EARLY BERNINIS
271
by the bust of Cardinal Pio da Carpi in Santa Trinit dei Monti (Fig. 5);
Bellarminos head and glance are inclined toward the worshiper approaching the choir from the crossing, while the joined hands are directed toward
the office taking place at the altar. At the same time, the motif of the
deceased shown in an attitude of prayer had a long prior history in sepulchral art; an example that Bernini certainly studied was the bust of Cardinal
Albani in Santa Maria del Popolo, where the hands are frontal while the
head turns toward the altar (Fig. 62).137 But Cardinal Pio, does not actually
worship, and Cardinal Albani has no relation to the observer.
Thus, Berninis figure is not intended simply as a didactic invitation to
the visitor, on the one hand, nor as a kind of figural equivalent of an
inscribed prayer, on the other. Rather, Bellarmino is shown in a specific and
intensely personal moment of spiritual communication.138 Traditions that
had served mainly to record the aspect of what was dead are fused in order
to recreate the spirit of what was once alive.
* * *
The material assembled here coincides with a natural phase of Berninis
career, that is, from its inception until the year 1621 when Maffeo
Barberini, as Pope Urban VIII, became his chief patron. Yet, the discussion
can in no sense lay claim to being a comprehensive treatment of his development during this period, if only because a number of the most important
works have been left out of account or mentioned but incidentally. I refer
especially to the series of monumental sculptures commissioned by
Scipione Borghese at the end of the second and the beginning of the third
decade, the chronology of which has been established by Faldi, and to the
papal portraits (Paul V and Gregory XV), concerning which I have nothing
to add to the fundamental investigations of Martinelli and Wittkower.
Thus, although the works we have discussed offer a spectacle of creativity,
137
By Giovanni da Valsoldo. Albani had died in 1591; the date of the monument, situated on the north face of the easternmost pier on the south side of the nave, is unknown.
Cf. Bruhns, 290.
138
In a sense, the Bellarmino portrait is a prelude to the crossing of St. Peters (on which
Bernini began working in June 1624), where the whole space is conceived as the site of a dramatic action taking place at the altar, to which the sculptured figures respond (I. Lavin,
Bernini and the Crossing of Saint Peters, New York, 1968.
272
probably without parallel in the history of art, by a youth between roughly

his tenth and twenty-fifth year, it should be borne in mind that we have
dealt with only a fragment of what he actually achieved.
Appendix of Documents
(Multiple versions of the same document have been listed alphabetically under the
same number.)
Bust of Antonio Coppola
1.
March 8, 1612 (AGSF651, fol. Iv):

Si paghi -p il casso di cera fatto -p la testa del do m. Ant.o Coppola di quattro
et che Piero Paulo Cavalti sia con il sr Fran.o Ticci -p far fare al bernino scultore la testa di Marmo del detto m. Ant.o Coppola da mettersi nel'spedale.
2.
Ju1y 16, 1612 (ibid., fol. 2v):

Fu fatto un mandato di pagare a
Bernini scultore di pagare quello
che deve havere -p la testa di marmo di m. Ant.o Coppola e fu fatto il mandato
in bianco, e fu dato ordine al sr Andrea Pasquali che sia con il Sr Franc.o Ticci,
che veda di far pagar meno che si puo.
3.
August 4, 1612 (ASGF430, p. 49 right):

E deve Dare addi 4 di Agosto quattro di m.ta pag. franco Scachi -p tant.
pag.to -p Il s.r Ticci Cesare Rugg.r -p sua mercede -p Havere fatto Il Capo
di gesso della testa del detto qlll Ant Coppola _________________ 4
4a.
August 10, 1612 (ibid.):

E Addi 10 di Agosto Cinquanta di m.ta Pag.ti Pietro Bernini scultore e -p
suo ordine s.r ticci porto franc.o Scachi cont. -p Intera Valuta della testa di
Marmo della Detta B. M. -p tenere nel spedale _________________ 50
4b.
August 10, 1612 (ASGF, Busta 369, Entrata et Uscita 1606 1624,
Part 2, p. 19):
FIVE EARLY BERNINIS
273
Adi 10 di agosto 1612 Pagati a m. pietro bernini e per lui tiro contanti a
francescho schachi loro cassiere schudi Cinquanta -p la valuta di una testa di
marmo fatta -p la B memoria di m. antonio Coppola ______________ 50
5a.
September 3, 1612 (ASG F-205, before middle of volume):

Adi 3 di Sett.re 1612. in Roma. M. Gio: Franc.o Giannozzi Camarlingo del
N'ro Hospitale Pagherete m. Cosimo Dandini Pittore di cinque di m.ta -p
l'intiera valuta del ritratto del N'ro M. Ant.o Coppola che con sua ric.ta
saranno ben pag.ti e Poneteli al conto solito Dio vi guardi di cinque di mta
And.a Pasquali Dep.to
Ascanio sordonati Dep.to
Io Cosimo dandini sopd.to ho ricevuto
li detti cinque scudi di 14 di set 1612 Cosimo dandini Mano -p-p a
5b.
September 14, 1612 (ASGF430, p. 49 right):

E Addi 14 detto cinque di mta pagti Cosimo dandini Pittore -p cont.
-p Valuta del Ritratto fatto della detta B. M. __________________ 5
6a.
November 16, 1615 (ASGF205, toward middle of volume):

Misura dl epitafio fatto nel spedale di saa Gio: dela natione fioreetina da
mro Simone Castelli long pl 4 3/4 alto pl 41/2 fa pl 211/4 agiuli 4 il po monta
_____________________________________________________ 840
-P aver intagliato litere n.o 225 a b 4 luna mota ____________________ 9
Somma in tutt.o scudi dicisette b quaranta ___________________ 1740
Filippo Breccioli mu -p-p
Ha hauto abo coto da me Seb.no Guidi -p 1 . . . fatta all'hospitale delle
. . . di 1615 ____________________________________________880
[verso]
M. franc.o Rochi nr.o Camarl.o pagharete a m. Simone Castelli Scarpellino
sedici b 80 m.t se li fanno pag.re -p pagmto -p l'epitaffio e altro conforme il retroscritto Conto che con sua ricta vi si farano . . . Adi 16 di 9bre 1615
Camo del Palagio deput.us
Arcagelo Cavalcati dep.to
[illegible signaturel . . . proved.re
io simone castello o ricuto scudi sedici e baiochi otota quali . . . saldi del retroscrito io simone castelo mano propria questo di 12 dicembre 1615
274
6b.
December 1, 1615 (ASGF651, fol. 19):

fu fatto maad.to di pag.re a m. Simone Castelli scarpell.o sedici b otanta
to
1e
o
-p pagm. -p l'epitaffio et altro conforme il conto sotto il q. fattoli il md
____________________________________________________ 1680
7.
May 10, 1634: see Doc. 29 below.
Four Cherubs for the Barberini Chapel

8a.
February 5, 1618 (BVAB8, p. XLII):

Sig.r Ruberto Primo Piaccia a V.S. pag.re a m. Pietro Bernino Scultore Scudi
Settanta cinque m.ta Sono -p a buon conto di quattro putti di Marmo che mi
deve fare -p Serv.o della mia Cappella di Sant Andrea della Valle ______ 75
8b.
February 5, 1618 (BVAB9, p. 104):

Pietro Bernino Scultore deve dare Addi 5 di Febbro di Settanta cinque m.ta
pag.ti con mand.o diretto al Sig.r Ruberto Primo -p a buon conto della fattura
di quattro putti di Marmo bianco che mi fa -p Serv.o della mia Cappella di
Sant Andrea della Valle _____________________________________ 75
8c.
February 5, 1618 (ibid., p. CI):

E addi 5 di Febb.ro di Settentacinque m.ta pag.ti a Pietro Bernino Scultore -p a
buon conto di quattro putti che fa di Marmo -p Serv.o della mia Cappella di
Sant Andrea della Valle _____________________________________ 75
9a.
February 7, 1618 (BVAB5, No. 80):

Havendo io Pietro Bernino Scultore et Statuario habitante In Roma, convenuto et pattuito con L'III.mo Sig.r Card.le Barberino, di farli quattro putti di
mio marmo popio Bianco nuovo, che devono andare, sopra li frontespitij
delle -p te laterali della Sua Cappella di Sant Andrea della Valle, li quali quattro putti devono essere di altezza di palmi cinque l'uno Inc.a Et a questo fine,
essendo da me di gi stato fatto li Modelli di Terra di detti quattro putti, Nudi
con alcuni Suolazzi di panni, etc. Di qui, che io Pietro Bernino, Sud.to
pometto di fare et fornire di mia mano et di mano di Gio: Lorenzo mio fig.lo
-p tutto Giugno Milleseicento-dicianove li detti quattro putti, et mi obligo che
sieno lustrati et finiti con ogni diligentia, et -p che li Sud.i Modelli di Terra
non Sono ridotti all'Intera perfettione, ne Studiato nella forma che Si
FIVE EARLY BERNINIS
275
Studiera nel farli di Marmo, pometto di pfetionarli In ogni miglior forma, et

lavoro rivisto da periti da Elegiersi da d.o III.mo Sig.r Card.le et
Contrafacendo, quanto di Sopra et agiudicandosi da periti non ess.re l'opera
conforme alla Sud.a pomessa, volgio essere Tenuto ad ogni danno et Interesse,
che S. S.III.ma ne potessi patire, ne havessi patito, et di piu mi obligo ancora
di far Condurre li sud.l quattro putti di Marmo a mie popie Spese nella Sud.a
Sua Cappella di Sant Andrea della valle, et assistere a quelli artefici che li
Collocheranno Sopra li frontespitij delle -p te laterali della Sud.a Cappella,
accio venghino, posare agiustam.te et bene. Et -p pezzo de sud.i quattro putti
ho ric.to da S. S. Ill.ma un pezzo di Marmo bianco Statuario di dua Carrettate
Incirca, et di piu mi doverra dare Scudi Centosettantacinque di mta di g.li dieci
do
to
ma
-p . a Conto delli quali questo giorno, ne ho ric. da S. S. Ill. un Mandato
r
ta
diretto al Sig. Ruberto Primo di Scudi Settantacinque m. et il restante che
sono scudi Cento m.ta mi doverranno essere da S. S. Ill.ma liberam.te et Senza
eccettione alcuna pagati ogni volta che io li dia finiti et pfetionati li Sud.i
quattro putti di Marmo et -p osservatione di quanto di sopra, detto, mi
obligo In forma Camere etc. questi di 7 di febbraro 1618 In Roma
Io pietro bernini Affermo prometto mi obligo e giuro di osservarequanto di
sopra si contiene et in fede del vero o di mia propria mano sottoscritto la presente qstto di e anno suddetto lo pietro bernini mano propria.
9b.
February 7, 1618 (BVAB10, fol. 2):

Nota che si e fatto una scritta con Pietro Bernino Scultore, che faccia quattro
putti di Marmo Bianco Novo del Suo -p-prio -p metterli in su li frontespitij delle -p
te laterali della Cappella di Sant Andrea della Valle alti palmi Cinque quali li deve
dare finiti -p tutto Giugno 1619 et li deve dar Condi a Sue spese Inda Cappella,
et -p pezzo si e Convenuto darli un pezzo di Marmo Bianco di dua Carrettate Inca
et di pui Scudi Cento Settantacinque m.ta a Conto de quali se li e consegnato un
Mando di 75 diretto al Sig.r Ruberto Primo et li altri Scudi Cento Se li
doverranno pagre come dia finiti li Sudi quattro putti di Marmo bianco. [In margin] Roma Fatti detti putti et Collocati nella Capella dove andavano.
10a. February 21, 1618 (BVAB8, p. 43):

A Pietro Bernini Scultore Scudi ventinove mta buoni a Spese che Si fanno in
fabricare et ornare una Cappella In Sant Andrea della Valle. Sono -p la meta
di di 58 m.ta che costo un pezzo di Marmo bianco di quattro Carrettate Inc.a
che fu Compo da m. Gio: Bellucci fattore della fabrica di San Pietro fino
sotto di il 11 Agosto 1611 del qal Marmo della Meta ne fu fatto la Statua di
Mons.re Fran.co Barberini da m. Cristofano Stati Braccianese et l'altra meta fu
cond.o a Casa dell' Ill.mo Sig.r Card.le Barberino, il quale Si e poi Conseg.to al
276
Sud.o m. Pietro a Conto di quattro putti di Marmo Bianco che mi deve fare
o
a
-p Serv. della Sud. Cappella _________________________________ 29
10b. February 21, 1618 (BVAB-9, p. CIII):
E addi d.o [February 21, 1618] di Ventinove m.ta che tanto si Valuta un pezzo
di Marmo bianco Statuario che si e Consegnato a Pietro Bernino Scultore et
e la meta di un pezzo di Marmo Grande di quat-tro carettate In circa che fu
compo da Gio: Bellini fattore della fabrica di San Pietro -p di 58 m.ta fino
Sotto li 11 di Ag.o 1611 ____________________________________ 29
10c. February 21, 1618 (ibid., p. 104):
E addi 21 do [February] di ventinove m.ta che tanto Si valuta un pezzo di
Marmo bianco Statuario di dua Carrettate In Circa consegnatoli
[ie. Pietro Bernini] qui In Casa che lo fece -ptare a Casa Sua _________ 29
11a. May 28, 1618 (BVAB8, P. L):
Sig.r Ruberto Primo Piaccia a V. S. pag.re a m. Pietro Bernino Scultore Scudi
Cinquanta m.ta Sono -p a buon conto delli quattro putti di Marmo bianco che
mi fa -p Serv.o della mia Cappella di Sant Andrea della Valle _________ 50
11b. May 28, 1618 (BVAB9, p. 104):
E addi 28 Magio di Cinquanta mta pag.li con Mandato diretto al s.r Ruberto
Primo _________________________________________________ 50
11c. May 28, 1618 (ibid., p. CVX):
E addi d.o [May 28] di Cinquanta m.ta pag.ti a Pietro Bernino Scultore -p a
buon conto di quattro putti di Marmo bianco che mi fa -p Serv.o della mia
Cappella di Sant' Andrea della Valle ___________________________ 50
12a. July 7, 1618 (BVAB8, p. LII):
Sig.ri Provisori del Sacro Monte di Pieta piacera alle Sig.rtie v'rePag.re a m.
Pietro Bernino Scultore Statuario Scudi Cinquanta mta Sono -p resto del pezzo
con lui Convenuto di quattro Putti di Marmo bianco che mi ha fatto et fattoli Condurre a Sue Spese conforme a che era obligato nella mia Cappella di
Sant Andrea della Valle quali Sono Stati Collocati Sopa li Fronte Spitij delle
-p te laterali della detta Cappella _______________________________ 50
FIVE EARLY BERNINIS
277
12b. July 7, 1618 (BVAB9, p. 104):

Addi 7 di Lug.o di Cinq.ta m.ta pag.li con mand.o diretto al Sacro Monte di
Pieta -p re.to delli Sud.i quattro putti di Marmo bianco, che ha fatti et fatti condurre nella mia Cappella di Sant Andrea della Valle, quali sono Stati Collocati
Sopa li Fronte Spitij delle -pte laterali della detta Cappella ___________ 50
12c. July 7, 1618 (ibid., p. CXXV):
E addi 7 d.o [July] di Cinquanta m.ta pag.ti a m. Pietro Bernino Scultore -p re.o
del pezzo di quattro putti di Marmo che ha fatto -p Serv.o della mia Cappella
di Santo Andrea della Valle __________________________________ 50
12d. (July 7, 1618) (ibid., p. 103):
E di Dugentoquattro m.ta buoni a m. Pietro bernino Scultore Sono
-p pezzo delli quattro putti di Marmo bianco che sono Sop
- a le -p te
laterali della Sud.a Capella che posano Sop
- a li Fronte Spitij di esse
-p te __________________________________________________ 204
(Summary of previous payments.)
12e. (July 7, 1618) (ibid., p. CIIII):
Pietro Bernino di contro deve Hav.re Scudi Dugentoquattro m.ta Sono -p pezzo
di quattro putti di Marmo Bianco che ha fatti et Collocati nella mia Capella
di Sant' Andrea della Valle Sop
- a li Fronte Spitij delle -p te laterali ____ 204
(Summary of previous payments)
13.
October 19, 1618 (ibid., p. 103):

Addi 19 di Ottobre di Uno b 90 m.ta buoni a m. Fausto Poli m'ro di Casa
pag.ti alli che hanno messo li perni et spanghe che tengono li Sud.i 4 putti
______________________________________________________ 1.90
14.
December 22, 1618 (ibid.):

Addi 22 Xbre di Uno b 771/2 m.ta pag.ti con mando diretto al Sacro Monte di
Pieta a m'ro Antonio Lucatelli ferraro -p otto Spanghe di ferro, che ha date
1
-p tenere li quattro putti di Marmo messi Sop
- a le -pte laterali ______ 1.77 /2
15.
December 31, 1618 (ibid.):

E addi 31 d.o [December] di Sei M.ta buoni a m'ro Bat'ta Scala
278
Muratore Sono -p havre messo In opera li Sudi quattro putti di Marmo bianco
________________________________________________________ 6
16.
April 26, 1619: See Doc. 17a, below.
Busts of Camilla Barbadori and Antonio Barberini

17a. April 26, 1619 (BVABII, p. 5):
Sig.ri Provisori del Sacro Monte di Pieta Piacera alle Sig.rie v're Pag.re a mr Gio:
Lorenzo bernino Scultore Scudi Cinquanta m.ta Sono -p una Testa di Marmo
bianco che mi ha fatto della B. M. della Sig.ra Camilla mia Madre. quale la
deve far Condurre a Sue Spese nella mia Cappella di Sant Andrea della Valle
o
-p Collocarla nel Luogho che li Sara destinato et Sono ancora -p rs di tutti li
re
lavori che mi possi hav. fatto Insieme con Suo padre fino a q.to giorno
_______________________________________________________ 50
17b. April 26, 1619 (BVAB12, p. XXXVII):
E addi 26 do [April] sdi Cinquanta m.ta pag.ti a Gio: Lorenzo Bernino Scultore
ra
-p una Testa della B. M. della Sig. Camilla mia Madre che mi ha fatto
_______________________________________________________ 50
17c. (April 26, 1619) (ibid., p. 40):
Una Testa di Marmo Bianco della B. M. della Sig.ra Camilla mia madre In
mano a Gio: Lorenzo Bernino deve dare Addi 26 di Aprile di Cinquanta M.ta
pag.ti con mand.o diretto al Sacro Monte di Pieta al Sud.o Gio: Lorenzo
Bernino Scultore Sono -p pezzo di detta Testa di Marmo che mi ha fatto, qale
la deve far Condurre a Sue spese nella mia Cappella di Sant Andrea della Valle
-p Collocarla nel luogho che li Sara destinato _____________________ 50
18a. February 22, 1620 (BVAB11, p. 14):
Sig.ri Provisori del Sacro Monte di Pieta piacera alle Sig.rie v're Pag.re a m. Gio:
Lor.zo Bernino Scultore Scudi Cinquanta m.ta Sono -p pezzo d'una Testa di
Marmo Bianco che mi ha fatto della B. M. del Sr Ant.o mio P're qale la deve
far condurre a Sue Spese nella mia Cappella di Sant Andrea della Valle et
Collocarla nel Luogho che li Sara destinato ______________________ 50
FIVE EARLY BERNINIS
279
18b. February 22, 1620 (BVAB12, p. 40):

o
E addi 22 di Febraro di 50 m.ta pag.ti con mand.o diretto come Sop
- a al Sud.
r
o
-p una Testa di Marmo bianco della B. M. del s. Ant. Mio Pre quale deve far
condurre come Sop
- a _______________________________________ 50
18c. February 22, 1620 (ibid., p. LIIII):

E addi do [February 22] di Cinquanta M.ta pag.ti a Gio: Lor.zo Bernino
Scultore -p la Testa di Marmo bianco della B. M. del S.r Anti mio P're che mi
ha fatto _________________________________________________ 50
19.
March 31, 1629: Payment for yellow marble bases; see note 95, above.
Bust of Antonio Cepparelli

20.
April 23, 1622 (ASGF651, fol. 57 right):

E pi si faccia fare una statua di marmo co inscrittione a detto s. Ant. e mettere nello spedale come quella del Coppola, e fu detto al s. Girolamo Ticci
che ne parlassi al Bernino scultore che si facessiquanto p.a
21a. June 21, 1622 (ibid., fol. 58 right):

A Popeo Caccini pittore -p il ritratto del s. Ant. Cepparelli bo: me: ____ 6
21b. June 21, 1622 (ASGF-205, middle of volume):
Mag.eo m. Santi Vannini no Camarlengho piacere pagare m. Pompeo
Caccini pittore scudi sei mt.a quali sono -p prezzo del ritratto del s. Ant.o
Cepparelli bo: me: che co una riceuta saranno ben pagati dal nro spedale li 21
di Giugno 1622 6
Horatio Falconiere Sup.o
joorlando Cosini di put.o
Io Jaco Caccini ho riceu.to
li sopra detti danari -p il
Sud.o Pompeo mio padre
22a. August 7, 1622 (ASGF651, fol. 60 left):
Al s. Cav.re Gilorenzo bernini -p a bon conto della statua che deve fare del s.
Ant.o Cepperelli in marmo fu fatto m.to _________________________ 25
280
22b. August 7, 1622 (ASGF205, middle of volume):
Mag.eo m. Santi Vannini nr Camarlengho piacere al S.r Cav.re Gio: lorenzo
bernini scudi venticinque mta. quali sono a bon conto della testa di marmo
che deve fare del ritratto del S.r Ant.o Cepperelli che con una riceuta saranno
ben pagati Dal Nr Cong.e li 7 di Agto 1622 ____________________25mta
Hor Salco n sup.re
Fran.co Scacchi Depto
Domenico Migliari De Putato
Seb.no Guidi p.re
[verso]
Io pietro bernini scultore ricieuto li detti scudi venticinq.e contanti oggi li 13
d'agosto in fede o scritto la precedente di mano -p-p a
Io pietro bernini mano propria
22c. September 24, 1622 (ASGF430, p. CX):
E adi 24 di 7bre venticinque di mta pag.ti con mando a m. Pietro schultore
-p la testa fatta di Marmo ____________________________________ 25
23a. December 23, 1623 (ASGF651, fol. 64 right):
Al do [Sebastiano Guidi] scudi quaranta cinque fattili pagare da Ticci al Cav.re
bernini -p la statua di marmo fatta del s. Ant.o Cepparelli benefattore e messo
nello spedale sono -p resto _________________________________ 45
23b. December 23, 1623 (ASGF205, toward middle of volume):
Mag.eo Lorenzo Cavotti nr.o Cam.o piacere pagare a m Sebno Guidi nr Provre
scudi quaranta cinque tali fattli pagare da Ticci al s. Cavre Bernini -p la statua
di marmo fatta a Sr Ant. Cepparelli e posto nel nostro spedale -p memoria del
benefitio havuto da lui che con rict.o saranno ben pagati Dal Nr Cong.r li 23
di Xbre 1623
45 -p resto
Piero Landi, deput.to
no
Io Seb. Guidi ho
rito quanto sopra
Seb.no Guidi Prov.re
23c. December 23, 1623 (ASGF430, p. 118):
E adi detto [December 23, 1623] quarantacinque m.ta -p resto della statua
fatta di d.o Ceparello _______________________________________ 45
FIVE EARLY BERNINIS
281
Bust of Pietro Cambi

24.
January 2, 1629 (ASGF207, near beginning of volume):

M. Santi Vannini no Camarl. pag.te al m.o Pomp.o ferucci scudi dodici di m.ta
quali seli fanno pag.re a buon conto della testa di Marmero fatta -p Mettere nel
n.o sped.le -p Memoria del q. Pietro Cambi Beneffattore, che con Riceuta ne
darete deb.to a d.a Redita dal d luogo il di 2 di Genaro 1629 in Roma 12 m.ta
Antonio Resti dept.o
io pompeo ferrucci oriceuti li sopradetti iscudi dodici
questo di detto
io pompeo mano -p-p
Carlo Aldobrandi scr.
25.
July 17, 1629 (ibid., near beginning of volume):

M. Santi Vannini fornaro nro Camarl. pag.te al m. Pompeo ferrucci scultore
scudi Quindici m.ta seli fanno pag.re buonc.to della testadi marmero che fa -p
la Memoria del q. pietro Cambi B. M. -p mettere nell'no sped.le In
Confformita dello Stabilim.to fatto dalla Cgn'e il
di del pass.to che con
o
riceuta ne darete debito alla sua Redita, dal d. luogo il di 17 di Luglio 1629
in Roma
15 Mta
Ant. Rest Depto
Lorenzo Cavotti De putato
io pompeo ferrucci o ricieuto li sopradetti iscudi quidici questo di detto
io pompeo ferrucci mano -p-p a
26.
December 1, 1629 (ibid., near beginning of volume):

M. Santi Vannini fornaro no Camarl pag.te al m.o Pompeo feruci scudi dieci
di m.a quali sel fano pag.re a buon conto della testa di Marmero che fa del q.
Pietro Cambi -p mettere nel no sped.le che con riceut. ne darete debito al
Conto della sua Redita, dal d Spedle Il di pro di Xbre 1629 In Roma
10 Mta
Ant.o Resti depto
lorenzo Cavotti Deputato
Io pompeo ferruci oricieuto li sopradetti iscudi dieci a buo conto de ritratto
questo di di 14 di dicembre 1629
Io pompeo ferruci mano -p-p
282
27.
March 7, 1630 (ibid., near begnning of volume):

M. Santi Vannini fornaro no Camarl. pag.te all mo Pompeo ferucci scultore
dieci di m.ta quali seli fanno pag.re -p resto della testa di Marmero fatta del q.
Pietro Cambi messa nel no sped.le che c Ri-ceuta ne darete debito alla detta
Redita dal d spd.le il di 7 di Marzo 1630 In Roma
10 mta
Fran.co Scacchi Depto
io pompeo ferruci o ricieuto li sopradetti iscud dieci di moneta -p resto come
sopra questo di lo daprile 1630 io pompeo ferrucci mano -p -pa
Carlo Aldobrandi scriv.
28.
May 8, 1630 (ibid., near beginning of volume):
M. Santi Vannini no fornaro no Camarl pag.te mo Simone Castelli

scarpellino Cinque di mo.ta quali seli fanno pagare -p una pietra di Marmo
longa p.mi 31/2 larga pi 17/12 grossa 1/3 c lt'e intagliate Messa nel n'ro spedale
sotto la testa di Marmo del q. Pietro Cambi cosi daco con il S. Sebbastiano
Guidi che c riceuta ne darete deb.o a spesa di d.a Eredita di d Cambi, dal nro
sped.le il di 8 di Maggio 1630 In Roma
5 Mta
Fran.co Scacchi deptto
Felice Sellori deputato
Io Simone Castelo orecuto li sopra scriti scudi cinque per sado di deta pietra
chome di sopra li deti dinari pagarete a francesco osalano che sarano bene
pagati se co altra receputa questo di 17 Maggio 1630
io simone castelo mane propria
Models of Busts by Bernini
29.
May 10, 1634 (ibid., slip numbered 1648 for year 1634):
M. Santi Vannini fornaro nro Camarl. pag.te a Alessandro Bracci
falegniame dua b 60 quali sono -p pg.to del pn'te Conto delle basse
Inpernature di ferro et altro fatte -p Mantenim.to delle due teste di Creta fatte
di Mano del Bernino, che si tengono sotto lo spedale, che con ricevuta ne
darete deb.o a spesa straord., dal d.o lugo il x Maggio 1634
FIVE EARLY BERNINIS
283
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Baglione, C., Le vite de' pittori scultori et architetti, Rome, 1642, facs. ed.V. Mariani,
Rome, 1935.
Baldinucci, F., Vita del Cavaliere Gio. Lorenzo Bernino, Florence, 1682, ed. S.
Bernini, D., Vita del Cav. Giovan Lorenzo Bernino, Rome, 1713.
Bottineau, Y., L'Art de cour dans l'Espagne de Philippe V 17001742, Bibliothque
de l'cole des hautes-tudes hispaniques, 29, Bordeaux, 1960.
Bruhns, L., Das Motiv der ewigen Anbetung in der rmischen Grab-plastik des
16., 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts, RmJbK, 4, 1940, 255 ff.
Chantelou, P. Frart de, Journal du voyage du Cavalier Bernin en France, Paris, 1885.
Ciaconius, A., Vitae et res gestae pontificum romanorum, Rome, 1677.
Faldi, I., Galleria Borghese. Le sculture dal secolo XVI al XIX, Rome, 1954.
, Note sulle sculture borghesiane del Bernini, BdA, 38, 1953, 140 ff.
Fernndez Alonso J., Santiago de los Espaoles y la Archiconfrada de la Santsima
Resurreccin de Roma hasta 1754, Anthologica Annua, Publicaciones del
Instituto Espaola de estudios eclesiasticos, 8, 1960, 279 ff.
Forcella, V., Iscrizioni delle chiese e d'altri edificii di Roma dal secolo XI fino ai giorni
nostri, Rome, 1869 ff., 15 vols.
Fuligatti, C., Vita del Cardinale Roberto Bellarmino, Rome, 1624.
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1936.
Heikamp, D., In margine alla Vita di Baccio Bandinelli del Vasari, Paragone,
1966, No. 191, 51 ff.
Hibbard, H., Bernini, Baltimore, 1965.
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Rome, Bibl. Casanatense, MS 4984.
Martinelli, V., Contributi alla scultura del seicento: I. Francesco Mochi a Roma,
Commentari, 2, 1951, 224 ff.
, Novit berniniane: I. Un busto ritrovato: la Madre d'UrbanoVIII;
2. Un Crocifisso ritrovato?, Commentari, 7, 1956, 23 ff .
, I ritratti di pontefici di G. L. Bernini, Quaderni di storia dell'arte, 3, Istituto di
Studi Romani, Rome, 1956.
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4, 1906, 425 ff.
Passeri, G. B., Die Knstlerbiographien von Giovanni Battista Passeri, ed.
J. Hess, Vienna, 1934.
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Pecchiai, P., Il Ges di Roma, Rome, 1952.
Pollak, O., Die Kunstttigkeit unter Urban VIII, Vienna, 192831, 2 vols.
284
Pope-Hennessy, J., Italian High Renaissance and Baroque Sculpture, London, 1963,
3 vols.
Reinhart, S., A Bernini Bust at Castle Howard, BurIM, 109, 1967, 437 ff.
Reymond, M., Les sculptures du Bernin Bordeaux, Revue de l'art ancien et moderne, 35, 1914, 45 ff.
Riccoboni, A., Roma nell'arte. La scultura nell'evo moderno dal quattrocento ad oggi,
Rome, 1942.
Rufini, E., S. Giovanni de' Fiorentini, Le Chiese di Roma illustrate, No. 39, Rome,
1957.
Siren, O., Nicodemus Tessin d.y:s Studieresor, Stockholm, 1914.
Wittkower, R., Bernini studies II: The Bust of Mr. Baker, BurIM, 95, 1953,
19 ff.
, Gian Lorenzo Bernini: The Sculptor of the Roman Baroque, 2nd ed., London,
1966.
List of Abbreviations
AIEE:
ARSI:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
ASGF:
Archivo Instituto Espaol de estudios eclesiasticos

Busta 1191: Congreg.nes generales y Particul. desde el Ao de 1616 hasta
el Ao de 1627
Busta 635: Diverso Instrumentos original: que estan extendidos en el
Lib. A desde el num.o 101 hasta el n.o 150
Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu
Archivio della Postulazione Generale, Atti concernenti Santi,Beati,
Venerabili e S.S. di Dio, fasc. 499, int. I. Relatione dell'Infermit, e
morte dell'Illmo Sig.r Card.e Bellarmino scritta dal P. Minutoli all'Illmo
Sig.r Card.e Farnese 23 Nov. 1621.
Idem., fasc. 500, int. 2. (Untitled description of the exhumation of
Bellarmino's body written September 14, 1622, by Giacomo Fuligatti.)
Idem., fasc. 502. Deposiz.e del Fr. Gius.e Finali d.a Comp.a fatta nel Proc.
Aplico di Roma li 14 Giug.o 1627. (Cf. p. 115.)
Hist. Soc. 23. Diarii 16101655.
Fondo Gesuitico, Busta 1227, fasc. 4. No. 82-I-9. (Diary of the nineteenth-century restorations.)
Rome, San Giovanni dei Fiorentini, Archivio della Confraternita della
Piet
Busta 205. Filza de'Mandati e Registri degli Esattori 16061628
Busta 207. Filza de'Mandati e Ricapiti degl' Esattori Dal Numo 9 al
Num. 13. Dall'Anno 1629 al 1641
Busta 430. Libro Mastro 16061624
FIVE EARLY BERNINIS
ASR:
BLF:
BV:
BVAB:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
285
Busta 651. Cong.ni 16121613

Archivio di Stato, Rome
Biblioteca Laurenziana, Florence
Biblioteca Vaticana, Rome
Biblioteca Vaticana, Archivio Barberini
Arm. 155. . . . Inventarij . . . della Guardarobba dell'Ill.mo S.r Cardinale
[Francesco] Barberini . . . cominciato alli 10. Decembre 1626. e finito alli
15 Gennaro 1627. da Federigo Soleti computista. (Entries continued to
be made in this volume through 1631.)
Ind. II, Cred. V, Cas. 67, Mazz. LXXXII, Lett. I, No. 3. Inventario delle
statue et altre robbe che si ritruovano oggi nel Antigaglia Del Emm.o Sig.
Cardinale Francesco Barbberino amministrate da me Nicolo Menghini
(The listings in this volume begin on March 25, 1632; since the section
on fol. 7v in which Bernini sculptures are mentioned is not otherwise
dated, they were presumably entered at that time. Entries continued
through 1640. Another copy: Ind. II, Cred. VI, Cas 77, Mazz. CIII, Lett.
O, No.56.)
Ind. II, Cred. V. Cas. 80, Mazz. CIX, Lett. P, No. 96. Statue di marmo
riconosciute dall' Em.mo Sig.r Card.le Fran.co Barberini nel Palazzo alle
Quattro Fontane -p proprie dell' Ecc.mo Sig.r Prn'pe Prefetto parte in una
Stanza Terrina, e parte nelle stanze della Galleria di d.o Palazzo alla pza
del Sig.r Auditore Matthia Nardini, del S.r Piersimone Marinucci, del S.r
Nicolo Menghini, e d'altri qsto di 12 Giugno 1651.
Arm. 155. Inventario della Guardarobba dell' Eminmo Sig.r Card. Carlo
Barberini 1692
Ind. II, Cred. IV, Cas. 50, Mazz. LI, Lett. D (Miscellaneous docu-ments
concerning the Barberini chapel in Sant'Andrea della Valle.)
Arm. 2, Cardinal Maffeo, Giornale di entrate ecclesiastiche A,
16081625
Ibid., Cardinal Maffeo, Libro di entrate ecclesiastiche A, 160814
Ibid., Cardinal Maffeo, Giornale di entrate ecclesiastiche B, 161519
Ibid., Cardinal Maffeo, Libro di entrate ecclesiastiche B, 161518
Ibid., Cardinal Maffeo, Libro di ricordi D, 161723
Ibid., Cardinal Maffeo, Giornale di entrate ecclesiastiche C, 161923
Ibid., Cardinal Maffeo, Libro di entrate ecclesiastiche C, 161923
Biblioteca Vaticana, Archivo Segreto
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
BVAS:
BVASABL:
Biblioteca Vaticana, Archivio Segreto Archivio Boncompagni Ludovisi
GFN: Gabinetto Fotografico Nazionale (Rome)
286
Addenda
Doc. 3bis
August 4,1612 (ASGF369, Part 2, p. 19):

Pagati al sigr francescho schachi schudi quattro -p francescho ticci quali
sono -p il Casso di gesso della testa del sig.r antonio Coppola __ 74
Doc. 22d.
September 24, 1622 (ibid., facing p. 63):

e piu a di 24 di 7 bre pagato venti cinque a m. pietro schultore
come a parte -p uno mandato __________________________ 25
Doc. 23d.
December 23,1623 (ibid., p. 68):

Al detto scudi quaranta cinque per resto de la statua fatta al s.antonio
cepereli ___________________________________________ 45
VI
Berninis Death
REMARKABLE picture of Berninis death emerges from the biographies by Filippo Baldinucci and the artists son, Domenico. They mention two works of art in this connection. One is Berninis Sangue di Cristo
composition engraved by Franois Spierre, which can be dated to the year
1670 (Fig. 1). The Crucified Christ is shown with the Virgin, God the
Father and a host of angels, suspended above a sea formed by the blood
pouring from His wounds. Two texts referring to the blood of Christ are
inscribed at the bottom of the print, one from Pauls Epistle to the Hebrews,
The blood of Christ, who offered himself without spot to God, will purge
our conscience, the other from St. Maria Madalena de Pazzi, I offer you,
eternal Father, the blood of the incarnate word; and if anything is wanting
in me I offer it to you, Mary, that you may present it to the eternal Trinity.
The second work is a bust of the Savior, the last sculpture by Berninis hand.
He began it in his eightieth year in 1679, and willed it to his friend and
patron, Queen Christina of Sweden (cf. Figs. 914). It was more than lifesize (103 cm. high) and represented Christ with His right hand slightly
raised, as if in the act of blessing. Bernini evidently attached particular
importance to this divine simulacrum, which he called his favorite and to
which he devoted all the forces of his Christian piety and of art itself ; in
the Savior he summed up and concentrated all his art. Although technically weak, it demonstrated for him the triumph of disegno over the physical depredations of old age. Both works were regarded by contemporaries
as extraordinary achievements, even for Bernini, and fitting capstones to the
artists extraordinary career.
288
No less impressive than these creations, however, was the manner of

Berninis passing not the fatal illness as such, normal for an octogenarian, but the way in which he approached his own end. His attitude toward
dying, his thoughts and actions in preparation for it, which only culminated during his final weeks, led Baldinucci to remark that Berninis death
seemed truly like his life. This may be simply a biographers banal protestation of his heros Christian piety. Yet the aptness of Baldinuccis comments
about Berninis life and art in other contexts suggests that he perceived
something more in his subjects demise.
The purpose of the present essay is to demonstrate that Baldinuccis perception was indeed correct. Berninis death was in more than the usual sense
like his life; it was, in fact, a kind of artwork, diligently prepared and carefully executed to achieve the desired effect. The Sangue di Cristo and the
bust of the Savior were not simply pious works by an old man of genius and
faith, but were intended to illustrate specific aspects of Berninis art of
dying. His preparations for death and the works he made in anticipation of
it may thus be understood as intimately related and mutually illuminating
parts of his artistic legacy.
Since various details of Baldinuccis and Domenico Berninis descriptions
will be referred to subsequently they are printed here together, in translation:1
1
The translation from F. Baldinucci, Vita del Cavaliere Gio. Lorenzo Bernini, Florence,
1682, ed. S. S. Ludovici, Milan, 1948, 132, 13437, is taken with slight modifications from
that of C. Enggass, The Life of Bernini by Filippo Baldinucci, University Park, Pa., and
London, 1966, 66 f, 6872; the translation from D. Bernini, Vita del Cav. Giovan. Lorenzo
Bernino, Rome, 1713, 167, 16977, is my own. See also S. Fraschetti, Il Bernini, Milan,
1900, 422 ff, who summarizes Berninis testament and an inventory of his possessions. Some
further notices are in V. Martinelli, Novit berniniane. 3. Le sculture per gli Altieri,
Commentari, X, 1959, 224 ff. The Bernini family tomb slab in Santa Maria Maggiore (of
later date since the arms bear a crown of nobility), and what is evidently the artists sword of
knighthood, found in the tomb in 1931, are reproduced in C. DOnofrio, Roma vista da
Roma, Rome, 1967, Figs. 69, 135.
We may add the following: Venerdi 15 di Novembre il Cavaliere Bernino f soprafatto
da morbo apopletico, e perci f subito communicato, e si mand a prendere la
Benedizzione dal sommo Pontefice: dicono essere nellet di ottantatre anni; Il Cavaliere
Bernino tuttavia vive, ma giorni, siano hore. Giovedi 28 di Novembre pass allaltra vita
il medesimo Cavalier Bernino e fl poi esposto solennemente nella Basilica Liberiana, nella
quale Monsig.r suo figlio Canonico, essendo stato esposto con 60 torcie. Dicono ascendere
il suo avere seicento, e pi mila scudi (Rome, Archivio di Stato, Carte Cartari Febeo, busta
87, fols. 273v, 267v f ); Qui anco passato all altra vita di Indispos.ne di febre il sr. Cav.re
Gio. Lorenzo Bernino famoso scultore, et Architetto sepolto nella Basilica di S. Maria Mag.re
con superbo funerale, et ha lasciato Herede con Institutione di Primog.ra il Sig.r Paolo
BERNINIS DEATH
289
Filippo Baldinucci
Bernini was already in the eightieth year of his life. For sometime
past he had been turning his most intense thoughts to attaining eternal repose rather than to increasing his earthly glory. Also, deep
within his heart was the desire to offer, before closing his eyes to this
life, some sign of gratitude to Her Majesty the Queen of Sweden, his
most special patron. In order, therefore, to penetrate more deeply
into the first concept and to prepare himself better for the second, he
set to work with the greatest intensity to create in marble a halflength figure, larger than life-size of Our Savior Jesus Christ.
This is the work that he said was his favorite2 and it was the last
given the world by his hand. He meant it as a gift for the monarch,
but in this intention he was unsuccessful. The Queens opinion of,
and esteem for, the statue was so great that, not finding herself in circumstances in which it was possible to give a comparable gift in
exchange, she chose to reject it rather than fail in the slightest degree
to equal the royal magnificence of her intention. Bernini, therefore,
as we will relate in the proper place, had to leave it to her in his will.
In this divine simulacrum he put all the forces of his Christian piety
and of art itself. In it he proved the truth of his familiar axiom, that
the artist with a truly strong foundation in design need fear no
diminution of vitality and tenderness, or other good qualities in his
technique when he reaches old age; for thanks to this sureness in
design, he is able to make up fully for those defects of the spirits,
which tend to petrify under the weight of years. This, he said, he had
observed in other artists . . .
And while the city of Rome was preparing to acclaim him on the
propitious outcome of the restoration and strengthening of the
palace [the Palazzo della Cancelleria], Bernini had already begun to
lose sleep, and his strength and spirits were at such a low ebb that
within a brief time he was brought to the end of his days.
Bernino suo figliolo, e grossi legati Mons.r Bernino, et altri suoi figli e fig. le e varij Busti,
e statue sue alla M.t della Reg.a di Suetia, et al S.r Card.l Altieri oltre li Ieg.i Pij ascendenti
le sue facolt a sopra 300m scudi (Rome, Bibl. Corsini, Avvisi, vol. 1755, 38. C. 2, fol. 123r,
November 30, 1680).
2
Berninis use of the term beniamino may have been a play on the meaning of the
Hebrew name of the right hand.
290
1. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Sangue di Cristo, engraving by F. Spierre,

473 x 290mm, frontispiece of F. Marchese, Unica speranza del peccatore,
Rome 1670, Vatican Library.
BERNINIS DEATH
2. The Death of Moriens, woodcut from Dellarte del ben morire,

Naples 1591. New York Public Library.
The Intercession of Christ and
the Virgin,
drawing, 229 x 205mm.
Leipzig, Museum der
bildenden Knste,
Graphische Sammlung
(from Brauer and Wittkower,
Zeichnungen des Gianlorenzo
Bernini, pl. 128).
291
292
But before speaking of his last illness and death, which to our eyes
truly seemed like his life, we should here mention that, although it
may be that up until his fortieth year, the age at which he married,
Cavalier Bernini had some youthful romantic entanglements without, however, creating any impediment to his studies of the arts or
prejudicing in any way that which the world calls prudence, we may
truthfully say that his marriage not only put an end to this way of living, but that from that hour he began to behave more like a cleric
than a layman. So spiritual was his way of life that, according to what
was reported to me by those who know, he might often have been
worthy of the admiration of the most perfect monastics. He always
kept fixed in his mind an intense awareness of death. He often had
long discussions on this subject with Father Marchesi, his nephew
who was an Oratorian priest at the Chiesa Nuova, known for his
goodness and learning. So great and continual was the fervor with
which he longed for the happiness of that last step, that for the sole
intention of attaining it, he frequented for forty years continuously
the devotions conducted toward this end by the fathers of the Society
of Jesus in Rome. There, also, he partook of the Holy Eucharist twice
a week.
He increased the alms which he had been accustomed to give
from his earliest youth. He became absorbed at times in the thoughts
and in the expression of the profound reverence and understanding
that he always had of the efficacy of the Blood of Christ the
Redeemer, in which, he was wont to say, he hoped to drown his sins.
He made a drawing of this subject, which he then had engraved and
printed. It shows the image of Christ Crucified, with streams of
blood gushing from his hands and feet as if to form a sea, and the
great Queen of Heaven who offers it to God the Father. He also had
this pious concept painted on a great canvas which he wanted to have
always facing his bed in life and in death.
His time then came; I do not know whether I should say expected
because of his great loss of strength or because of his yearning for the
eternal repose that he had so long desired. He was ill of a slow fever
followed at the end by an attack of apoplexy which took his life.
Throughout it all he was very patient and resigned to the Divine
Will. Nor did he as a rule converse about anything but his trust in it.
His words were so striking that those in attendance, among whom
BERNINIS DEATH
293
Cardinal Azzolino did not disdain to find himself often, marveled

greatly at the concepts that divine love suggested to him. Among
these the following is worthy of remembrance. He urgently implored
Cardinal Azzolino to supplicate Her Majesty the Queen to make an
act of love to God on his behalf He thought, as he said, that that
great lady had a special language which God understood, while God
used a language with her that she alone could understand.
The thought of that final step which was always present in his life
had suggested to Bernini many years before his death the idea of asking Father Marchesi to assist him at his deathbed in all that he had
to recall at that time. And since he feared that in the final extremity
he might not be able to use his voice, which did in fact happen, he
wished to be able to communicate with Father Marchesi by certain
gestures and external motions which he had worked out to express
the innermost feelings of his heart. It was a marvelous thing that,
although Bernini could speak only brokenly during his illness as a
result of the inflammation in his head, and that later, as a consequence of the new attack, he lost almost all power of speech, Father
Marchesi always understood him. He gave such suitable replies to his
proposals that they sufficed to lead him with admirable calm to his
end.
Berninis last breath was drawing near when he made a sign to
Mattia de Rossi and Giovan Battista Contini, his architectural assistants. Speaking as well as he was able, he said jokingly, while pointing to a precision instrument adapted to pulling heavy weights, that
he was surprised that their invention would not serve to draw the
catarrh from his throat. When his confessor asked about his souls
state of calm and whether he was fearful, he replied, Father, I must
render account to a Lord who in His goodness, does not count in
half-pennies. Later because of the apoplexy his right arm and whole
right side were paralyzed and he said, It is good that this arm which
has so wearied itself in life should rest a bit before death.
Meanwhile, Rome wept at her great loss. Berninis house was
filled by a continual flow of men of high rank and people of every
station seeking news and wishing to visit him at the end. Her
Majesty the Queen of Sweden, many cardinals, and ambassadors of
princes came or sent messages at least twice a day. Finally, His
Holiness sent his benediction, after which, at the beginning of the
294
twenty-eighth day of the month of November of the year 1680, at

about midnight, after fifteen days of illness, Bernini went to that
other life. He was eighty-two years old less nine days.
In his will Bernini left His Holiness the Pope a large painting of
Christ by his own hand. To Her Majesty the Queen of Sweden he left
the beautiful marble image of the Savior, the last work by his hand,
of which we have spoken; to the Most Eminent Cardinal Altieri, a
marble bust-length portrait of Clement; to the Most Eminent
Cardinal Azzolino, his most kind protector, a similar bust of
Innocent X, his supporter. Not having anything else in marble he left
Cardinal Rospigliosi a painting by his own hand. He most strictly
enjoined that his beautiful statue of Truth be left in his own house.
It is the only work by his chisel that remains the property of his
children.
It would take too long to tell of the sorrow that such a loss
brought to all Rome. I will only say that Her Majesty the Queen,
whose sublime intellect knew through long experience the subtle
gifts of so great a man, paid extraordinary tribute to him. It seemed
to her that with Berninis death the world had lost the only begotten
child of virtue in our century. On the day of Berninis death the Pope
sent a noble gift to that Queen by means of his privy chamberlain.
The Queen asked the chamberlain what was being said in Rome concerning the estate left by Bernini. When she learned that it was worth
about four hundred thousand scudi, she said, I would be ashamed if
he had served me and had left so little.
The pomp with which the body of our artist was borne to the
church of Santa Maria Maggiore where his family had their burial
place, corresponded to the dignity of the deceased and the capabilities and love of his children, who ordered a most noble funeral and
distributed both candles and alms on a grand scale. The talents and
pens of the learned were exhausted in the composition of eulogies,
sonnets, lyric poems, erudite verses in Latin, and the most ingenious
vernacular poetry was written in praise of Bernini and publicly
exhibited. All the Roman nobility and the ultra-montane nobility
then in the city gathered together. There was, in short, a crowd so
numerous that it was necessary to postpone somewhat the time for
the interment of the body. Bernini was buried in a lead coffin in the
previously mentioned tomb, with a record of his name and person.
BERNINIS DEATH
295
Domenico Bernini
But by now near death and at the decrepit age of eighty, the Cavaliere
wished to illustrate his life and bring to a close his practice of the profession he had conducted so well till then, by creating a work with
which a man would be happy to end his days. This was the image of
our Savior in half figure, but larger than life-size, with the right hand
slightly raised in the act of blessing. In it he summarized and condensed all his art; and although the weakness of his wrist did not correspond to the boldness of the idea, yet he succeeded in proving what
he used to say, that an artist excellent in design should not fear any
want of vivacity or tenderness on reaching the age of decrepitude,
because ability in design is so effective that it alone can make up for
the defect of the spirits,which languish in old age. He destined this
work for the very meritorious Queen of Sweden who, being unable
to compensate its value, chose rather to refuse it than descend from
her royal beneficence. But she was constrained to accept it two years
later, when the Cavaliere left it to her as a legacy . . .
Before beginning our narration it is well to turn back the discourse somewhat, and demonstrate how singular the goodness of life
was in the Cavaliere Bernini, and with what union of Christian maxims he rendered notable the many beautiful gifts of his soul. He was
a man of elevated spirit who always aspired to the great, not resting
even at the great if he did not reach the greatest; this same nature carried him to such a sublimity of ideas in matters of devotion that, not
content with the ordinary routes, he applied himself to those which
are, so to speak, the shortcut to reach heaven. Whence he said that
in rendering account of his operations he would have to deal with a
Lord who, infinite and superlative in his attributes, would not be
concerned with half-pennies, as they say; and he explained his
thought by adding that the goodness of God being infinite, and infinite the merit of the precious Blood of his Son, it was an offense to
these attributes to doubt Forgiveness. To this effect he had copied
for his devotion, in engraving and in paint, a marvelous design which
shows Jesus Christ on the Cross with a Sea of Blood beneath, spilling
torrents of it from his Most Holy Wounds; and here one sees the
Most Blessed Virgin in the act of offering it to the Eternal Father,
who appears above with open arms all softened by so piteous a spec-
296
tacle. And he said, in this Sea his sins are drowned, which cannot be
found by Divine justice except amongst the Blood of Jesus Christ, in
the tints of which they will either have changed color or by its merits obtained mercy. This trust was so alive in him that he called the
Most Holy Humanity of Christ Sinners Clothing, whence he was
the more confident not to be struck by divine retribution which,
having first to penetrate the garment before wounding him, would
have pardoned his sin rather than tear its innocence. He was wont for
many, many years before his death often to discourse at length with
learned and singular priests; he became so inflamed with these ideas
and the subtlety of his thought ascended so high, they were amazed
how a man who was not even a scholar could often not only penetrate the loftiest mysteries, but also propose questions and provide
answers concerning them, as if he had spent his life in the Schools.
Father Giovanni Paolo Oliva, General of the Company of Jesus, said
that discourse with the Cavaliere on spiritual matters was a professional challenge, like going to a thesis defense. Nor did he nurture
these noble thoughts in his soul without fruit, but he continually
practiced virtue with solid works. For the space of forty years he frequented every Friday the devotion of the good death in the Church
of the Ges, where he often received Holy Communion at least once
a week. For the same long space of time, each day after finishing his
labors he visited that Church, where the Holy Sacrament was
exposed, and left copious alms for the poor. Besides giving many
dowries to poor unmarried girls during the year, he always contributed one on Assumption Day, and obligated his children to six
more in his will. To gain merit by avoiding gratitude he even distributed copious alms through one of his servants, with the obligation not to reveal the benefactor. Although the practice of philanthropy was, so to speak, born and raised with him, yet in the last
years of his life he took it so much to heart that, not considering
himself sufficiently able to find the poor, he gave charge, and funds,
to many religious to pass on the aid. And because he loved secrecy in
such works, we may judge that he made many more of them than we
have notice of. From some notices he kept in a volume of household
finances we learn that, having three months before his death placed
two thousand scudi in a prayer-stool, only two hundred were later
found there; he ordered his children also to use these in a pious work,
BERNINIS DEATH
297
with clear indication that what remained was to make a similar exit.
In a letter written from Paris he orders his son, the Monsignore, to
double the amount of alms he had left instructions to give because
God is a Lord who will not be won over with courtesy. Often during the year he took his family to some hospital, where he wanted his
small children to follow his example in comforting the sick, presenting them with various confections he kept ready for the purpose. It
was an amazing thing for a man employed in so many important
occupations devoutly to hear Mass every morning, to visit the Holy
Sacrament everyday, to recite every evening on his knees the Crown
and Office of the Madonna, and the seven Penitential Psalms, a custom he constantly maintained until his death. When he then saw
himself approaching death he thought of and discussed nothing else
than this passing; not with bitterness and horror, as is usual with the
aged, but with incomparable constancy of spirit and using his memory in preparation for doing it well. To this end he had continuous
conferences with Father Francesco Marchese, priest of the Oratorio
of San Filippo Neri in the Chiesa Nuova at Rome, son of his sister
Beatrice Bernini, a person venerable for the goodness of his life and
noteworthy for his doctrine, of whom the Cavalier availed himself to
assist at his death. And he said, that step was difficult for everyone
because everyone took it for the first time; hence he often imagined
himself to die, in order by this exercise to habituate and dispose himself to the real struggle. In this state he wanted Father Marchese to
suggest to him all those acts usually proposed to the moribund, and
doing them he arrived, as if in preparation, at that great point.
Assuming also that, as is usual, words would fail him at the extremity of life, and he would suffer the anguish of one who cannot make
himself understood, they worked out a special way in which he could
be understood without speaking. With such precautions, with his
soul completely reinforced, he finally reached the proof.
We have already said how debilitated and strained he was left
from undertaking the restoration of the Palazzo della Cancelleria.
Whence he finally fell ill with a slow fever, to which was added at the
end an attack of apoplexy that took his life. Through the whole
course of the illness, which lasted fifteen days, he wanted a sort of
altar set up at the foot of his bed, on which he had displayed the picture of the Blood of Jesus Christ. What were the colloquies he held
298
now with Father Marchese, now with other religious who stood by,
concerning the efficacy of the most precious Blood and the confidence he had in it, can rather be conjectured than reported. For none
of those present could help bursting into tears on hearing with what
firmness of sentiments he then spoke, of whom neither the burden
of age and sickness, nor powerful enemies, had been able to obfuscate that clarity of intellect which always maintained itself equal and
great in him to the last breath of his life. Realizing that he could no
longer move his right arm because of the aforementioned attack of
apoplexy, he said, it is only right that even before death that arm rest
a little which worked so much in life. To Cardinal Azzolino, who
honored him with several visits in those days, he said one evening
that he should implore in his name Her Majesty the Queen to do an
act of love of God for him, because he believed that that great Lady
had a special language with God to be well understood, while God
had used with her a language which she alone was capable of understanding. The Cardinal did his bidding, and received from the
Queen the following note.
I beg you to tell the Cavaliere Bernini for me that I promise to
use all my powers to do what he desires of me, on condition that he
promises to pray God for me and for you, to concede us the grace of
His perfect love, so that one day we may all be together with the joy
of love, and enjoy God forever. And tell him that I have already
served him to the best of my ability, and that I will continue.
Meanwhile his house was a continuous flux and reflux of the
most conspicuous personages of Rome; they came or sent word, with
sentiment no less distinguished from the common convention, than
was distinct and particular in each of them his esteem and regret to
lose so great a man. Finally speech failed him, and because he felt
exceedingly pressed by the catarrh, he made a sign to the Cavaliere
Mattia de Rossi and to Giovanni Battista Contini, who, together
with Giulio Cartari and all his pupils stayed always by his bed, as if
amazed that they could not recall a method of drawing the catarrh
from his breast; and with his left hand he strained to represent to
them an instrument designed to lift exceptional weights. As he had
agreed with Father Marchese before taking ill on the method of making himself understood without speaking, it astonished everyone
how well he made himself understood with only the movement of his
BERNINIS DEATH
299
left hand and eyes a clear sign of that great vivacity of spirits,
which did not yield even though life withdrew. Two hours before
passing he gave the benediction to all his children, of whom, as has
been said, he left four boys and five girls. Finally, having received the
blessing of the Pope, who sent it through one of his chamberlains,
early on the twenty-eighth day of November of the year 1680, the
eighty-second of his life, he expired. The great man died as he had
lived leaving it doubtful whether his life was more admirable in deeds
or his death more commendable in devotion.
In his testament he left the Pope a most beautiful picture by
Giovanni Battista Gaulli representing the Savior, his last work in
marble; to the Queen, the Savior itself by his hand; to Cardinal
Altieri, the portrait of Clement X; to Cardinal Azzolino that of
Innocent X; and to Cardinal Giacomo Rospigliosi a picture also by
his hand, having nothing else at home in marble other than the
Truth, which he left in perpetuity to his descendants.
Mourning for the loss of this man was universal in the city of
Rome, which recognized its majesty greatly enhanced by his indefatigable labors; and as was his life so also was his death the subject of
many ingenious compositions at the Academies. The following day,
when the Pope sent a gift to the Queen, she asked the chamberlain,
What was being said concerning the legacy of the Cavaliere Bernini?
And having received the reply, About four hundred thousand scudi,
she added, I would be ashamed if he had served me and left so little.
His body was exposed with pomp in the Basilica of Santa Maria
Maggiore, with a funeral, distribution of wax, and charities to the
poor; attendance was so great that the burial was postponed till the
following day. He had already prepared the tomb for himself and his
family in that church, and he was placed in it in a lead box, with an
inscription giving his name and the day of his death.
* * *
Two major themes stand out in the biographers accounts, the devotions
concerned with death sponsored by the Jesuits,and the ministrations of the
artists nephew, the Oratorian priest Francesco Marchese. We shall first consider these factors in relation to Berninis death and the Sangue di Cristo
composition, and then discuss the bust of the Savior.
300
1. The Ars Moriendi and the Sangue di Christo

Bernini and the Jesuit Ars Moriendi
The idea of preparing for death received the widest possible currency in
the late fifteenth century through the Ars Moriendi. This was one of the
most popular publications of the period, reprinted throughout Europe in
dozens of editions, translations and adaptations.3 It was specifically an
instruction manual in the art (crafte or cunnynge, as it was often rendered in English) of dying well, that is, the method of achieving salvation
during the final hours of life. In its extended version, the only one used in
Italy, the work is divided into six parts.4 The first is a commendation of
death in which the reader is urged, when the time comes,to give up willingly and gladly, without any grudging or contradiction. Part 2, the real
core of the work, is devoted to the wily temptations used by the devil in his
ultimate struggle with God for the soul of the dying man, and the countering responses offered by morienss guardian angel. The essential character of
the book, which was determined by its divulgatory purpose, lies in the relation between the text and the pictures in this and the following section. The
five temptations (against Faith, to Despair, Impatience, Vainglory and
Avarice) and the responses to them, are each described and illustrated in a
woodcut, in which moriens is shown on his deathbed alternately beset by
devils and rescued by angels. Part 3 is devoted to the Interrogations, a series
of questions posed to the dying man which, answered rightly, will help to
assure his salvation. This section is accompanied by an eleventh woodcut
showing the death scene, with the soul of the deceased received by his
guardian angel (Fig. 2).5 Text and illustrations thus proceed pari passu, and
are independent of yet complementary to one another. Part 4 contains an
3
In general, cf. A. Tenenti, Il senso della morte e lamore della vita nel Rinascimento, Turin,
1957, 80 ff. In particular, M. C. OConnor, The Art of Dying Well, New York, 1942, with
an exhaustive list of manuscripts and editions; R. Rudolf, Ars Moriendi, Cologne, 1957. For
a recent discussion of the early illustrations, see H. Zerner, Lart au morier, Revue de lart,
XI, 1971, 730.
4
OConnor, Art of Dying Well, 157, n. 313.
5
Reproduced from Dellarte del ben morire . . . Opera . . . rivista . . . e . . . corretta . . . da
Tomaso Costo . . ., Naples, 1591; the latest illustrated Italian edition I have found is Larte del
ben morire, Rome, 1596.
BERNINIS DEATH
301
Instruction to the dying man, which is that he should take Christs death
on the Cross as his model. Part 5 gives instructions to those present, such
as not to deceive moriens with false assurances of his recovery, or to give
precedence to medical over spiritual aid in their ministrations. The dying
man must also have before him holy images, especially the Crucified Christ
and the Virgin. Chapter 6 provides prayers to be said by a faithful friend.
It is evident that Berninis death was in many respects a literal enactment
of the Ars Moriendi. His prodigal charities, which displayed his ultimate disdain for the things of this world; his patient, indeed willing acceptance of
the inevitable; the very scene of the end conjured up by the biographers
accounts including the pious image by his bed and the colloquies with
Father Marchese all seem to fulfill the recommendations of the Ars
Moriendi. The imagery of the Sangue di Cristo composition, the Crucifixion
with the Virgin Mary and the angels, especially the guardian angel, recalls
that of the early illustrations. Even the use of a special sign language to communicate without speech belongs in this context, since its purpose no doubt
was to enable Bernini to respond to the crucial interrogations.6
To find an echo of the Ars Moriendi in the late seventeenth century is in
itself remarkable since the impetus of the original work in Italy was by then
long spent, although it was never forgotten. But no less significant are the
differences in Berninis death from that envisaged in the Ars Moriendi: style
in the Art of Dying Well had changed considerably. Some of these differences were personal to Bernini, while others reflect more general developments in the Ars Moriendi tradition.
Apart from editions of the Ars Moriendi itself, a number of Italian works
of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, for which it served more
or less directly as the model, give a measure of its immediate influence.7
Such, for example, are the De modo bene moriendi written about 1480 by
Pietro Barozzi, Bishop of Padua and chancellor of the university there, published in Venice in 1531, and the Dottrina del ben morire by one Pietro di
6
Also known as Anselms questions (cf. J. P. Migne, Patrologiae cursas completus, Paris,
1844 ff, Series latina, CLVIII, cols. 685 ff ), the interrogations had been a standard part of
the ritual of death until they were omitted in the official Ritual Romanum of 1614; but they
continued to be popular (e.g., V. Auruccio, Rituario per quelli, che havendo cura
danime . . ., Rome, 1615, 49 ff, reprinted 1619, 1624, 1625), and OConnor, Art of Dying
Well, 31 ff, esp. 35, records a number of instances of their use into the nineteenth century.
7
For what follows, see ibid., 172 ff, and Tenenti, Senso della morte, 112 ff, 330 ff.
302
Lucca, published at Venice in 1515.8 The intimate connection between text

and pictures that characterized the original Ars Moriendi determined the
very structure of its most famous emulation in Italy, the sermon preached
in Florence by Savonarola on All Souls Day in 1496, published afterwards
with the title Predica dellarte del ben morire.9 The sermon develops around
three images, illustrated as woodcuts in the published editions,which
Savonarola exhorted his listeners to have painted for themselves. The first
of these is a reminder of the Last Judgment, a grandiose composition representing Heaven and Hell, which the still-healthy listener was urged to
keep in his room and look at frequently, while he thought of death and said
to himself, I might die today. The second picture shows the man sick in
bed, with death as a skeleton knocking at his door. The third scene shows
the man now on the point of death, with the skeleton seated at the foot of
his bed.
A common tendency may be discerned in these treatises. Savonarola is
concerned not only with death as such and the immediate preparations for
it, but also with the healthy man, to whom his first image is directed. The
same concern is evident in the works of Pietro Barozzi and Pietro di Lucca.
Thus the Art of Dying was extended into a life-long process, and contemplation of death and preparation for it became in themselves a kind of art
of living well. In the course of the sixteenth century the literature devoted
to the art of dying diminished, and ultimately almost disappeared.10 In the
early seventeenth century, however, there was a great revival of interest in
the theme, which centered at Rome in the Jesuit order.11 Two factors were
particularly significant in this revival, both of which incorporate the tendency to extend the preparations for death back from the deathbed to
include the individuals whole life.
One was the publication in 1620 of the De arte bene moriendi by
Roberto Bellarmino, the great theologian for whose tomb in the Ges, the
mother church of the Jesuits, Bernini carved the portrait two years later.12
On Barozzi, cf. Dizionaria biografico degli italiani, Rome, 1960 ff, VI, 510 ff.
M. Ferrara, Savonarola, 2 vols., Florence, 1952, II, 66 ff. For the text, cf. Girolamo
Savonarola. Prediche sopra Ruth e Michea, 2 vols., ed. V. Romano, Rome, 1962, II, 362 ff.
10
Tenenti, Senso della morte, 321.
11
For the vast Jesuit literature on death, see the listings in A. De Backer and C.
Sommervogel, Bibliothque de la Compagnie de Jsus, 12 vols., Brussels, 18901960, X, cols.
51019; also E. Mle, Lart religieux aprs le concile de Trente, Paris, 1932, 206 ff, J. De
Guibert, La spiritualit de la Compagnie de Jsus, Rome, 1953, 384 ff.
12
R. Bellarmino, Opera Omnia, 12 vols., Paris. 187074, VIII, 551 ff.
8
9
BERNINIS DEATH
303
Bellarminos treatise is divided almost equally into two parts, of which only
the second is devoted to the preparations for death at the time it comes near.
Here he follows the Ars Moriendi tradition closely, including the temptations of the Devil (where he cites Pietro Barozzi among his sources), and the
ministrations of the faithful friend. Part I, on the other hand, deals with
remote preparations for death, which include practice of the theological and
moral virtues, and the sacraments beginning with Baptism and ending with
Extreme Unction. Bellarmino devotes most of the book to these central acts
of faith, and places particular emphasis on the Eucharist, the greatest of the
sacraments, in which is contained not only copious grace but also the very
author of grace. In contrast to Savonarolas exhortation to the constant contemplation of death, the keynote for Bellarmino is provided by his title to
the opening chapter, He who would die well, should live well.
The second major factor in the Ars Moriendi revival, a direct outgrowth
of Bellarminos concern with the subject, was the foundation of the
Confraternity of the Bona Mors at the Ges.13 The congregation differed
from earlier such organizations devoted to death in that it was not conceived primarily to carry out an act of mercy, that of burying the dead, but
to institute a program of devotions and exercise through which its members
might assure themselves the benefits of a good death. The essence of its spiritual program is evident from the organizations full name, Congregazione
del Nostro Signore Ges Cristo moribondo sopra la Croce e della
Santissima Vergine Maria sua Madre Addolorata, detta della Buona Morte.
The congregation was founded in 1648 by Vincenzo Caraffa, who was then
praepositus generalis of the Society of Jesus, of which the principal activity
was regular Friday devotions to the Crucified Christ and His wounds, to the
Sorrows of the Virgin, and to the Eucharist. A great altarpiece, now lost,
showing the Crucified Christ and the Mater Dolorosa was painted for the
congregation and unveiled before the High Altar of the church each
Friday.14 The Bona Mors was a phenomenal success, and by the end of the
century branches had been established throughout Europe.
13
A thorough history of the organization has yet to be written. Cf. A. LHoire, La congrgation de Notre-Seigneur Jesus-Christ mourant en Croix et de la Trs Sainte Vierge, Sa Mre
participant a ses douleurs dite de la Bonne Mort, Paris, etc., 1904; G. B. Piazza, Opere pie di
Roma, Rome, 1679, 684 ff; P. Pecchiai, Il Ges di Roma, Rome, 1952, 314.
14
Piazza, Opere pie, 685 f, and Manni, Breve ragguaglia, 100 f (cited in the following
note).
304
From Bellarminos treatise and the foundation of the Bona Mors a continuous tradition was established at the Ges, in which Bernini directly participated. In 1649 the first moderator of the congregation, Giovanni
Battista Manni, published a volume describing its Friday devotions, and
subsequently brought out several illustrated works concerned with death.15
The confraternitys second moderator during Berninis lifetime was one
Giuseppe Fozi. In 1669, in connection with the canonization of Maria
Maddalena de Pazzi in that year, Fozi put into print a life of the saint that
had been left in manuscript by one of her early biographers, the Jesuit
Virgilio Cepari.16 Since Bernini, as his son reports, attended the devotions
of the Bona Mors for forty years, he must have participated from its very
inception. In the true spirit of the revived Ars Moriendi, preparation for
death became for him a life-long process. The basic imagery of his Sangue
di Cristo composition was clearly inspired by the congregations invocation
of the Crucifixion and the sorrowing Virgin, and its particular devotion to
the Eucharist. Bernini himself explained that he made the work as a personal votive offering for the benefit of the world at large;17 this may well
15
A list of moderators is in the Archive of the Ges: Catalogus Moderatorum Primariae
Congregationis sub invocatione D. N. G. C. in Cruce moribundi ac Beatissima Mariae Virginis
ejus Genetricis Dolorosae vulgo Bonae Mortis ab ejus Fundatione anno 1648 ad annum 1911.
G. B. Manni, Breve ragguaglio e pratica instruttione degli esercitii di piet cristiana che si
fanno nel Giesu di Roma ogni venerd mattina, e sera, per la divotione della Bona Morte da
ottenersi per li meriti della Passione, & agonia di Cristo in Croce: e de dolori della sua Madre
Santiss. sotto la Croce, Rome, 1649; idem, Varii, e veri ritratti della morte disegnati in immagini, ed espressi in essempij al peccatore duro di cuore, Venice, 1669; idem, La morte disarmata,
e le sue amarezze raddolcite con due pratiche, per due acti importantissime, luna del ben morire,
e laltra dajutare i moribondi, Venice, 1669.
Cf. De Backer and Sommervogel, Bibl. de la Compagnie, V, cols. 500, 502. Manni was
later closely involved in the negotiations for the decorations of the Ges (see n. 32 below);
Pecchiai, Il Ges, 113 ff.
16
Vita della Serafica Verg. S. Maria Madelena de Pazzi Fiorentina . . . Scritta dal Padre
Virgilio Cepari della Campagnia di Gies. Et hora con laggiunta cavata da Processi formati per la
sua Beatificazione e Canonizatione del Padre Giuseppe Fozi . . ., Rome, 1669. Cf. De Backer and
Sommervogel, Bibl. de la Compagnie, II, 957, III, 914. Among Fozis othcr works is one on
priestly assistance to the dying, Il sacerdote savio, e zelante assistente a moribondi, Rome, 1683.
17
1671. Il Sig. Cavalier Bernino dice che havendo in vita sua fatti tanti disegni per
Pontefici, R, Prencipi, uole sigillare con farne uno gloria dellofferta che si f al Padre
Eterno del pretiosissimo Sangue di Christo; stanto jn questo pensiro gli parso, che si possi
prgare la gloriosissima Vergine, a fare lej per noi, Padre Thologhi, et altri spirituali. Jl
pensiero gli parso bellissimo, molto utile per tutti; stante questo h fatto il presente disegnio, et in sua presnza lh fatto intagliare per poterne dare molti, mandarne per Jl
BERNINIS DEATH
305
have been in fulfillment of the members obligation to assist others to

obtain a good death.
Giuseppe Fozi, in preparing the biography of Maria Maddalena de
Pazzi, must certainly have become familiar with the passage, cited on the
Sangue di Cristo engraving, in which she invokes the Holy Blood and the
intercession of Christ and the Virgin; he must have noted its striking correspondence to the dedication and devotions of the Bona Mors, and he may
have originally brought it to Berninis attention.
Father Francesco Marchese
The son of Berninis older sister, Beatrice, was born in 1623. He became
a priest of the Oratorio, the order founded by St. Philip Neri with its headquarters in the building by Borromini adjoining Santa Maria in Vallicella.
Father Marchese is described as very learned, a fervid and assiduous executor of the rules and obligations of the order, to which he added his own
severe application to studies sacred and profane.18 He is best known as a
zealous opponent of the Quietist leader Miguel de Molinos, whose downfall he was instrumental in bringing about during Molinoss trial by the
Inquisition in the 1680s; an important manuscript volume of the materials
he gathered against Molinos still exists in the Vallicella library.19 Apart from
four other works which he left unpublished at his death in 1697, the standard bibliography of Oratorian authors lists no fewer than twenty-one
books by Marchese, which bear a strongly individual stamp and display a
remarkable development. They are mainly of two kinds, biographies of
saints and devotional works. While they do indeed show a formidable
knowledge of sacred and profane history and literature, they are neither
scholarly reconstructions of the past, nor abstract theological speculations.
Of the three works Marchese published before 1670 (the significance of
mondo a gloria del Sangue di Christo; a dispatch to the court of Modena, first published by
F. Imparato, Documenti relativi al Bernini e a suoi contemporanei, Archivia storica dellarte,
III, 1890, 142 f, then by Fraschetti, Bernini, 420, n. 2.
18
Marchese di Villarosa, Memorie degli scrittori filippini o siano della Congregatione dell
Oratorio di S. Filippo Neri, Naples, 1837, 16870; pt. 2, Naples, 1842, 70. C. Gasbarri,
Loratorio romano dal cinquecento al novecento, Rome, 1962, 177 ff.
19
Cf. L. von Pastor, The History of the Popes, 40 vols., St. Louis, Mo., 193852, XXXII,
447 ff; Marcheses role in the process against Molinos is described at length in P. Dudon, Le
quitiste espagnol Michel Molinos (167896), Paris, 1921, passim; also M. Petrocchi, Il
Quietismo italiano del seicento, Rome, 1942, 66, n. 32, 102, 193 ff.
306
which date will emerge presently), the first was a vast compilation in three
volumes of prayers to the Virgin gathered from an incredible variety of
sources and so organized as to provide devotions for every day of the year;20
the second was a book of meditations on the Stigmata, and the third a life
of the Spanish mystic, St. Pietro dAlcantara.21 They are thus eminently
practical and edifying works, and focus primarily on the mystical nature of
piety. This was characterized by Marchese not in quietistic terms of passive
contemplation, but as a process of active, passionate devotion. This gifted
nephew, at once learned and intensely concerned with the welfare of the
human spirit, must have provided an ideal counterpoint for Berninis own
reflections on death and salvation the faithful friend of the Ars
Moriendi. Although Marchese was the man of letters, their conversations
must have been truly reciprocal: witness Giovanni Paolo Olivas remark
that talking to Bernini on spiritual matters was like discoursing with a
professional.
In 1670 Father Marchese published two books which have as their central theme the efficacy of the sacrifice of Christ to save the sinner who
repents before he dies. The message of one is stated in its title, Unica speranza del peccatore che consiste nel sangue del N. S. Gies Cristo. The other
book, entitled Ultimo colpo al cuore del peccatore, is conceived as the final call
to the hard of heart to accept the gift of grace offered by the Crucifixion. A
third work by Marchese, published posthumously, belongs explicitly to the
genre of the Ars Moriendi; the Preparamento a ben morire is a spiritual guide
to salvation through penitence, devotion to the Eucharist, invocation of the
Virgin, the saints and angels, and through prayer.22
Many of the most striking aspects of Berninis death are elucidated in the
writings of Father Marchese. The Unica speranza, an octavo volume of two
hundred pages, was actually written to accompany the Sangue di Cristo
print; Marchese states this in the preface, where he describes the design and
20
Diario sacro dove sinsegnano varie pratiche di divotione per honorare ogni giorno la
Beatissima Vergine raccolte dallhistorie de santi, e beati correnti in ciascun giorno dell anno e
dalle vite daltri servi di Dio . . ., 3 vols., Rome, 165558.
21
Il divoto delle sacre stimmate di S. Francesco, Rome, 1664; Vita del B. Pietro dAlcantara,
Rome, 1667.
22
Unica speranza del pecatore che consiste nel sangue del N. S. Gies Cristo spiegata con
alcune verit, con le quali sinsegna allanima un modo facile dapplicare a se il frutto del medesimo sangue . . ., Rome, 1670; Ultimo colpo al cuore del peccatore, Rome, 1670; Preparamento
a ben morire opera postuma del Vener. Servo di Dio Francesco Marchesi preposto della
Congregatione dellOratorio di Roma . . ., Rome, 1697.
BERNINIS DEATH
307
urges him who desires salvation either to fix his eye upon the image, or to
read the text.23 The print in turn served as the frontispiece to Marcheses
book.24 The Sangue di Cristo and the Unica speranza were thus conceived
together as complementary parts, text and illustration, of a modern Ars
Moriendi. It is in the light of this specifically propagatory function that the
original format of Berninis work, a drawing intended to be engraved, may
be understood.
The text of the Unica speranza helps clarify the meaning of Berninis
image, both in itself and as part of a sequence of ideas leading to salvation.
The substance of the work lies in fifteen truths formulated by Father
Marchese.25 The first three describe the unhappy condition of the sinner in
Sangue di Gies Crocefisso al Cuore di chi legge . . . Ah che lhuomo carnale non penetra le cose superne, e che da Dio prouengono: perci farle meglio capire, linfinita carit
del Signor Iddio h ora con particolar prouedimento disposto, che da mano di divoto artefice
sia delineata lImagine del Salvatore Crocefisso, grondante Sangue in tanta copia, che se ne
formi un ampio mare, e che per mani della Beatissima Vergine Maria conforme al pio sentimento di S. Maddalene de Pazzi io sia del continuo offerto alleterno Padre favore de peccatori, (per la cui esplicatione si composto il presente libro) affinche con tali mezzi agli
occhi dellhuomo carnale rappresentati, il tuo cuore sia pi facilmente disposto udire, e ad
ubidire suoi celesti ammaestramenti. Apri adunque lorecchio del cuore, mentre fissi locchio alla diuuta imagine, leggi questi fogli.
24
Copies with the engraving are in the Vatican Library and the British Museum. The
print has heretofore been known only separately (Bernini also distributed it so; cf. n. 17
above), and its connection with Marcheses book was unsuspected. The composition has
been variously related to Molinos Guia espiritual and Father Olivas sermons (W. Weibel,
Jesuitismus und Barockskulptur in Rom, Strassburg, 1909, 10 ff; Lanckoronska, Decoracja, 71,
n. 110 [cited in n. 32 below]; R. Kuhn, Gian Paulo Oliva und Gian Lorenzo Bernini,
Rmische Quartalschrift, LXIV, 1969, 229 ff ).
25
I quote here the fifteen truths, which constitute chapter headings in the book: 1. Lo
stato del Peccatore in questo secolo molto infelice, e prima per la perdita de beni naturali.
2. Lo stato del Peccature in questo mondo assai pi infelice per la perdita de beni spirituali. 3. Lo stato del Peccatore nellaltro secolo sar infelicissimo, e irreparabile. 4. LUnico
rimedio asopradetti mali il Sangue pretiosissimo di Gies Christo, il quale ne h ottenuta
la rimissione di tutte le colpe. 5. Il Salvatore ardentemente brama di farne partecipi del suo
Sangue. 6. Il frutto del Sangue du Christo con gran facilit si comunica allanime mediante
i Santissimi Sacramenti. 7. Lhuomo con grandissima facilit pu riceuer il frutto del Sangue
di Christo, e ottener il perdono delle colpe, e prima col Sacramento della Penitenza. 8. E
facilissima cosa partecipare della virt del Sgue di Gies Christo mediante il Sacramento
dell Eucharistia. 9. Il tesoro del Sangue di Christo facilmente si ottiene collacquisto
dellIndulgenze. 10. Non sono le operationi nostre buone, ne le penetze, ma il Sangue di
Gies Christo, che sodisf alle nostre colpe. 11. Il Sangue del Redentore conferisce somma
quiete allanima nelle sue imperfettioni. 12. Dalle mani della Madonna Santissima sofferisce, e si dispensa il tesuro del Sangue di Christo. 13. Chi uiue diuuto del Sangue di
23
308
the world and in the hereafter. The fourth truth is that the sole remedy for
the sinners ills is the Precious Blood of Christ, and the fifth is that the
Savior ardently desires the sinners participation in His Blood. Here a
lengthy passage is devoted to expressing the universal efficacy of the
Eucharist, through the metaphor of the Blood of Christ as an infinite sea
that covers the world. Marchese relates the concept to that of the Blood as
a fountain and as a river; he cites a variety of sources, including the prophets
Job (38:11, and here shall thy proud waves be stayed?) and Micah (7:19,
and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea), St. John
Chrysostom (Hom. 41 in Ioann., This Blood, poured out in abundance,
has washed the whole world clean), and Maria Maddalena de Pazzi, who
described the era of grace, in which the Incarnate Word sent the Blood of
Christ into this small world, as the second flood, following that of Noah.26
Christo speri di far una buona morte. 14. E difficilissimo, e quasi impossibile ottener il
frutto del Sangue di Christo da chi del continuo non lapprezza. 15. Il Sangue del Redentore
infiamma il cuore del Peccatore ad abbracciare le verit conosciute.
26
I quote the entire passage: Doue sono ora quelle anime timorose, e diffidenti dottener
dal Signore il perdono delle loro colpe? Considerino, che il Sangue del Saluatore paragonato ad vn fonte, il quale non racchiuso, e occulto; ma tutti esposto; di cui ragion in
ispirito il Profeta Zaccaria. In illa die erit fons patens Domui Jacob, & habitoribus Jerusalem in
ablutionem peccatorum. [I.e., Zac. 13:1 In die illa erit fons patens domni David et habitantibus
Jerusalem in ablutionem peccatoris et menstruatae.] Il Sangue sagratissimo del Verbo Diunio
vn fonte, che si spande in abbondanza per tutta la Casa del vero Giacubbe, cio per la Santa
Chiesa: e questo principalmente serue mondar lanima dalle macchie di tutti gli errori. Anzi
che rassembra vn gran flume, che vscito del proprio letto, corre liberamente per le vie, e
giunge ad inondar le case, e da luoghi sotterranei ascende infin alle stanze, oue dimoriamo.
Tale appunto ci si rappresenta limmenso fiume del Sgue Diuinissimo del Redentore: esce
talhora da confini della sua ordinaria, e sufficiente gratia, e con modi speciali d impulsi
interni penetra l interiore del cuore, dentro al quale brama entrare per lauarlo, e purificarlo
da ogni macchia di colpa; e doue troua resistenza, colla forza possente della sua gratia, foramina parat ubi ipse vult [Gilbert of Holland, Serm. 43 in Cant.; Cf. Migne, Patr. lat.,
CLXXXIV, col. 228], si f apertura in quel cuore se chiuso; e indurato nell empiet, fine
d inondarlo cull affluenza della sua infinita misericordia.
Ma dissi poco: non solo il Sangue di Christo vn fonte perenne, vn vasto fiume; ma
forma vn mare profondissimo, e senza termine; anzi forma vn mare assai pi vasto & ampio
dell Oceano: peroche questo sono prescritti i confini dall Autore della natura. Hic confringes tumentes fluctus tuos: ma il Sangue di Gies Christo inonda, e ricopre tutta la faccia
della terra, ne ristretto da alcun lido e confine; impercioche la sua immensa misericordia,
che dispensa senza misura questo Sangue Diuino, non ha verun termine, dimensione.
Quindi , che Santa Maria Madalena de Pazzi hebbe dire, che due volte il Signor Iddio
haueua mandato al Mundo il diluuio: il primo f tempo di No nell inondatione vniuersale della terra, e l altro era stato negli anni della pienezza della gratia [Mand (sono le sue
parole) ancora in questo picciol Mondo il Verbo vmanato il diluuio; e che diluuio questo?
BERNINIS DEATH
309
The succeeding truths assert that the Blood of Christ is communicated easily through the Holy Sacraments, especially Penitence and the Eucharist.
The treasure of the Blood can also be obtained with the assistance of indulgences, but neither good works nor penances actually erase sins, only the
Blood itself. The twelfth truth is specifically related to Berninis composition, and states that the treasure of the Blood is offered and dispensed
through the hands of the Virgin; it is here that the passage from Maria
Maddalena de Pazzi, which in abbreviated form provided the subtitle to the
Sangue di Cristo engraving, is cited in full from the source, Part II, Chapter
6 of Vincenzo Puccinis life of the saint: I offer you, Eternal Father, the
Blood of the humanity of your Word; I offer it to you yourself, Divine
Word; I also offer it to you, Holy Spirit; and if anything is wanting in me,
I offer it to you, Mary, that you may present it to the Most Holy Trinity.27
Marcheses thirteenth truth establishes the relevance of the others to death,
which is that he who lives devoted to the Blood of Christ may hope to die
well.
Other aspects of Berninis death find a context in Father Marcheses
Ultimo colpo. In particular, echoes may be heard here of those aphoristic
vna soprabbondante gratia, e l infusione del Sangue] [Opere, ed. L. M. Brancaccio, Naples,
1643, 15], del quale disse parimente S Gio: Crisostomo: hic sanguis effusus uniuersum abluit
Orbem terrarum. [Hom. in Ioan. 46; Cf. Migne, Patr., Series graeca, LIX, col. 261] Adunque
neIlampio seno di questo mare, anzi di questo diluuio, che si dilata sopra tutta la terra, si
offerisce opportuna occasione qualsiuoglia peccatore di gittare l immenso peso de suoi
innumerabili errori: ne della prontissima volont del Signore in cancellarli pu punto
dubitare, hauendo egli stesso fatto scriuere al suo Profeta Michea. Deponet iniquitates nostras,
& proijciet in profundum maris omnia peccata vestra (Unica speranza, 32 ff ).
The ocean metaphor also occurs in the Ultimo colpo: . . . il Sangue, che se n formato
vn pelago, e vn Oceano immenso, che ricopre tutta la faccia della Terra. Or io con questo
gran diluuio di sangue dourei assorbire, e soffocare tutti voi altri huomini temerarij . . .
(page 26); Animo, Peccatore, alza la mente illustrata dalla fede, e contempla vnampio
mare formato dal Sangue del Redentore, che assai pi vasto, e immenso di quello, che sia
lOceano (page 29). See also in the text below.
27
Vi offerisco, Padre eterno, il Sangue dellvmanit del vostro Verbo; lofferisco voi
stesso, Diuin Verbo; lofferisco anco voi Santo Spirito: e se manca me cosa alcuna,
lofferisco voi, Maria; accioche lo presentiate alla Santissima Trinit (Unica speranza, 83).
The original text read as follows: Tofferisco adunque il sangue del tuo vmanato Verbo;
lo presento te Padre Eterno. Lofferisco te, Verbo; lo presento te Spirito Santo, e se
cosa alcuna ci manca, loffrisco te, Maria, che lo presenti alleterna Trinit, per supplimeto di tutti i difetti, che fossero nell anima mia, e ancora per soddisfazione di tutte le
colpe, che fossero nel corpo mio (V. Puccini, Vita della Madre suor Maria Maddalena de
Pazzi fiorentina, Florence, 1609, 241 ff ).
310
statements of doctrine and belief which Domenico Bernini calls his fathers
shortcut to heaven. For example, in the Ultimo colpo Marchese thus
expresses the notion that it is an insult to Gods magnanimity to doubt His
forgiveness: It would be a manifest injury to the sovereign Goodness to
doubt obtaining from it the remission of our sins, while such efficient
means of reaching it are offered to us. Marchese uses the fiscal metaphor of
God as a beneficent capitalist in His dealings with the sinner, in a long passage in the same work, which concludes, Who would not wish to deal with
such a liberal merchant, who sells his very rich goods at so low a price? The
idea of sins being drowned or tinted to another color in the sea of Blood
also occurs in the Ultimo colpo: Therefore, make therein this happy shipwreck of yourself, and of all sins, precisely in the way that a drop of water
thrown into a river is immediately absorbed by it and transmuted into it.
Do you not see that the benign aura of Divine goodness often lifts its
amorous odes toward you from the breast of this bloody sea, to drown you
in itself, and then, having become all white, to raise you up as high as the
Throne of God, where it illuminates you ?28
Above all, the extraordinary thought of preparing for death by practicing dying must have been a matter of special study by Bernini and his
nephew. In the Preparamento a ben morire Father Marchese devotes no less
than four chapters to exercises of this kind.29 For one of the most important
of them he follows the ancient Ars Moriendi tradition which recommended
contemplation of the Crucifixion and the Virgin at the time of death.
Marchese urges the reader, turned in his heart and with his eyes toward a
Crucifix, to take great confidence in the immense value of the Blood of the
Savior shed for his love, and to offer it by the hands of the Blessed Virgin
28
Si farebbe adunque manifesta ingiuria alla sourana Bont, diffidare dottenere da essa
la rimissione delle nostre colpe, mentre ci si offeriscono mezzi tanto efficaci conseguirla.
Chi non volesse negotiare con si liberal mercante, che si basso prezzo vende le sue ricchissime merci?; Adunque f iui questo felice naufragio di te stessa e di tutte le colpe, in
quella guisa appunto che vna goccia dacqua gettata in vn fiume, resta da esso incontante
assorbita, e in quello trasmutata. Non vedi, che laura benigna della Diuina carit solleua
bene spesso verso di te dal seno di questo sanguinoso mare lde sue amorose, per annegarti
in se, e poi diuenuta tutta candida innalzarti tanto in alto, quto e alto il Trono di Dio, oue
ti sublima? (Cf. Ultimo colpo, 33, 32, 29 f ).
29
Chapters 1114, titled: Assuefarsi morir prima del passaggio dell anima da questo
allaltro Mondo. Farsi ora presente quello, che futuro; e si stima lontano. Figurarsi alle
volte di morire. Ponderar bene lo stato dellAnima nellaltro Mondo (Preparamento a ben
morire, 99137).
BERNINIS DEATH
311
Mary, our most clement advocate, to the Divine Trinity as was often
done by Santa Maria Maddalena de Pazzi in satisfaction of the grave debt
contracted by her with eternal justice.30 It is here, one may suppose, that
the Sangue di Cristo was to serve its primary purpose, as it did for Bernini
himself when he subsequently had the composition painted and placed
before his own deathbed.
The Genesis of the Sangue di Cristo Composition
The essential point of the Sangue di Cristo is that Salvation is achieved
through the sacrifice of Christ, which His mother offers to the Father.31 The
genesis of this deceptively simple concept may best be approached through
a drawing in Leipzig which perhaps represents a prior stage in Berninis
thinking, and which in any case follows a closely related tradition (Fig. 3).32
Rivolto nel cuore, e con gli occhi ad un Crocefisso prenda confidenza grande nel valore immenso del Sangue del Salvatore per suo amore sparso, e per le mani della Beatissima
Vergine MARIA nostra clementissima Auvocata lofferisca alla Divinissima Trinit; sicome
spesso soleva fare Santa Maria Madalena de Pazzis, in sodisfattione del gravissimo debito da
lei contratto con leterna giustitia (ibid., 121).
31
A drawing of the composition in the Tylers Stitchting, Haarlem, bears an old adscription to Bernini, and the license of the papal censor. It is probably by Baciccio according to
H. Brauer and R. Wittkower, (Die Zeichnungen des Gianlorenzo Bernini, Berlin, 1931, 155,
n. 4); J. van Regteren Altena supported the attribution to Bernini (Cristina Queen of Sweden,
exh. cat., Stockholm, 1966, 464, No. 1146; cf. Le dessin italien dans les collections hollandais,
exh. cat., ParisRotterdamHaarlem, 1962, 201 f, No. 166); B. Canestro Chiovenda reaffirms Baciccios authorship Ancora del Bernini, del Gaulli e della regina Cristina,
Commentari, XX, 1969, 223 ff ).
On the various painted versions of the composition, see L. Grassi, Bernini pittore, Rome,
1945, 49 f, Figs. 8182; V. Martinelli, Le pitture del Bernini, Commentari, I, 1950, 103;
Canestro Chiovenda, Ancora del Bernini.
32
Brauer and Wittkower, Zeichnungen, 166 f, Pl. 128, regarded the Leipzig sketch as a
study for the Sangue di Cristo (cf. R. Wittkower, Gian Lorenzo Bernini. The Sculptor of the
Roman Baroque, 2nd ed., London, 1966, 257). The precedence of the Leipzig drawing is
doubtful, however, and it may have been made for another purpose: it was evidently the
point of departure for the dome fresco of the Ges, executed 167275 by Baciccio with
advice from Bernini (cf. K. Lanckoronska, Decoracja ko cioa Il Ges na tle rozwoju baroku
w rzymie, Lww, 1936, 19 ff, 51 f; F. Haskell, Patrons and Painters, New York, 1963, 82; R.
Enggass, The Painting of Baciccio, University Park, Pa., 1964, 32 ff, 135 f ).
Presuming a direct connection between the Leipzig sketch and the Sangue di Cristo,
Lanckoronska was led to the conclusion that certain Baciccio drawings related to the latter,
in Dsseldorf and Berlin, were studies for an alternate version of the Ges dome. B.
Canestro Chiovenda suggested, instead, that the Baciccio drawings were preparatory for the
30
312
Christ is shown seated with His back to the spectator on a bank of clouds,
arms extended around a cross; the hands are opened, palms up, in a gesture
of offering to the Father, who appears above with arms outstretched. The
Virgin kneels facing Christ at the right, head inclined, her hands pressing
her breast. Panofsky, who first published the drawing, showed that the composition refers to a late medieval devotional formula, derived from the
Speculum humanae salvationis (Fig. 4).33 This illustrates the intercessional
roles in the process of salvation of Christ, who offers His sacrifice to the
judging Father, and of the Virgin, who offers her motherhood.
What requires emphasis, here is the fact that this theme was central to
the ideology of death in general, and to the Ars Moriendi in particular. It
appears, notably, in the interrogations, where moriens is advised, should
God wish to judge him, to reply thus: Lord, I will place the death of your
son and our Lord Jesus Christ between me and your damnation to the torments; I have no wish to contend with you. And if He should say that you
deserve eternal death, say thus, I place the death of the same Jesus Christ
between you and my demerits, and I offer the merit of His most worthy
passion for the merit I should have and, woe is me, do not yet have. And
add, I also put the death of Our Lord Jesus Christ between me and your
wrath 34 The thought and phraseology of these passages seem to reverberate in that from Maria Maddalena de Pazzi cited on the engraving, and in
mosaic in the dome of the vestibule of the Baptismal Chapel in Saint Peters, a commission
Baciccio received and began but never completed (Cristina di Svezia, il Gaulli e il libro di
appunti di Nicodemo Tessin d. y. [16871688], Commentari, XVII, 1966, 177); it appears
that this hypothesis is substantially correct, since the composition envisaged in the drawings
is reflected in the mosaic subsequently executed by Francesco Trevisani (cf. F. R. DiFederico,
Documentation for Francesco Trevisanis Decoration for the Vestibule of the Baptismal
Chapel in Saint Peters, Storia dell Arte, VI, 1970, 155 ff ).
33
Imago Pietatis, in Festschrift fr Max J. Friedlnder zum 60 Geburtstage, Leipzig,
1927, 294. Cf. J. Lutz and P. Perdrizet, Speculum humanae salvationis, Mulhouse, 190709,
293 ff, Pls. 137 f; D. Koepplin, s. v. Interzession, in Lexikon der christlichen Ikonographie,
Rome, etc., 1963ff, II, cols. 346 ff. A further example is a panel ascribed to Bartolomeo di
Giovanni in the Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal (A. Neumeyer, Der Blick aus dem Bilde,
Berlin, 1964, Fig. 16).
34
Se Iddio ti volesse giudicare, di cosi, Signore, io metter la morte del tuo figluolo, e
Signor nostro Giesu Cristo fra me, e il giudizio tuo ai tormenti: con teco non voglio contendere. E se egli dicesse, che tu hai meritato la morte eterna; dirai cos; Io metto la morte
dello stesso Giesu Cristo infra te, e i miel demeriti; & il merito della sua dignissima passione
offerisco per lo merito, che io douerei hauere, e, misero me, non ho ancora. E soggiunga,
Io pongo medesimamente la morte del nostro Signor Giesu Cristo fra me, e lira tua
(Dellarte del ben morire, Naples, 1591, 28).
BERNINIS DEATH
313
Berninis idea, recorded by his son, of the humanity of Christ as the protective Veste de Peccatori.
In the Ars Moriendi itself the invocation had been illustrated paratactically, as it were, by the presence of the Crucifixion with the grieving Virgin
at the deathbed (cf. Fig. 2); the full dedication of the Bona Mors confraternity also juxtaposed the Crucifixion and the Mater Dolorosa with death.
The Speculum humanae salvationis and the Ars Moriendi thus represent two
complementary but distinct conceptions; the one focuses upon the process
of intercession through which salvation is attained, the other upon the sacrificial act which the dying man invokes.
In the Sangue di Cristo engraving these ideas are merged. Bernini was not
the first to combine them. Indeed, striking evidence that he intended the
merger is provided by the fact that a similar line of thought produced what
is in some respects the nearest antecedent for his design. This occurs in a
stained-glass votive window in the cloister of the Cistercian monastery at
Wettingen, Switzerland, dated 1590 (Fig. 5).35 Moriens is shown below giving up the ghost, while the interceding Virgin, Christ Crucified, God the
Father and the Dove are represented above as a cloud-borne apparition. The
chief difference between this and ordinary intercessional scenes is that, as in
the Ars Moriendi, Christ is shown on the Cross; as in the Speculum tradition, however, He points with one hand to the chest wound. The key to
such a depiction evidently lies in the donor: since the historical Crucifixion
is invoked by him, he is the subject of the scene; and since the symbolic
intercession is enacted for him, he is also the object.
This is the context to which the Sangue di Cristo belongs,and its fundamental innovation was the superimposition of the Eucharist as the dominant
theme. Though always present in the ritual of death in the form of the
viaticum, we have seen that the Eucharist had been given new emphasis in
Bellarminos De arte bene moriendi; special devotions to and exposition of the
Sacrament had followed upon prayers to the Crucified Christ and the Mater
Dolorosa in the Friday services of the Bona Mors congregation; for Father
Marchese the Eucharist was the sine qua non of the dying mans aspiration.
In the Sangue di Cristo it is, literally and figuratively, the solution in which
the act of sacrifice and the process of intercession are fused. The result was,
in effect, a new, synoptic presentation of the scheme of salvation, and it
entailed a variety of changes in the old formulations. One important inven35
Lutz and Perdrizet, Speculum, 294.
314
tion concerned the Virgin. Kneeling beneath the Crucifixion, she no longer
presses her breast, but extends her hands to receive and offer the Blood to
God the Father. Shown thus, the figure is a conflation of the interceding
Virgin with the personification of Ecclesia, often represented standing
beneath the Crucifixion holding a chalice to collect the Blood, in allusion to
the sacrificial liturgy of the Mass. From a theological point of view the conflation was wholly justifiable, since Mary intercedes as Mater Domini while
as Mater Ecclesia she expresses the intermediary role of the Church. By having her kneel, and giving her a gesture of offering as well as receiving the
Blood, Bernini was able to make the Virgin intercede through the Eucharist
in conformity with the pious sentiment of Maria Maddalena de Pazzi, as
Father Marchese says in the preface to Unica speranza.36
The most dramatic new feature of the design, however, was the introduction of the Sea of Blood metaphor to portray the universality of redemption. The metaphor had ancient roots: witness Father Marcheses own citations and that from Pauls Epistle to the Hebrews which provided the main
caption for the engraving. The liquidity and universality of the Eucharist
had often been linked, as through the imagery of the Fountain of Life and
the river of blood, to which Marchese refers.37 An example of the latter
On Ecclesia with the chalice, cf. C. Schiller, Ikonographie der christlichen Kunst, 2 vols.,
Gtersloh, 196668, II, 117 ff. As a floating figure the Virgin also recalls the flying angels
that often receive the Blood in chalices in Crucifixion scenes. The Virgin and angels occasionally have upturned hands, but as a gesture of dismay, not in connection with the Blood.
The notion of the Virgin offering the sacrifice is related to that of her priesthood; in a
Flemish engraving of the early seventeenth century she is shown kneeling, cloud-borne,
before an altar, and offering the chalice to God the Father and the Holy Spirit above (G.
Missaglia, et al., La madonna e leucaristia, Rome, 1954, Fig. 102).
The emphasis placed in the Sangue di Cristo and by Father Marchese on the transmission of the offering through the Virgins hands, is based on St. Bernard: Sentimento assai
comune de Santi Padri, e singolarmente di S. Bernardo non dispensarsi a fedeli alcuna gratia dal Signor Iddio, che non passi per le mani della Beatissima Vergine nostra signora
(Unica speranza, 82); compare St. Bernards . . . si quid spei in nobis est, si quid gratiae, si
quid salutis, ab ea noverimus redundare, quae ascendit deliciis affluens, and Forte enim
manus tuae, aut sanguine plenae, aut infectae muneribus, quod non eas ab omni munere
excussisti. Ideoque modicum istud quod offerre desideras, gratissimis illis et omni acceptione
dignissimis Mariae manibus offerendum tradere cura, si non vis sustinere repulsam (De
aquaeductu, Migne, Patr. lat., CLXXXIII, cols. 441, 448).
37
Panofsky also saw the relationship of the Sangue di Cristo composition to the Fons
Vitae and the Christ in the Wine Press (see below); Imago Pietatis, 284. For the relation to
the Fons Vitae, see recently M. Wadell, Fons Pietatis. Eine ikonographische Studie, Gteborg,
1969, 84 f.
36
BERNINIS DEATH
315
whose visionary character anticipates Bernini is a woodcut design by

Botticelli, to which Vasari gives the title Triumph of the Faith (Fig. 6).38 This
depicts an actual vision described by Savonarola in one of his sermons; the
Crucifixion is shown in a circular landscape signifying the world, and the
Blood pours down from the Cross to form a river in which converts to the
faith cleanse themselves of sin. An analogous theme is that of Christ in the
Wine Press, which, in the frontispiece to a Protestant bible of 1641 is
accompanied by the passage from Hebrews cited on the Sangue di Cristo
engraving.39 Yet, none of these texts explicitly identifies the Eucharist as an
ocean, and the idea had not to my knowledge been depicted before. As evident from the very title of Marcheses Unica speranza, it was the desire to
convey the eschatological aspect of the Sacrament, again to relate death and
salvation, that motivated the extension of the metaphor to a universal
deluge.40
A final innovation in the engraving is that the Crucifixion forms the
central focus of the composition and is shown on a diagonal axis viewed
from below, floating in mid-air. The perspective treatment has been related
to the diagonally oriented crosses that had become popular in narrative
scenes of the Crucifixion, probably on the basis of Northern depictions of
the three crosses on Mount Calvary.41 The device helps to create the impression that the observer is an incidental bystander, hence specifically a witness
of the event. But Bernini seems to have been influenced by other, visionary
themes. The arrangement, with God the Father above, recalls depictions of
the Trinity in which the Crucifixion appears aloft, often in sharp perspective. Though Bernini omits the Dove, a reference to the Trinity is implicit
from the text of Maria Maddalena de Pazzi quoted on the print, in which
the sinners ultimate appeal is to the Trinity. The idea of a monumental cross
suspended in foreshortening was familiar from sacramental images illustrating the Exaltation or Triumph of the Cross. An example Bernini certainly
knew was the fresco by Cherubino Alberti in the Aldobrandini
38
The woodcut was first identified with that mentioned in Vasari by Ferrara, Savonarola,
11, 59 ff.
39
Illustrated in Schiller, Ikonographie, II, Fig. 812.
40
Compare a panel of the early fifteenth century by Giovanni di Paolo, in which blood
from the feet of the Man of Sorrows appears to flow on the ground to a group of the Saved
in a scene of the Last Judgment (cf. C. Eisler, The Golden Christ of Cortona and the Man
of Sorrows in Italy, Art Bulletin, LI, 1969, 115, 233, Fig. 18.
41
Van Regteren Altena, Le dessin italien (cited n. 31 above) refers to Crucifixions by G.
B. Castiglione in this connection.
316
4. Filippino Lippi, The Intercession of Christ and the Virgin.

Munich, Alte Pinakothek.
BERNINIS DEATH
5. The Death of Moriens and Intercession of Christ and the Virgin,

stained-glass votive window. Wettingen, Switzerland.
317
6. Sandro Botticelli, Triumph of the Faith, woodcut

(from Ferrara, Savonarola, II, pl. III).
8. The Death of Moriens, engraving by R. de Hooghe

from D. de la Vigne, Spiegel van een salighe Doodt,
Antwerp, 1763 (?) New York Public Library.
318
7. Cherubino Alberti,
Triumph of the Cross.
Rome, Santa Maria sopra
Minerva (photo: GFN).
BERNINIS DEATH
319
320
9. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Study for the Bust of the Savior, drawing,

171 x 254mm. Rome, Gabinetto Nazionale delle Stampe.

Bust of the Savior.
Norfolk, Va.,
Chrysler Museum
(photo: R. Thornton,
Providence, R.I.).
321
BERNINIS DEATH

detail of the
Bust of the Savior.
Norfolk, Va.,
Chrysler Museum
Providence, R.I.).

detail of the
Bust of the Savior.
Norfolk, Va.,
Chrysler Museum
Providence, R.I.).
322

detail of the
Bust of the Savior.
Norfolk, Va.,
Chrysler Museum
Providence, R.I.).

detail of the
Bust of the Savior.
Norfolk, Va.,
Chrysler Museum
Providence, R.I.).
BERNINIS DEATH
15. Reconstruction of
Berninis Bust of the Savior
(drawing by Paul Suttman).

Study for a Monstrance,
drawing, 237 x 163mm.
Leipzig, Museum der
bildenden Knste,
Graphische Sammlungen.
323
17. Leone Leoni, Bust of Charles V.

Madrid, Museo del Prado (photo: Mas).
18. Benvenuto Cellini, Bust of Cosimo I. Florence,

Museo Nazionale del Bargello (photo: Alinari).
324
19. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Bust of Francesco I dEste.

Modena, Museo Estense (photo: Alinari).
20. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Bust of Louis XIV.

Muse de Versailles (photo: Alinari).
BERNINIS DEATH
325
326
21. Louis XIV, engraving by E. Gantrel after a design by P. P. Sevin.

Paris, Bibliothque Nationale.
BERNINIS DEATH
22. The Colonna Claudius,

engraving (from B. de
Montfaucon, Lantiquit
explique, Paris, 1719,
V, Pl. CXXIX).
23. Antique base and

17th-century pedestal
of the Colonna Claudius.
Madrid, Museo del Prado
(photo: Mas).
327
328
chapel, dedicated to the Sacrament, in Santa Maria sopra Minerva, where

the Cross is borne by angels through a circular opening painted in the vault
(Fig. 7).42
In the case of Albertis fresco the foreshortening is calculated for the
spectator approaching the chapel from the front. The angle of vision in
Berninis engraving bears an uncanny resemblance to that from which
moriens sees the Crucifixion in the Ars Moriendi illustrations (Figs. 2, 8).43
One cannot repress the suspicion that the whole image was conceived to be
seen exactly as Bernini saw it, at the foot of his own deathbed. Whereas the
artists of the Ars Moriendi represented the death scene, Bernini isolated the
vision and made the viewer its witness.
2. The Bust of the Savior
The second work mentioned by the biographers, the bust of the Savior,
has been lost since the early eighteenth century.44 It was noted in Queen
Christinas palace by Nicodemus Tessin, Jr. on his visit to Rome in
168788; when Christina died in 1689 she left it to Pope Innocent XI
Odescalchi, and thereafter it was listed in a 1713 inventory of the Palazzo
42
For this fresco, datable 160911, see L. Venturi, Storia dellarte italiana, 11 vols.,
Milan, 190107, IX, pt. 5, Fig. 539; F. Wrtenberger, Die manieristische Deckenmalerei in
Mittelitalien, Rmisches Jahrbuch fr Kunstgeschichte, IV, 1940, 112 ff. See also the examples
by Pietro da Cortona in the sacristy of the Chiesa Nuova, and by Lanfranco in the Cappella
della Piet in Saint Peters (G. Briganti, Pietro da Cortona, Florence, 1962, 205, No. 50).
43
The striking parallel illustrated in Fig. 8 is from David de la Vigne, Spiegel van een
salighe Doodt, with engravings by R. de Hooghe, probably published at Antwerp in 1673 (cf.
J. Landwehr, Romeyn de Hooghe as Book Illustrator, Amsterdam, 1970, 79). De Hooghes
imagery is also closely analogous to that of the chapel of St. Anne and the Beata Ludovica
Albertoni in San Francesco a Ripa, which Bernini designed at this same period; there the
altar painting appears as a devotional picture beside Ludovicas deathbed.
Other scenes of visions of the Crucifixion should be compared as well; e.g., Pietro Liberi,
Santi Giovanni e Paolo, Venice, before 1660 (F. Zava Boccazzi, La basilica dei Santi Giovanni
e Paolo in Venezia, Padua, 1965, Fig. 113), Luca Giordano, Santa Maria del Pianto, Naples,
166061 (O. Ferrari and G. Scavizzi, Luca Giordano, Naples, 1966, Fig. 94).
44
What is known of its history will be found in Wittkower, Bernini, 265, and B.
Canestro Chiovenda, Cristina di Svezia (cited in n. 32 above), 172 ff.
BERNINIS DEATH
329
Odescalchi.45 Nothing more is known concerning its history.46 A belle

copie of the sculpture was commissioned by Berninis friend and would-be
biographer Pierre Cureau de la Chambre, Abb of Saint-Barthlemy in
Paris, where it was brought soon after the artists death.47 There is no further
record of the copy; the Church of Saint-Barthlemy was destroyed in the
French Revolution.48 Until now the only dependable indication of the busts
appearance has been a preparatory drawing by Bernini in the Corsini collection in Rome (Fig. 9). The drawing suffices to show that it differed
markedly from ordinary representations of its kind: the drapery engulfs the
The descriptions in Tessin and the 1713 inventory are as follows: Im zimber inwendig
vor der andern Antechambre, stehet dass halbe grosse Christbildt von Marmer, welches Cav.
Bernini im Testament Ihr Maijesteten verlassen hat; unter ist die plinthe darvon von zweijen grossen knienden vergulten Engel artig sousteniret, die eine grosse plinthe unter sich
wieder haben (O. Sirn, Nicodemus Tessin d.y:s Studieresor, Stockholm, 1914, 184).
Un busto di Marmo, che rappresenta il Salvatore con una mano, e panneggiamento
scolpito dal Bernini; alto palmi di passetto 4 e due terzi, il suo piedistallo di diaspro di
Sicilia, alto palmo uno et un quarto, largo di sotto due palmi et un quarto, qual busto vien
sostenuto con ambi le mani da due angioli, che sono in ginocchio sopra un gran piede il
tutto di legno dorato, quali assieme col zoccolo son alti palmi nove di passetto (Brauer and
Wittkower, Zeichnungen, 179, n. 1).
Cf. also an Avviso of April 23, 1689, in which the base is said to be of porphyry (E. Rossi,
Roma ignorata Roma, XX, 1942, 215).
46
On the Odescalchi collections, see H. H. Brummer, Two works by Giulio Cartari,
Konsthistorisk Tidskrift, XXXVI, 1967, 106 f.
Wittkower suggested (Bernini, 265) that the Savior may have been taken to Spain in
1724, when a large number of Odescalchi sculptures was bought by Philip V. But it does not
appear in the list of works, ancient and modern, included in the sale (Rome, Archivio
Odescalchi, V.B.1, fasc. 20; cf. Brummer, Two works, 123, n. 12); in fact, it was among the
objects entailed in a fidecommisso by Livio Odescalchi (died 1713), none of which was sold
(Arch. Odescalchi, XI.B.F.4, fasc. 139, Mobili sottoposti dal Test.re D. Livio primo
Odescalcho alle leggi di Maggiorasco . . ., fol. 15r).
47
II na rien fait dpuis quun Ouvrage de devotion dont on verra bien-tost une belle
Copie saint Barthelemy. Cest un Buste dun Christ my-corps avec deux mains [italics
mine] donnant la benediction, par o il a fini sa vie. Il la laiss la Reine Christine de Suede,
qui dit fort obligeamment sa Famille, quand on le luy presenta, que le Cavalier le luy avoit
offert plusieurs foix de son vivant, mais quelle lavoit tojours refus, parce quelle navoit
pas dix-mille escus pour len rcompenser (loge de M. la Cavalier Bernin par M. lAbb
de la Chambre de lAcademie Franoise, Journal des Savans, February 24, 1681, 61).
48
The copy was in Saint-Barthlemy in 1686, but is not mentioned in later descriptions
of the church, which was pulled down in 1792 (Canestro Chiovenda, Cristina di Svezia,
172).
45
330
body, rendering the torso indistinguishable; the head and raised arm move
in opposite directions.49
In the Chrysler Museum at Norfolk, Virginia, is a marble bust of Christ
which corresponds so closely to the descriptions in the sources and the
Corsini drawing that it must be either Cureaus copy or the original (Figs.
1014) .50 In the course of studying the piece my own opinion has shifted
from the former to the latter attribution. Initially the work seems perverse,
not to say repellent. The proportions are curiously awkward; the massive
body, long neck and tapered head lack the classical balance and harmony
with which Bernini usually conceived the human body. The strained and
rather withdrawn pose is a reversal of Berninis predilection for open and
fluid movement. The surfaces of the face and drapery are generalized and
abstract, compared with the tremulous warmth and intimacy and fine differentiation of textures that ordinarily distinguish his autograph works. The
handling of the back, rough-hewn in the body, left unfinished at the head,
shows a degree of neglect almost unprecedented in his busts hardly evidence of the particular care he is reported to have lavished on the Savior.
These seemingly negative factors may actually speak in favor of the
Norfolk sculpture, given the subject and the special circumstances under
which the Savior was created. According to Baldinucci, Bernini himself
described the work as wanting in vivacity and tenderness and other good
I am not convinced (see Brauer and Wittkower, Zeichnungen, 179) that the head at the
right in this drawing is by a later hand; certainly it is not copied after the final work, as is
shown by the differences from the Norfolk marble. An anonymous drawing at Chatsworth
(Wittkower, Bernini, 265) seems unrelated to Berninis Savior.
50
Unpublished. I am indebted to Robert Wallace, author of The World of Bernini,
15981680 (Time-Life Library of Art), New York, 1970, for bringing this work to my attention. Height 93 cm.; width 92 cm. The three last fingers of the right hand have been broken and reattached; otherwise the condition is excellent.
Mr. Chrysler has given me, in litteris, the following account of its provenance. Purchased
in Paris in 1952 from the Vicomte Jacques de Canson (died 1958). De Canson, who knew
of Berninis gift to Queen Christina, reported that the sculpture had never left Italy before
entering his possession; he had received it from a pope (unnamed), to whom it had been
given before his election by Baron Giorgio Franchetti (died 1922), founder of the Galleria
Franchetti at the Ca dOro in Venice. My efforts to verify this account have been almost
fruitless. De Cansons daughter, Mme Jean Deschamps of Evry, remembers the piece vaguely,
and confirms that her father was received in private audiences by Puis XI and XII. Giorgio
Franchettis son, Baron Luigi Franchetti of Rome, has no knowledge of the sculpture but
recalls that his uncle Edoardo Franchetti had contacts with De Canson concerning works of
art. The Vatican secretariat of state was unable to help without more precise information.
49
BERNINIS DEATH
331
qualities of technique, owing to his advanced age. It was, in fact, his right,
working arm that ultimately gave way. One can readily imagine that Bernini
determined to husband his remaining energies, and concentrate on finishing the front. A no less important consideration than the artists physical
state is the ambiguous character of the image itself. A degree of austerity and
abstraction was inherent in the Salvator Mundi theme. We shall see that
Bernini deliberately referred to this traditional iconic type, in order to reinterpret it and achieve a new fusion of Christs heroic and human qualities.
Strongly affirmative, in my estimation, are passages like the subtly modelled
hands and arm and the loosely curling locks of hair, laced with running drill
holes, which are wholly in keeping with Berninis late style and match his
most brilliant technical effects. The very unevenness of quality is more readily understood as the work of a decrepit genius rather than a copyist, especially an able one, who would tend to transform the model uniformly
according to his lights.
Original or copy, the Norfolk sculpture serves to clarify and in some
respects correct the impression of the Savior given by the Corsini drawing,
the differences being due either to the angle of vision in the latter or, more
likely, I suspect, to a development in Berninis ideas between the drawing
and the final execution. The head is not only turned sideways, but upward
as well. The right arm is not extended forward, but held close to the torso;
nor is the gesture a conventional one of blessing, but the hand is raised vertically and the palm is turned slightly outward. Thus, the qualification
implicit in Domenico Berninis description of the gesture, alquanto sollevata, come in atto di benedire, becomes significant. Finally, the marble
makes quite plain what is barely discernible in the drawing and was
observed only by the Abb de la Chambre, namely, that Bernini in fact
included both hands; the wrist and upper part of the left hand are visible
under the right arm, lying against the breast.
The bust was completed by a monumental pedestal,which is described
by Tessin and in the 1713 inventory (cf. Fig. 15) . Under the bust was a base
of Sicilian jasper 28 cm. high and 50 cm. wide at the bottom. This was in
turn held in both hands by two angels who knelt on a large socle; angels and
socle together, which were of gilded wood, measured 198 cm. high. Overall
the work stood about 300 cm., or ten feet high. There is no proof that the
pedestal was made during Berninis lifetime, but there can be no doubt that
it was his invention. The general effect must have been similar to that seen
in a late drawing by Bernini for a sacrament altar, in which angels kneel on
332
the mensa and hold aloft by the base a monstrance containing the Eucharist
(Fig. 16).51
The bust of the Savior belongs typologically to the tradition of independent, bust-length sculptured portraits and images of holy personnages
that emerged in Italy around the middle of the fifteenth century.52 Within
this context the Savior is related to a class of busts in which both arms are
included; the bust appears complete and has a specific histrionic content.
Though common for reliefs and sculptures in niches or attached to architecture, the type is rather rare among independent busts. A few antique
examples are known;53 it was used from the Middle Ages on for reliquaries,
and was revived for ordinary busts by Verrocchio in the quattrocento.54
Characteristically such independent busts in the Early Renaissance were cut
through horizontally at the waist or above, worked fully in the round, and
displayed without a base, or on a low plinth. When in the late fifteenth and
early sixteenth centuries the imperial Roman bust form was revived
51
Brauer and Wittkower, Zeichnungen, 172, Pl. 131 a. Needless to say, the weight of the
bust can hardly have rested on the wooden angels hands; presumably there was some additional, invisible support.
52
Cf. I. Lavin, On the Sources and Meaning of the Renaissance Portrait Bust, Art
Quarterly, XXXIII, 1970, 207 ff.
Among the earliest such portrait busts of holy personages, it seems, is the St. Lawrence
in the Old Sacristy of San Lorenzo, Florence, often attributed to Donatello in the older literature (H. W. Janson, The Sculpture of Donatello, Princeton, 1963, 236 f; M. Lisner, Die
Bste des Heiligen Laurentius in der alten Sacristei von S. Lorenzo, Zeitschrift fr
Kunstwissenschaft, XII, 1958, 51 ff; C. Seymour, Jr., Sculpture in Italy, 1400 to 1500,
Harmondsworth, 1966, 240, n. 21, 246, n. 9).
53
Apart from the famous Commodus in the Palazzo dei Conservatori, I am aware of the
following ancient examples: the so-called Matidia in the Uffizi (G. A. Mansuelli, Galleria
degli Uffizi. Le sculture, 2 vols., Rome, 1958, II, 84, No. 86), a bust of a lady in the British
Museum (A. H. Smith, .A Catalogue of Sculpture in the Department of Greek and Roman
Antiquities of the British Museum, 3 vols., London, 18921904, III, 190 f, No. 190), and
another in the Berlin Museum (C. BImel, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Rmische Bildnisse,
Berlin, 1933, 48 f, No. R 117).
But see also the related material concerning half statues discussed in A. Frantz, H. A.
Thompson and J. Travlos, The Temple of Apollo Pythios on Sikinos, American Journal
of Archaeology, LXXIII, 1969, 410 ff.
54
For bust reliquaries of this kind, see E. Kovcs, Kopfreliquiare des Mittelalters,
Budapest, 1964, Pls. 10, 11, 22, 36, 42.; P. Toesca, Storia dellarte italiana. II. Il trecento,
Turin, 1951, 899 f; J. Braun, Bstenreliquiar, in Reallexikon der deutschen Kunstgeschichte,
Stuttgart, 1937 ff, III, cols. 274 ff, Figs. 810.
The Verrocchio referred to is of course the Lady with Flowers in the Bargello (for which
see now G. Passavant, Verrocchio, London, 1969, 33 f, 180 f ).
BERNINIS DEATH
333
shaped at the bottom, hollowed at the back and set on a tall, narrow base
the two-armed type failed to conform. So far as I know,Berninis Savior
is the first monumental marble bust since antiquity that is hollowed at the
back, stands free on a pedestal, and includes both arms.55 It combines, in an
unprecedented way for a Christian image, the living and dramatic quality
of a narrative figure with the commemorative and idolous quality of a classical bust monument.
The Savior is equally unprecedented in the treatment of the bust form
itself. The crossed arms that conceal the lower torso and the arrangement of
the drapery that envelops the body make the bust seem virtually self-sufficient, that is, not arbitrarily severed. Visually speaking, it is practically
impossible to say whether we are confronted by the upper half of a whole
human being, or a whole being in half-human shape. Furthermore, there
was an obvious reciprocity between the bust and its pedestal: the jasper base
served as an abstract support for a material weight, the bust as such, the
angels served as figurated supports for a metaphorical weight, the image of
Christ.
In the sections that follow we shall explore the background for Berninis
treatment of the bust and its pedestal, and seek to define the religious significance of the work.
The Portrait Bust as Apotheosis
The idea of a reciprocal and explicitly meaningful relationship between
the bust and its support was revived toward the middle of the sixteenth century as part of a general tendency to charge the portrait with significance
beyond that of simply commemorating the individual represented.56 The
cope of Guglielmo della Portas Paul III in Naples (154647) is adorned
55
A possible antecedent is Algardis bust of Paolo Emilio Zacchia in Florence, but its base
is not original (A. Nava Cellini, Per lintegrazione e lo svolgimento della ritrattistica di
Alessandro Algardi, Paragone, 1964, No. 177, 23) and I suspect it was meant to be displayed
without one, perhaps in a niche.
At the beginning of his career, in the portrait of Antonio Coppola in San Giovanni dei
Fiorentini (1612), Bernini had revived the ancient type of bust with one arm showing and
set on a base (I. Lavin, Five New Youthful Sculptures by Gianlorenzo Bernini and a Revised
Chronology of His Early Works, Art Bulletin, L, 1968, 223 ff ).
56
Precedents among busts of the quattrocento type are those with figurated plinths by
Francesco Laurana (see now, G. L. Hersey, Alfonso II and the Artistic Renewal of Naples
14851495, New HavenLondon, 1969, 37 ff ).
334
with an elaborate cycle of allegorical and Old Testament scenes by which

the Pope is invested as the patriarchal harbinger of heaven-sent peace and
wisdom; the strapwork base intended for the bust is inhabited by two
reclining male nudes, a shell and a floral garland.57 The precise meaning of
the base is not certain; presumably it alludes to the underworld and eternity. In any case the bust and base surely complement one another,
although there is no overt expression of a dynamic relationship between
weight and support.
This appears in the work of Leone Leoni, who used the idea to convey
the imperialist program of the Hapsburg dynasty. Leonis bronze Charles V
in the Prado (155355; Fig. 17) is conceived as a victors trophy held aloft
by two allegorical figures and the imperial eagle both devices based on
ancient Roman precedents.58 The torso itself is part of the message; its edges
See the exemplary study by W. Gramberg, Die Hamburger Bronzebste Paul III.
Farnese von Guglielmo della Porta, Festschrift fr Erich Meyer zum 60. Geburtstage,
Hamburg, 1959, 16072, where it is shown that the bases of this and a simplified workshop
version, also in Naples, were exchanged.
Reclining allegories of Ocean and Earth had appeared beneath the medallion portraits
of the deceased on Roman sarcophagi, a type that Michelangelo had earlier adapted in the
Medici Chapel (C. De Tolnay, The Medici Chapel, Princeton, 1948, 66, 166).
58
E. Plon, Leone Leoni sculpteur de Charles-Quint et Pompeo Leoni sculpteur de Philippe
II, Paris, 1887, 289 ff; H. Keutner, Sculpture Renaissance to Rococo, London, 1969, 308, No.
50, suggests that the allegories may represent Mars and Minerva. L. O. Larsson, Adrian de
Vries, Vienna, 1967, 36 ff, has recently studied Leonis bust in connection with the portrait
of Rudolph II made by de Vries in 1603 as a pendant to a version of the Charles V in Vienna.
In fact, I know of no direct prototype for Leonis conception (the Conservatori
Commodus, to which it has been compared, was discovered in the nineteenth century).
Rather, Leoni evidently combined elements from three different antique traditions: the bust
carried on the wings of an eagle (of which an example in the Capitoline had been known
since the fifteenth century; cf. ibid.; also G. Pozzi and L. A. Ciapponi, Francesco Colonna.
Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, 2 vols., Padua, 1964, I, 94, 108 f; A. Roes, Laigle psychopompe
de lpoque impriale, in Mlanges Charles Picard, II, Revue archologique, 1948, 88191; H.
Jucker, Auf den Schwingen des Gttervogels, Jahrbuch des bernischen historischen Museums
in Bern, XXXIXXL, 195660, 26688); the imago clipeata held by standing or flying victories, putti, etc. (cf. recently, R. Winkes, Clipeata imago. Studien zu einer rmischen
Bildnisform, [Ph.D diss., Bonn, 1969, 88 ff ]); and the cuirass trophy with defeated enemies,
often a male and a female, seated back-to-back underneath (G. C. Picard, Les Trophes
romains, Paris, 1957 [Bibliothque des coles franaises dAthnes et de Rome, Fasc. 187];
A. J. Janssen, Het antieke tropaion, Brussels, 1957 [Koninklijke Vlaamse academie voor
wetenschappen letteren en schone Kunsten van Belgie, Klasse der Letteren, Verhandelingen,
No. 27]). An arrangement comparable to Leonis occurs on the cuirass of a pseudo-antique
57
BERNINIS DEATH
335
coincide with the actual edges of an armored corselet, hence nothing is cut
off. This treatment represents an ingenious solution to the problem that
had confronted the Renaissance sculptor when the ideally shaped and supported classical bust form was revived, namely, how to allude to the whole
person of the sitter, an effect achieved automatically by the arbitrary truncation of the Renaissance type.59 Leonis empty cuirass is a visual pun, which
suggests that the bust not only contains the sitter, whom the viewer
inevitably imagines in toto, but is also a self-contained object, a commemorative monument in its own right.60
Other devices had been introduced by Benvenuto Cellini to suggest a
whole, living person. In his cuirassed Cosimo I (154547), Cellini, for the
first time, gave an asymmetrical movement to the arms, and almost completely disguised the cut-off (Fig. 18).61 At the right the amputation of the
arm coincides with the end of the epaulette; at the left the drapery, which
appears folded under itself rather than cut, hides the truncation as it moves
across to the knot at the center. Only the sheer, curving slice of the torso at
the right reminds the observer that the bust is an artificial, abstract thing,
rather than the upper part of a human being.
bust (head ancient) in Venice, perhaps by Vittoria (G. Traversari, Museo archeologico di
Venezia. I ritratti, Rome, 1968, No. 32).
Leonis idea also seems to me inconceivable without the inspiration, stylistic and otherwise, of Bambaias great panoply of trophies in the tomb of Gaston de Foix, formerly in
Santa Marta in Milan (Venturi, Storia, X, 1, Figs. 523 ff; cf. J. Pope-Hennessy, Catalogue of
Italian Sculpture in the Victoria and Albert Museum, 3 vols., London, 1964, II, 542 f ).
59
See the observations in my article cited above, n. 52.
60
Early precedents for the cuirass bust may be the problematic portrait of Alfonso I of
Naples in Vienna (Katalog der Sammlung fr Plastik und Kunstgewerbe. II Teil, Vienna, 1966,
9 f, No. 193; cf. Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien. Meisterwerke, Vienna, 1955, Pl. 68), and
that of Francesco Gonzaga by Gian Cristoforo Romano in Mantua (Venturi, Storia, VI, Fig.
778). A conceit analogous to Leonis allusion to the empty corselet occurs in Francesco
Segalas portrait of Girolamo Micheli (died 1557) in the Santo in Padua, where the bust
appears to rest on an armor stand (Venturi, Storia, X, 3, Fig. 144).
It should be emphasized that the Charles V also owes a considerable debt to the tradition
of reliquary busts (as suggested by J. Pope-Hennessy, The Portrait in the Renaissance,
LondonNew York, 1966, 177).
61
On moving arms, cf. Lavin, Five New Youthful Sculptures, 241 ff, and idem.,
Duquesnoys Nano di Crqui and Two Busts by Francesco Mochi, Art Bulletin, LII, 1970,
140 f. On the Medicean symbolism of the armor of Cellinis bust, see now K. W. Forster,
Metaphors of Rule. Political Ideology and History in the Portraits of Cosimo I de Medici,
Mitteilungen des kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, XV, 1971, 76 ff.
336
Bernini seems to take up Cellinis thought in his portrait of Francesco I

dEste of 165051 (Fig. 19). Here the severed edges of the body are completely hidden by the drapery, which acquires a miraculous dual existence
forming part of the sitters clothing, and enveloping the bust itself.62 The
image may thus be read alternatively as the upper part of a whole person,
or as a bust wrapped in a cloth of honor. The supporting function is also
fulfilled ambiguously: understood literally, the weight is borne by the conventional, abstract base; understood figuratively, it is sustained by an unseen
force that discharges upward through the drapery at the right.
In the portrait of Louis XIV (Fig. 20), made during his stay in Paris in
1665, Bernini developed these devices further, and combined them with the
idea of a bust-base monument that had lain virtually dormant since Leone
Leoni.63 The work must be imagined with the pedestal Bernini proposed for
it, described in Chantelous diary of the artists visit.64 It was to be mounted
On this device, cf. Lavin, Duquesnoys Nano di Crqui, 141, n. 66; it occurs in the
bust of Michelangelo Buonarroti, Jr. made in Rome in 1630 by Guiliano Finelli, Berninis
first assistant. A likely prototype is Cellinis Bindo Altoviti, which was in Rome until the
nineteenth century (E Camesasca, Tutta lopera del Cellini, Milan, 1962, Pls. 6687).
63
Apart from the Rudolph II of Adrian de Vries (above, n. 58) we may mention Bastiano
Torrigianis busts of Gregory XIII and XIV, where the torsos end at the bottom in symbolic
winged motives (cf. Gramberg, Hamburger Bronzebste, 171 f ). Prospero Clementis bust
of Ercole II dEste at Modena stood on a pedestal with an allegorical relief of Patience
(Venturi, Storia, X, 2, Fig. 475; cf. idem, La R. Galleria estense in Modena, Modena, 1882,
105f., Fig. 47).
64
Aprs quils ont t sortis, le Cavalier ma tir part et ma montr un dessin quil a fait
dun pidestal pour poser le buste, et ce pidestal est un globe du monde avec un mot qui dit:
Picciola basa. Il ma demand mon sentiment de cette pense. Je lui ai dit que je la trouvais
grande et noble, donnant juger pour lavenir de grandes choses du Roi. Il a ajout quoutre
le grand quelle porte avec elle, il en tirait un autre avantage: cest que cette boule par sa globulence empcherait quon ne toucht le buste, comme on a coutume de faire en France, quand
on voit quelque chose de nouveau. Je lui ai dit que sa pense se rapporte encore hereusement
la devise du Roi, dont le corps est un soleil avec le mot: Nec pluribus impar, et que ce
pidestal est le plus grand quon pouvait imaginer, mais quil fallait quil y mit son nom, pour
dire que cest lui qui la invent et la fait, afin quon ne pense pas que ce soit le Roi, qui parle
et qui trouve que le monde est une trop petite base pour lui. Il a ajout que ce pidestal ferait
un bel effet, lazur de la mer se distinguant du reste du globe, qui sera de cuivre dor . . .
Lon a parl ensuite du pidestal de son buste. Il a dit ce Sujet labb Buti, que le mot
de picciola basa, lui semblait cadrer mieux que celui de: sed parva, que labb avait trouv,
lequel a soutenu que le mot de base exprimait trop; quaux devises il faut laisser penser. Le
Cavalier a repliqu que basa pour un monde donnait assez penser. Il a ajout quil y faudrait
dessous une espce de tapis de mme matire que le globe, et quil ft maill et orn de
trophes de guerre et de vertus, a llvation dun ou deux pouces, dbordant plus que le
62
BERNINIS DEATH
337
on an enameled copper globe of the world, which in turn rested on a drapery of copper emblazoned with trophies and virtues; the whole was to be
placed on a kind of platform.65 The globe was to bear the inscription
Picciola basa as a punning reference to its physical size, geographical form
and supporting function (cf. Fig. 21).66
In the Louis XIV, the bust, as such, is scarcely perceptible behind the
screen of drapery; only at the left elbow is the viewer free to decide whether
the arm is cut off or continues across the chest, in a vital contrapposto
movement unprecedented in bust portraiture.67 Conversely, the drapery is
globe pour empcher encore davantage, quon ne pt approcher du buste, et quil faudrait
couvrir le tout dun petite courtine de taffetas et le nettoyer de la poussire avec un soufflet
(P. F. de Chantelou, Journal du voyage du Cavalier Bernin en France, ed. L. Lalanne, Paris,
1885, 150, 156).
65
How the bust was to be mounted on the globe is clear from another passage: Le cavalier durant cela tait auprs du scarpelin qui travaillait au pied du buste. Il lui a demand
de quelle qualit tait son marbre. Il lui a rpondu: Cotto. Il est donc, a dit le Cavalier, de
mme que celui du buste (M. Roland Bossard of the Muse de Versailles kindly informs
me that the base is in fact made of a separate piece of the same marble as the bust). . . . Je
lui ai demand, voyant lassiette de ce pied de buste carre, comment elle se pourrait adapter
au globe de la base. Il ma rpondu quon creuserait cette assiette la proportion de la globulence (ibid., 166).
Concerning the platform on which the whole was to rest: Le douzime, jai trouv le
Cavalier dessinant son buste pour y faire le pidestal, quil a projet en forme de globe. Il le
pose comme sur une espce destrade (ibid., 228).
66
The engraving reproduced in Figure 21 (Paris, Bibl. Nat., Cab. des Estampes cote AA
4 Gantrel), which seems to reflect Berninis idea for the Louis XIV, was brought to my attention by Mr. Peter Fusco; cf. A. Dayot, Louis XIV, Paris, 1909, ill. page 80. It bears the inscriptions P. Seuin in. (i.e., Pierre Paul Sevin, 16501710), Gantrel f. (Etienne Gantrel
16461706), Ste. Gantrel ex C. F. R. The bust shown (in reverse) is one at Versailles attributed to Coysevox, c. 1675 (No. 2195, C. Maumen and L. DHarcourt, Iconographie des
rois de France. Second partie, Archives de lart franais, Nouvelle periode, XIV, 1932, 62; cf.
E. Bourgeois, Le grand sicle, Paris, 1896, frontispiece).
67
A likely source for the pose was the portrait attributed to Titian of Pier Luigi Farnese,
now in Naples, which was in the Palazzo Farnese in Rome until 1662 (R. Pallucchini,
Tiziano, Florence, 1969, 286, Pl. 313); cf. also the Julius Caesar of Titians series of the
emperors in the Palazzo Ducale at Mantua (ibid., 341 f, No. 608; E. Verheyen, Jacopo
Stradas Mantuan Drawings of 15671568, Art Bulletin, XLIX, 1967, 6267). The composition was taken up by Bronzino for his portrait of Cosimo I (A. Emiliani, Il Bronzino, Busto
Arsizio, 1960, Pl. 90) and, in reverse, by Giulio Romano for his portrait of Alexander the
Great (F. Hartt, Giulio Romano, New Haven, 1958, 218, Fig. 466.; be it recalled that the
armor Bernini used for the bust was said to have been designed by Giulio Romano, and
given to Francis I by a Gonzaga duke; Chantelou, Journal 49, 151).
On Alexander see further, n. 71 below.
338
now scarcely perceived as clothing, but rather as a kind of magic carpet on

which the image rides.68 Since the ambiguity between person and thing is
now virtually complete, the base plays a new and crucial role. The edge of
drapery at the lower right curls up, revealing the expanding curve of the
support. Instead of a severed body on a base, as in the traditional bust, one
imagines a transition between human and abstract form, as in the traditional herm the one explicitly commemorative ancient portrait type.
This implied but hidden fusion of reality and idea is the visual equivalent
of the metaphorical apotheosis expressed by the superimposition of the
floating bust above the global pedestal.
The globe had often served as the base for imperial portrait busts in
antiquity, in reference to the monarchs apotheosis.69 I know of only one
To my knowledge, the only one who seems to have remarked on this effect of the drapery, albeit negatively, was Charles Perrault: . . . lcharpe, laquelle on donne tant de
louages, nest pas bien entendue. Comme elle enveloppe le bout du bras du Roi, ce ne peut
tre quune charpe quon a mise sur le buste du Roi, et non pas lcharpe qui toit sur le
corps du Roi quand on a fait son buste, parce que cette charpe alors nenvironnoit pas son
bras de la manire quelle lenvironne (P. Bonnefon, ed., Mmoires de ma vie par Charles
Perrault. Voyage Bordeau [1669] par Charles Perrault, Paris, 1909, 63).
The idea recalls the curtains on which portraits of the deceased on ancient sarcophagi
are often borne aloft (F. De Royt, tudes de symbolisme funraire. A propos dun nouveau
sarcophage romain aux Muses Royaux dArt et dHistoire, Bruxelles, Bulletin de lInstitut
historique belge de Rome, XVII, 1936, 16064; W. Lameere, Un symbole pythagoricien dans
lart funraire de Rome, Bulletin de correspondance hellnique, LXIII, 1939, 4385), and
medieval depictions of the soul carried heavenward on swaths of drapery (H. sJacob,
Idealism and Realism. A Study of Sepulchral Symbolism, Leiden, 1954, 121 ff. E. Panofsky,
Tomb Sculpture, New York, [1964], 93). Bernini first revived this motif in his memorial of
Alessandro Valtrini in San Lorenzo in Damaso (Wittkower, Bernini, 210, No. 43; dated
1639 by the inscription), and adapted it frequently thereafter in a variety of ways.
69
On this motif, whose connection with the Louis XIV seems not to have been observed,
see the literature concerning the Conservatori Commodus cited by H. von Heintze, in W.
Helbig, Fhrer durch die ffentlichen Sammlungen klassischer Altertmer in Rom, 4th ed.,
Tbingen, 1963 ff, II, 306 ff, especially S. A. Strong, A Bronze Bust of a Iulio-Claudian
Prince (?Caligula) in the Museum of Colchester; With a Note on the Symbolism of the
Globe in Imperial Portraiture, Journal of Roman Studies, VI, 1916, 2746; H. Jucker, Das
Bildnis im BItterkelch, Olten, 1961, esp. 154, n. 11; T. Hlscher, Victoria Romana, Mainz,
1967, 10, 25, 44, 47. A spheroid object, probably a fruit but easily to be taken for a globe,
also appears under busts of private individuals on sarcophagi (De Ruyt, tudes de symbolisme, 15459). Monumental examples Bernini might have known in Rome are the porphyry columns with projecting imperial busts on globes, now in the Louvre (R. Delbrueck,
Antike Porphyrewerke, BerlinLeipzig, 1932, 52 ff ). The motif was revived from ancient
68
BERNINIS DEATH
339
instance, however, in which the globe and military spoils are combined, the
former resting on the latter. This was a splendid and once famous monument of the Emperor Claudius, excavated in the Via Appia near Rome in
the 1640s (Fig. 22).70 It was displayed on an elaborately carved pedestal in
the Palazzo Colonna in Rome until the year before Berninis trip to Paris,
when it was taken to Spain. The bust has since disappeared, but the base
and pedestal added by the Colonna, which together stand six feet high
(184 cm.), are still to be seen in the Prado (Fig. 23). The Colonna Claudius
showed the Emperor wearing the aegis, looking to the side and slightly
upward, with a radiate crown on his head; the bust was supported on the
outspread wings of the Jovian eagle,which held the globe and the thunderbolt in its claws, and rested in turn on a wide pile of military spoils. Bernini
coins by Leone Leoni in a medal of Charles V (cf. Larsson, Adrian de Vries, Fig. 93). See also
the bust of Cybele in Mantegnas Triumph of Scipio in the National Gallery, London.
In connection with the Louis XIV, Keutner, Sculpture, 325, No. 170, refers to a medal
bearing the date 1661 which shows the King as the Sun God seated on a globe; however, the
medal was made in 1687 (cf. La mdaille au temps de Louis XIV, exh. cat., Paris, 1970, 181,
No. 259). On the other hand, something analogous to Berninis conception had appeared in
a medal of 1664 illustrating the Kings motto Nec Pluribus Impar, where the radiant face of
the sun rises over a terrestrial globe (ibid., 89, No. 123, ill. page 90).; this is the device
referred to by Chantelou (n. 64 above), and the same juxtaposition is made in the engraving
by Sevin and Gantrel (Fig. 21; cf. n. 66 above), where in the center the sun appears above
the bust resting on the globe and the impresa is illustrated in the upper left corner.
70
A. Blanco, Museo del Prado. Catalogo de la escultura. I. Esculturas clasicas, Madrid,
1957, 115 f, No. 225-E, Pl. LXVI. Blanco reports that a copy of the bust, by V. Salvatierra
(17901836), is in the depot of the Prado; my inquiries after it have been in vain. The
engraving of the ancient portions of the monument reproduced here in Figure 22, which
reverses the original, is from B. de Montfaucon, Lantiquit explique, 5 vols., Paris, 1719, V,
Pl. CXXIX.
There has been some confusion concerning the dates involved, arising apparently from
errors in R. Lanciani, La villa castrimeniese di Q. Voconio Pollione, Bullettino della commissione archeologica comunale di Roma, XII, 1884, 196. Pietro Santi Bartoli (16371700)
recorded that the work, to which he refers as la famosa deificazione di Claudin, was found
ne tempi, che il card. Francesco Barberini si trasferi in Francia. and that a cardinal Colonna
brought it as a gift when he transferred to the court of Spain (Memorie, first published in
Roma antica, Rome, 1741, 351; reprinted in C. D. Fea, Miscellanea filologica critica e antiquaria, 2 vols., Rome, 17901836, 1, CCLXIV f.). Lanciani interpolated the date 1654 for
the discovery, probably a misprint for 1645; Antonio Barberini fled to France late in the latter year, Francesco fled in January, 1646 and stayed until 1648. Lanciani also slipped in calling the Colonna cardinal Ascanio (died 1608); in fact it was Girolamo (died 1666), who
went to Spain in 1664 for the wedding of Margarita Teresa and Leopold I (A. Ciaconius,
Vitae et res gestae pontificum romanorum et S.R.E. Cardinalium, 4 vols., Rome, 1677, IV,
col. 568).
340
must have remembered this extraordinary work when he designed the Louis
XIV. The pose is transformed from one of divine inspiration into one of
personal vigor and nobility. The role of the crown is played by the wig,
which recalls the leonine mane of Alexander the Great. The symbolic protection of the aegis and the levitational force of the eagle are embodied in
the shielding, airborne drapery. The globe, instead of symbolizing the heavens, Joves realm, actually represents the earth.71 Whereas Claudius was literally divinized through metaphorical identification with the celestial ruler,
Louis XIV is metaphorically apotheosized by being literally identified as the
terrestrial ruler par excellence.
71
On the sideward turn and upward tilt of the head, see H.P. LOrange, Apotheosis in
Ancient Portraiture, Oslo, 1947, Chap. 2, 19 ff, Heavenward-Gazing Alexander.
Concerning the resemblance to Alexander, it is remarkable that Vasari in speaking of
Giulio Romanos portrait of Alexander (see n. 67 above), and a coin collector who saw
Berninis Louis XIV in progress, both refer to medals of Alexander (Le doyen de SaintGermain est aussi venu, et lui qui est curieux de mdailles a trouv que le buste a beaucoup
de lair dAlexandre et tournait de ct come lon voit aux mdailles dAlexandre,
Chantelou, Journal, 183, also 178). So far as I can see, portraits of Alexander on ancient
coins and medals are always in profile (one exception, much disputed, appeared in 1902, cf.
M. Bieber, Alexander the Great in Greek and Roman Art, Chicago, 1964, 79 f, Fig. 114). One
possible explanation is that Giulio was using a profile type of the helmeted Alexander (K.
Kraft, Der gehelmte Alexander der Grosse, Jahrbuch fr Numismatik und Geldgeschichte,
XV, 1965, 732), whereas Berninis visitor recalled one of the facing types, such as Helios (le
Roi Soleil), that were minted in the time of Alexander (cf. A. Baldwin, Facing Heads on
Greek Coins, American Journal of Numismatics, XLIII, 190809, 21331). On the other
hand, another passage in Chantelou shows that medals might also include gems (Journal,
235), and a number of these with facing heads have been identified as Alexander (K.
Gebauer, Alexanderbildnis und Alexandertypus, Mitteilungen des deutschen archologischen
Instituts. Athenische Abteilung, LXIIILXIV, 193839, 30 f, also 25). In any case, the turning, tilting head of Alexander became ubiquitous as the Dying Alexander (E.
Schwarzenberg, From the Alessandro morente to the Alexandre Richelieu, Journal of the
Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, XXXII, 1969, 398405).
Bernini was certainly thinking of Alexander when portraying the King (cf. R. Wittkower,
Berninis Bust of Louis XIV, London, 1951, 13 f ), and it is possible that the whole image
upward and sideward glance, as well as terrestrial globe below echoed the famous passage
in Plutarch describing Lysippuss portrait of Alexander and quoting its inscription: When
Lysippus first modelled a portrait of Alexander with his face turned upward toward the sky,
just as Alexander himself was accustomed to gaze, turning his neck gently to one side, someone inscribed, not inappropriately, the following epigram: The bronze statue seems to proclaim, looking at Zeus: I place the earth under my sway; you O Zeus, keep Olympos (J. J.
Pollitt, The Art of Greece 140031 B.C., Sources and Documents, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.,
1965, 145). Perhaps this passage was in the mind of the observer who commented that the
world-pedestal enhanced the resemblance to Alexander (Chantelou, Journal, 178).
BERNINIS DEATH
341
With the bust of the Savior Bernini carried these ideas from the secular
to the religious sphere.
The Divine Simulacrum
In a formal sense the contrapposto relationship between the head and
right arm of the Savior may be viewed as a development from the composition of the Louis XIV. But the pose was motivated by more than formal
considerations. The Savior belongs thematically to the class of isolated,
bust-length depictions of Christ that include both arms. Such images may
be roughly divided into two groups, the Salvator Mundi and the Imago
Pietatis, according to whether Christs triumph or His human sacrifice is
stressed.72 Usually the Salvator Mundi shows the figure alive and clothed,
the left hand holding a globe, symbol of the universality of redemption, the
right hand raised in blessing, and the gaze fixed upon the observer in a
frontal stare.73 In the Man of Sorrows Christ is shown dead, the body is
nude, the head droops obliquely to the side, and the arms are folded across
each other on the breast.74 It seems clear that Bernini sought to amalgamate
the two traditional embodiments of the deity. In that the figure is clothed
and the right hand suggests a blessing, it evokes the Salvator Mundi; the
averted head and crossed arms allude to the Man of Sorrow. In expressive
terms the result is an almost ineffable combination of heroic suffering and
inspired benignity.
Berninis figure further recalls an intermediate type which has been
termed the rhetorical Man of Sorrows.75 Christ is shown alive, the nude
body exposed but draped in a mantle, the head bent downward to the side
and the glance oblique; one hand calls attention to the chest wound, the
other is raised in a gesture of pathetic exclamation. While Bernini must
have had this type in mind also, his Savior differs from it in two funda72
In general, cf. S. Ringbom, Icon to Narrative (Acta Academiae Aboensis, Ser. A.,
Humaniora, XXXI, No. 2), bo, 1965, 52 ff.
73
On the theme, cf. C. Gottlieb, The Mystical Window in Paintings of the Salvator
Mundi, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, LVI, 1960, 31332; L. H. Heydenreich, Leonardos
Salvator Mundi, Raccolta vinciana, XX, 1964, 83109; Ringbom, Icon to Narrative, 69 f,
171 ff.
74
The fundamental study is still that of Panofsky, Imago Pietatis, who regarded this as
the original form of the Man of Sorrows; for subsequent bibliography, see Eisler, The
Golden Christ of Cortona, III, n. 24.
75
Panofsky, Imago Pietatis, 289 f.
342
mental respects: the position of the head and eyes, and the gesture of the
right hand. The upward glance had become familiar in bust-length depictions of Christ, for example, in variants of the Salvator Mundi based on the
inspired figure in Federico Baroccis Last Supper in Urbino, and in pictures
of the agonized Ecce Homo crowned with thorns, by Guido Reni and
Guercino.76 But in these the head, though sometimes tilted, is not turned to
the side, and the eyes look directly aloft. Conversely, busts of Christ often
showed the head in three quarters, but the face and glance were not directed
upward.77 The Saviors gesture, with the arm held close to and across the
body and the hand raised vertically, is also sui generis. It is as suggestive of
intervention and rejection as of benediction or exclamation, and carries a
clear eschatological implication. In sum, Christ acts as though He were
interposing Himself between a threat coming from His upper right and
directed toward His lower left, the side of damnation, which He abhors.
It will have become apparent that essentially the same idea expressed in
Berninis Savior underlay the devotional pictures of intercession derived
from the Speculum humanae salvationis (Fig. 4). There Christ was represented with one hand indicating the chest wound, the other directed in
sympathy toward the spectator; the head and eyes turned to the side and
imploringly up toward God the Father. The rhetorical Man of Sorrows was
itself rooted in this tradition, which had already played a seminal part in the
development of the Sangue di Cristo composition. Berninis Savior, who
communicates with God, alludes to His own death, and conveys protection
to the observer, seems to act in response to the dying mans invocation in
the Ars Moriendi interrogations, I also put the death of Our Lord Jesus
Christ between me and your wrath.
Like the Sangue di Cristo the Savior constitutes in effect a new subject,
motivated once again by the desire to relate previously separate traditions to
the idea of death. The bust incorporates the act of intercession in which
Christ the sacrifice and Christ the redeemer are united. Hence the deeper
76
For illustrations, cf. J. Burns, The Face of Christ in Art, New York, 1907, ills. opp. pages
104, 108, 112.
77
See the examples in U. Schlegel, Eine neuerworbene Christusbste des Ludovico
Begarelli, Berliner Museen. Berichte, XI, 1961, 44 ff. Also a marble by Puget at Marseille,
dated 166263 by K. Herding, Pierre Puget, Berlin, 1970, 152 f, No. 20, but which may in
fact postdate Berninis Saviour (G. Walton, The Sculptures of Pierre Puget, Ph.D. diss.,
New York University, 1967, 241 f ); a fine bronze cast was recently acquired bv the Berlin
Museum (U. Schlegel, Alessandro Algardis Christusbste, Berliner Museen. Berichte, XXI,
1971, 23 ff, with attribution to Algardi).
BERNINIS DEATH
343
meaning of the pedestal becomes clear. The abstract base, traditional for
portraits, bears Christs mortal aspect. In general terms the kneeling and
supporting angels echo the ancient imago clipeata, where the medallion
framing a hallowed image was often lifted by winged genii; Christ and God
the Father had frequently been carried by angels; angels grasp the drapery
in many depictions of the Man of Sorrows; in reliquary busts the body
might appear angel-borne.78 But there was no real precedent for the bust
held aloft by its base.79 Most of all, Berninis arrangement recalls, as we have
seen, his own design for an altar of the Holy Sacrament (Fig. 16): the kneeling angels elevate the image as if it were the tabernacle of the Host. Thus,
both the figure and the pedestal the former through its expressive pose
and invisible truncation, the latter through its abstract and angelic supports
conveyed the dual nature of Christ and His work of atonement. At once
suffering and exultant as a portrait, the Savior is at once human and divine
as a bust.
The work belongs to still another tradition, which might be defined as
that of the sculptors last will and testament. The sixteenth century had produced several notable instances in which sculptors gave direct expression to
their own hopes for redemption, the Piet groups by Michelangelo and
Baccio Bandinelli, and Crucifixes by Benvenuto Cellini and Giambologna.
The shift from the dead to the living Christ is symptomatic: Berninis primary concern is not with Christ as the prototype of pathetic self-sacrifice,
but with His quintessential role as mediator in the process of salvation. It is
also symptomatic that, in contrast to these overtly narrative works, Bernini
chose the bust to express his thought; he created a kind of icon-portrait
monument because it enabled him to evoke more completely than any
other form the mystery of Christ, half god, half man. It is symptomatic,
finally, that these works were intended for the artists own tombs (and
might even contain autobiographical elements: Michelangelos and
Bandinellis include self-portraits, Cellinis alludes to a vision he had had in
For examples of the latter, see Toesca, Il trecento, 900, Fig. 746, and J. Montagu, Un
dono del Cardinale Francesco Barberini al Re di Spagna, Arte illustrata, IV, 1971, 50,
Fig. 8.
79
The concept has an analogue in Berninis adaptation of the framed image carried by
symbolic figures, which played a new and important role in his work; his use of this motif
in altarpieces has been the subject of an excellent study in an unpublished dissertation by R.
Jrgens, Die Entwicklung des Barockalters in Rom, Hamburg, 1956, 160 ff (typescript in
the Biblioteca Hertziana, Rome).
78
344
prison), whereas Bernini intended the Savior to be given away, and his sepulcher was marked only by an inscription with his name and the date of his
death.
* * *
The Sangue di Cristo engraving and the bust of the Savior are related
beyond the obvious fact of their common concern with salvation. The one
concentrates upon Christ as the victim, the other upon Christ as the savior;
the one is predominantly public and universal, the other is predominantly
private and personal. Both make radical changes in the traditions from
which they are derived, and the changes were inspired mainly by the desire
to relate those traditions to death. They are related to death not simply as
pious votives but as part of a concerted plan, conceived and executed by
Bernini over a period of forty years, to achieve salvation by preparing for
death. The idea for such a program and many of its elements stem from the
heritage of The Art of Dying, but the focus has shifted. In place of the temptations to sin and heresy, the accent is on the central mystery of the
Eucharist as the key to redemption. This new emphasis was present from
the beginning of the Ars Moriendi revival, in Bellarminos treatise and in the
devotions of the Bona Mors confraternity. It became to Father Marchese
and Bernini the only hope. The good death was no longer largely a dialectical victory over the devil but an extreme act of faith, performed successfully after acquiring the necessary skills.
Panofsky defined the unprecedented role of the personification Death in
Berninis funerary monuments as that of a witness to life . . . a power
which delimits and shapes the indefinite and places in perspective what
otherwise could not be perceived as a whole.80 The observation might be
extended to Bernini himself: his enactment of death, his vision of redemption and his portrayal of the Redeemer concluded a life-long process of
objectification in which what had been obscure or but faintly perceived
became conscious and deliberate.81
E. Panofsky, Mors Vitae Testimonium. The Positive Aspect of Death in Renaissance
and Baroque Iconography, in Studien zur toskanischen Kunst. Festschrift fr Ludwig Heinrich
Heydenreich, Munich, 1964, 231.
81
The opening invocation of Berninis testament, though conventional in such documents, contains a variety of thoughts and phrases that are of interest in the light of what has
been said in this essay; I transcribe it here, along with some of the relevant provisions:
80
BERNINIS DEATH
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Appendix
Filippo Baldinucci
Correva gi il Bernino lottantesimo anno di sua vita e fin da alcun
tempo avanti aveva egli pi al conseguimento degli eterni riposi, che allaccrescimento della gloria mondana voltato i suoi pi intensi pensieri e forte
premevagli il cuore un desiderio di offerire, prima di chiuder gli occhi a
questa luce, alcun segno di gratitudine alla maest della gran regina di
Svezia, stata sua singolarissima protettrice; onde per meglio internarsi ne
primi sentimenti e disporsi ad effettuare i secondi, si pose con grande studio ad effigiare in marmo in mezza figura maggiore del naturale il nostro
A gloria della SS;ma Trinit, e della gloriosa sempre Vergina Maria, e di tutti li Santi miei
Protettori; Essendo la morte quel punto tremendo, donde dipende unEternit, di bene,
di pene, quindi che conforme lhuomo deue in ognhora pensare ben uiuere per ben
morire, cosi inescusabile errore il uolere trasportare in quellultimo passo laggiustamento
delle cose humane, quando lanima deue con gran timore prepararsi allinappellabile rendimento de conti alla Diuina Giustitia. Da ci mosso io infrascritto testatore al presente sano
per la Dio gratia di mente, di senso, et intelletto h pensato di fare il presente mio testamento scritto de uerbo ad uerbum dordine mio, e poi da me pi uolte letto, e maturamente
considerato
Primieramente raccomando lanima mia alla SS:ma Trinit, dalla cui infinita Bont, conforme h riceuto abondanza di gratie, cos la supplico di quella maggiore, senza la quale
nulla uale il mondo tutto, cio il perdono de miei peccati, e per conseguenza la salute
dellanima mia, mi raccomando inoltre allintercessione della gloriosissima Vergine Madre
Maria, dellAngelo mio Custode, e di tutti li Santi miei Auuocati, e particolarmente di
S. Giuseppe . . .
Lascio titolo di semplice Cappellania ad nutum amouibile, che dallinfrascritti miei
heredi gloria del pretiosissimo Sangue del Nostro Redentore Gies Christo si faccia celebrare una messa quotidiana in perpetuo suffragio, prima dellanima mia, e poi delli miei parenti, e finalmente di quellanima del Purgatorio, la liberatione della quale sar di maggior
gloria di Dio.
In oltre gloria della Beatis.ma Vergina Madre Maria lascio chogni anno in perpetuo nel
giorno dellAssunta si diano dallinfrascritti miei heredi scudi uenticinque m.ta per dote ad
una pouera zitella honesta, . . . Item lascio al Padre Don Francesco Marchesi Prete della
Chiesa Noua mio Nipote scudi cento moneta per una sol uolta pregandolo raccordarsi dellanima mia nelle sue orationi, e diuini offitij . . .
(Rome, Archivio di Stato, Not. A. C. (Mazzeschus], Busta, 4245, November 28, 1680,
fols. 278rv, 281).
It came to my attention after completing this article that Hans Kauffmann, with characteristic insight, speaks of Bernini as having been deeply concerned with the Ars Moriendi
(Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini. Die figrliche Kompositionen, Berlin, 1970, 334 f ).
346
Salvator Ges Cristo, opera, che siccome fu detta da lui il suo beniamino,
cos anche fu lultima, che desse al mondo la sua mano, e destinolla in dono
a quella maest, ma tal pensiero per gli venne fallito, perch tanto fu il
concetto la stima, che della statua fece la maest sua che non trovandosi
in congiuntura di poter per allora proporzionatamente contraccambiare il
dono, elesse anzi di ricusarlo che di mancare un punto alla reale magnificenza dellanimo suo; onde il Bernino gliela ebbe poi a lasciare per testamento, come noi a suo luogo diremo. In questo divino simulacro pose egli
tutti gli sforzi della sua cristiana piet e dell arte medesima, e fece conoscere
in esso quanto fusse vero un suo familiare assioma, cio, che lartefice, che
ha grandissimo fondamento nel disegno, al giugner dellet decrepita, non
dee temere di alcuno scemamento di vivacit e tenerezza e dellaltre buone
qualit delloperar suo, mercecch una tal sicurezza nel disegno possa assai
bene supplire al difetto degli spiriti, i quali collaggravar dellet si raffreddano, ci che egli diceva aver osservato in altri artefici . . .
E cos mentre dalla citt di Roma si apprestavano applausi al suo valore
per lo prospero riuscimento della restaurazione e assicuramento del palazzo,
egli avendo gi incominciato a perdere il sonno, diede in s fatta debolezza
di forze e di spiriti, che in breve si condusse al termine de giorni suoi. Ma
prima di parlare dellultima sua infermit e della morte, la quale veramente
apparve agli occhi nostri qual fu la vita, da portarsi in questo luogo, che
quantunque il cavalier Bernino fino al quarantesimo anno di sua et, che fu
quello, nel quale egli si accas, fusse vissuto allacciato in qualche affetto
giovenile, senza per trarne tale impaccio, che agli studi dellarte e a quella,
che il mondo chiama prudenza, alcun pregiudizio recar potesse, potiamo
dire con verit, che non solo il suo matrimonio ponesse fine a quel modo di
vivere, ma che egli, fin da quellora, incominciasse a diportarsi anzi da religioso, che da secolare e con tali sentimento di spirito, secondo ci, che a me
stato riferito da chi bene il sa, che pot sovente esser dammirazione ai
pi perfetti claustrali. Teneva egli sempre fisso un vivo pensiero della morte,
intorno alla quale faceva bene spesso lunghi colloqui col padre Marchesi suo
nipote sacerdote della Congregazione dellOratorio nella chiesa Nuova,
uomo della bont e dottrina, che nota; e con tal desiderio aspir sempre
mai alla felicit di quellestremo passo, che per questo solo fine di conseguirla dur quarantanni continovi a frequentar la divozione, che a tale
effetto fanno i padri della Compagnia di Ges in Roma; dove pure due volte
la settimana si cibava del sacramento eucaristico. Accresceva le limosine,
esercizio stato suo familiarissimo fino dalla prima et. Si profondava talora
BERNINIS DEATH
347
nel pensiero e nel discorso dunaltissima stima e concetto che egli ebbe sempre dellefficacia del Sangue di Cristo Redentore, nel quale (come era solito
dire) sperava di affogare i suoi peccati. A tale oggetto diseng di sua mano
e poi fecesi stampare unimmagine di Cristo Crocifisso, dalle cui mani e
piedi sgorgano rivi di sangue, che formano quasi un mare e la gran Regina
del Cielo, che lo sta offerendo allEterno Padre. Questa pia meditazione
fecesi anche dipingere in una gran tela, la quale volle sempre tenere in faccia al suo letto in vita e in morte.
Venuto dunque il tempo, non so sio dica da lui a cagione del grande
scapito di forze aspettato, o per lanelanza delleterno riposo desiderato, egli
inferm duna lenta febbre, alla quale sopravvenne in ultimo un accidente
di apoplessia, che fu quello che lo priv di vita. Stavasene egli tra tanto
paziente e rassengato nel divino volere, n altri discorsi faceva per ordinario,
che di confidenza, a segno tale che gli astanti, fra quali non isdegn di
trovarsi assai frequentemente leminentissimo cardinal Azzolino forte si
maravigliavano de concetti, che lamore gli suggeriva e fra questi il seguente
degnessimo di memoria. Preg egli instantemente quel porporato, che per
sua parte supplicasse la maest della regina a fare un atto damore di Dio per
se stesso, stimando (come egli diceva) che quella gran signora avesse un linguaggio particolare con Dio da esser bene intesa, mentre Iddio avea con lei
usato un linguaggio, che essa sola era stata capace dintenderlo.
Il continovo pensare, chei fece in vita a quel passaggio, gli aveva suggerito molti anni prima del suo morire un pensiero, e fu di rappresentare al
nominato padre Marchesi, il quale egli desiderava, che gli fusse assistente,
tutto ci, che egli gli doveva ricordare in quel tempo, e perch egli dubit,
che potesse avvenire ci che veramente accadde, di non potere in quellestremo usar la voce, volle chei fusse informato dei gesti e moti esterni
chegli aveva stabilito di fare per espressione dellinterno del suo cuore; e fu
cosa mirabile, che non avendo egli nella malattia, a cagione della flussione
del capo, potuto parlare se non balbettando ed avendo poi per lo nuovo
accidente perduta quasi del tutto la parola, il padre Marchesi lintendesse
sempre cos ed alle sue proposte desse cos adequate risposte, che bastarono
per condurlo con ammirabil quiete al suo fine. Avvicinavasi egli allultimo
respiro, quando fatto cenno a Mattia de Rossi e Giovan Battista Contini,
stati suoi discepoli nellarchitettura quasi scherzando disse loro nel miglior
modo, che gli fu possibile, molto maravigliarsi, che non sovvenisse loro
invenzione per trarre altrui il catarro dalla gola, e intanto additava colla
mano un instrumento matematico attissimo a tirar pesi eccedenti.
348
Linterrog il suo confessore sopra lo stato di quiete dellanima sua, e se egli

si sentiva scrupoli; rispose: Padre mio, io ho da render conto ad un Signore,
che per sua sola bont non la guarda in mezzi baiocchi. Si accorse poi davere il destro braccio impedito insieme con tutta quella parte a cagione dellapoplessia e disse: Bene era dovere, che questo braccio si ripossase
alquanto prima della mia morte, avendo egli tanto fatigato in vita. Intanto
piangeasi in Roma la gran perdita e la sua casa era occupata da un flusso e
reflusso di personaggi dalto affare e gente dogni sorte per intender novelle
e visitarlo in quello stato. Vennero, e mandarono due volte il giorno almeno
la maest della regina di Svezia, pi eminentissimi cardinali, e gli ambasciatori de principi. E finalmente la Santit di Nostro Signore gli mand la sua
benedizione; dopo la quale, allentrare del giorno 28 del mese di novembre
dellanno 1680, circa alla mezza notte, dopo quindici giorni dinfermit,
egli fece da questa allaltra vita passaggio nellet sua di 82 anni meno nove
giorni.
Lasci per suo testamento alla santit del papa, un gran quadro di un
Cristo di sua mano ed alla maest della regina di Svezia il bel simulacro del
Salvatore in marmo, ultima opera delle sue mani, della quale sopra abbiam
parlato. Alleminentissimo Altieri una testa di marmo con busto ritratto di
Clemente X, alleminentissimo Azzolino, stato suo protettore cordialissimo,
una simile di papa Innocenzo X suo promotore e non avendo altra cosa di
marmo, lasci al cardinal Rospigliosi un quadro pure di sua propria mano. E
con fidecommisso strettissimo lasci in casa propria la bella statua della Verit,
che lunica opera di scarpello, che restata in potere de suoi figliuoli.
Cosa troppo lunga sarebbe il parlare del dolore, che apport una tal
perdita a tutta Roma; dir solo, che la maest della regina, al di cui intelletto sublimissimo poterono per lunga consuetudine esser note le finezze dei
talenti di s granduomo, ne diede straordinari segni, parendole che fusse
stato tolto con lui al mondo lunico parto, che aveva prodotto la virt nel
nostro secolo. Lo stesso giorno della morte del Bernino mand il papa per
mano di un camerier segreto un nobile regalo a quella maest, al quale
domand la regina, che si dicesse per Roma dello stato lasciato dal cavalier
Bernino, e sentito che di quattrocentomila scudi incirca: Mi vergognerei
dissella segli avesse servito me, ed avesse lasciato s poco.
La pompa, colla quale fu il corpo del nostro artefice portato alla chiesa
di S. Maria Maggiore, ove la sepoltura di sua casa, corrispose alla dignit
del soggetto ed alle facult ed amore de figliouli, che gli ordinarono un
nobilissimo funerale con distribuzione di cere e limosine alla grande. Si
BERNINIS DEATH
349
stancarono glingegni e le penne de letterati di comporre elogi, sonetti, canzoni, ed altri eruditi versi latini, e volgari spiritossisimi, che in lode di lul si
viddero pubblicamente esposti. Concorse tutta la nobilt di Roma e con
essa tutti gli oltramontani, che allora si trovavano in quella citt ed in
somma un popolo s numeroso, che fu necessario lindugiare alquanto di
tempo a dar sepoltura al corpo, il che poi fu fatto nella nominata sua
sepoltura, in cassa di piombo, con lasciarvi memoria del nome e persona di
lui.
Domenico Bernini
M prossimo ornai il Cavaliere alla morte, & in et decrepita di ottantanni volle illustrar sua vita, e chiuder latto di sua fin a quellhora tanto
ben condotta Professione, con rappresentare un opera, che felice quell
Huomo, che termina con essa i suoi giorni. Questa f lImmagine del nostro Salvadore in mezza figura, m pi grande del naturale, colla man destra
alquanto sollevata, come in atto di benedire. In essa compendi, e ristrinse
tutta la sua Arte, e benche la debolezza del polso non corrispondesse alla
gagliardia dellIdea, tuttavia gli venne fatto di comprovare ci, che prima ei
dir soleva, che UnArtefice eccellente nel Disegno dubitar non deve al giunger
dellet decrepita di alcuna mancanza di vivacit, e tenerezza, perche di tanta
efficacia la prattica del Disegno, che questo solo pu supplire al difetto degli spiriti, che nella vecchiaja languiscono. Destin quest Opera alla sua tanto benemerita Regina di Svezia, che elesse pi tosto rifiutarla, che collimpossibilit di contracambiarne il valore, degenerare dalla sua Regia beneficenza; M
f poi costretta di accettarla indi a due anni, quando dal Cavaliere le f lasciata in testamento . . .
Avanti dunque di entrare nella narazione delle cose proposte, convien
retrarre alquanto indietro il discorso, e dimostrare, quanto singolare nel
Cavaliere Bernino fosse la bont della vita, e con quanta unione di massime
Christiane rendesse riguardevoli le belle, e molte doti del suo animo.
Conciosiacosache comegli era unHuomo dingegno elevato, che sempre al
grande aspirava, e nel grande istesso non si quietava, se non giungeva al
massimo, questa medesima sua naturalezza lo port ad una subblimit tale
dIdee in materia di divozione, che non contento delle communi, a quelle
si appigli, che sono per cos dire la scortatoja per giungere al Cielo. Ondei
diceva, che Nel rendimento di conto delle sue operazioni haveva da trattare con
Signore, che Infinito e Massimo ne suoi attributi, non havrebbe guardato, come
350
si suol dire, a mezzi bajocchi, spiegava il suo sentimento con soggiungere,

che La bont di Dio essendo infinita, & infinto il merito del prezioso Sangue
del suo Figliuolo, era unoffendere quest attributi il dubitare della Misericordia.
A tale effetto egli fece per sua divozione ritrarre in Stampa, & in Pittura un
maraviglioso disegno, in cui rappresentasi Gies Christo in Croce con un
Mare di Sangue sotto di esso, che ne versa a torrenti dalle sue Santissime
Piaghe, e qu si vede la Beatissima Vergine in atto di offerirlo al Padre
Eterno, che comparisce di sopra colle braccia spase, tutto intenerito a s
compassionevole spettacolo: Et In questo Mare, egli diceva, ritrovarsi affogati
i suoi peccati, che non altrimente dalla Divina Giustitia rinvenir si potevano,
che fr il Sangue di Gies Christo, di cui tinti haverebbono mutato colore,
per merito di esso ottenuta mercede. Ed era s viva in lui questa fiducia, che
chiamava la Santissima Humanit di Chiristo, Veste de Peccatori, e perci
tanto maggiormente confidava, non dover esso esser fulminato dalla Divina
vendetta, quale dovendo prima di ferir lui, passar la veste, per non lacerare
linnocenza, haverebbe perdonato al suo peccato. E come che ei f solito,
molti, e molti anni prima di sua morte trattenersi spessissimo in continui
discorsi con dotti, e singolari Religiosi, tanto sinfiammava in questi sentimenti, e tanto alto ascendeva la sottigliezza del suo ingegno, che ne stupivano quegli, come unhuomo, per altro dedito alle lettere, potesse molte
volte non solo giungere alla penetrazione pi intima di altissimi Misterii,
m motivarne dubbii, e renderne ragioni, come se sua vita condotta havesse
nelle Scuole. Diceva il P. Gio. Paolo Oliva Generale della Compagnia di
Gies, che Nel discorrere col Cavaliere di cose spirituali gli faceva di mestiere
di unattenzione tale, come se andar dovesse ad una Conclusione. N senza
frutto nutriva ci nellanimo questi nobilissimi pensieri, m con opere fondate era in un continuo esercizio di Virt. Per lo spazio di quarant anni frequent ogni Venerd la divozione della buona morte nella Chiesa del Gies,
in cui bene spesso riceveva la Santissima Communione almeno una volta la
settimana. Per il medesimo lungo spazio di tempo ogni giorno, terminati i
suoi lavori, visitava quella Chiesa, ove si ritrivava esposto il Santissimo
Sacramento, e vi lasciava elemosine copiose per i poveri. Oltre a molti doti,
che dava fr lanno a povere Zitelle, una sempre ne contibuiva nel giorno
della Santissima Assunta, & a sei di esse volle ancora obbligare nel suo
Testamento i Figliuoli; Anzi bene spesso per ricever merito dalla fuga dell
applauso, consegnava copiose elemosine ad un suo Famigliare con obbligo
di non rivelarne il benefattore, E benche luso dellelemosina fosse con lui,
per cos dire, nato, e cresciuto, tuttavia negli ultimi anni di sua vita gli f
BERNINIS DEATH
351
cotanto a cuore, che non stimandosi esso sufficiente a rinvenire i poveri, a

molti Religiosi diedene lincumbenza, & il denaro, per somministrarne ad
essi lajuto. E perche ci in somiglianti opere amava la secretezza, molte pi
sono quelle, che possiam giudicare, chei facesse, che a nostra notizia siano
pervenute. Da alcune Note, chegli di mano sua stendeva in un libretto
appartenente aglinteressi di Casa, si h, che havendo posti tre mesi avanti
sua morte due mile scudi doro dentro uninginocchiatore, non ve ne furono
poi trovati che ducento, e questi ordin a suoi figliuoli, che glimpiegassero
ancora, come segu, in un tale Opera pia, con indizio manifesto, che i rimanenti similesito sortissero. Et in una lettera scritta da Parigi ordina a
Monsignor suo figliuolo, che oltre alle Elemosine, che gli lasci in nota da
farsi, ne facesse al doppio, Perche Iddio un Signore, che non si lascia vincere
di cortesia. Soleva poi molte volte fr lanno condurre la sua famiglia in
qualche Hospedale, e quivi voleva, che i suoi piccoli figliuoli ad esempio di
lui porgessero ristoro agli ammalati, con presentar loro diverse confezioni,
che a tale effetto teneva preparate. Ed era cosa di stupore, come un Huomo
impiegato in tante, e s riguardevoli occupazioni, ogni mattina udisse divotamente la Messa, ogni giorno visitasse il Santissimo Sacramento, & ogni
sera recitasse la Corona della Madonna Santissima, & in ginocchi lUffizio
di lei, e li sette Salmi Penitenziali, costume chegli tenne costantissimo sino
alla morte. Quando poi si vidde a lei pi prossimo, ad altro che a questo
passaggio non pensava, e di altro non ragionava, e ci, non con displicenza,
& horrore, cosa solita de vecchj, m con costanza di animo impareggiabile,
e con servirsi della sua memoria per preparamento a ben farla. A tale effetto
haveva continue conferenze col P. Francesco Marchese Prete dellOratorio di
S. Filippo Neri nella Chiesa Nuova di Roma, figlio di Beatrice Bernini sua
sorella, Soggetto Venerabile per bont di vita, e riguardevole per dottrina, di
cui si prevalse il Cavaliere, acci assister dovesse alla sua morte: E perche ei
diceva, che Quel passo a tutti era difficile, perche a tutti giungeva nuovo, perci si figuarava spesse volte di morire, per poter con guesto finto esercizio
assuefarsi, e disporsi al combattimento del vero. Et in questo stato voleva,
che il P. Marchese gli suggerisse tutti quegli atti soliti a proporsi, a chi st in
passaggio, & egli col farli si veniva, come preparando, a quel gran punto.
Suppondendo poi, che gli dovesse, conforme solito, mancar la parola in
quel estremit di vita, e poi ridursi nellangustie che pruova, chi non
puolesser inteso, concert con lui un modo particolare, con cui anche senza
parlare in quellhora potesse essere inteso. Con s fatte diligenze, con animo
del tutto confermato giunse finalmente al cimento.
352
Habbiamo di sopra gi detto, quanto debilitato rimanesse di forze, &

agitato ancora nel rimanente del Corpo per lintrapresa ristaurazione del
Palazzo della Cancellaria. Onde inferm finalmente di lenta febre, a cui
sopravvenne in ultimo unaccidente di apoplesia, che lo tolse di vita. In
tutto il corso del male, che dur quindici giorni, volle, che a piedi del letto
si alzasse come unAltare, & in esso fece esporre il Quadro rappresentante il
Sangue di Gies Christo: E quali fossero i suoi colloquii, chei faceva hora
col P. Marchese, hora con altri Religiosi, che assistevano, sopra lefficacia di
quel preziossimo Sangue, e la fiducia, chei vi haveva, possono pi tosto
congetturarsi, che riferirsi. Poiche non vi era alcuno degli Astanti, a cui non
iscaturissero le lagrime in udire, con quanta sodezza di sentimenti parlasse
allora quellHuomo, a cui n let nl male, gravi ambedue, e potenti
nemici, havevano potuto offuscargli quella chiarezza dintelletto, che sempre in lui si mantenne uguale, e grande finallultimo respiro di sua vita. i
Accortosi, che non poteva pi muovere il braccio destro per laccidente
accennato di apoplesia, E ben ragione, disse, che anche avanti la morte riposi
alquanto quella mano, che in vita h tanto lavorato. Al Cardinal Azzolini, che
volle pi volte honorarlo della sua presenza in que giorni, disse una sera,
che Pregasse in suo nome la Maest della Regina a far unatto di amor di Dio
per lui, perche ei credeva, che quella gran Signora havesse un linguaggio particolare con il Signore Dio per essere bene intesa, mentre Iddio haveva con lei
usato un linguaggio, che essa sola era stata capace dintenderlo. Fece la parte il
Cardinale, e ricev dalla Regina il seguente Viglietto:
Io vi prego di dire al Sig. Cavalier Bernino da mia parte, che gli prometto
di fare tutti i miei sforzi per far quel che desidera da me, a condizione, chegli
mi prometta di pregar Dio per me, e per voi, a concerderci la grazia di un perfetto amor suo, affinche Noi possiam trovarci un giorno tutti insieme con la
gioja damore, e goder Dio in eterno. E ditegli, che io gi lh servito al meglio
che h potuto, e che continuer.
In tanto la sua Casa era un continuo flusso, e riflusso de pi cospicui
Personaggi di Roma, che venivano, mandavano con attestazione altrettanto distinta dalluso comune di convenienza, quanto distinta, e particolare era in ciascuno la stima, & il rammarico di perdere un s grandHuomo.
Mancgli finalmente la parol, e perche si sentiva fuor di modo angustiato
dal catarro, accenn al Cavalier Mattia de Rossi, e a Gio: Battista Contini,
che unitamente con Giulio Cartar tutti suoi Allievi si ritrovarono sempre
presenti al suo letto, quasi maravigliandosi, come ad essi sovvenir modo non
potesse di cavargli il catarro dal petto, e colla sinistra mano sforzavasi di rap-
BERNINIS DEATH
353
presentargli unIstromento attissimo a tirar pesi eccedenti. Come, che

avanti la sua malattia haveva concertato il modo col P. Marchese di essere
inteso senza parlare, stupore in tutti f, come ben da lui si facesse intendere
col moto solo della sinistra mano, e degli occhj: Segno manifesto di quella
gran vivacit di sentimenti, quali n pure allora mostravan di cedere, benche
mancasse la vita. Due hore avanti di passare diede la benedizione a tutti li
suoi figliuoli, che lasci in numero, come si disse, di quattro Maschi, e
cinque Femmine, e finalmente ricevuta quella del Pontefice, che per un suo
Cameriere mandgli, nellentrare del ventottesimo giorno di Novembre,
dellanno 1680, & ottantesimo secondo di sua vita, spir: E mor da quel
grandHuomo chei visse, lasciando in dubbio, se pi ammirabile nelle operazioni fosse stata la sua vita, commendabile nella divozione la sua morte.
In Testamento lasci al Papa un bellissimo Quadro di mano di Gio:
Battista Gaulli rappresentante il Salvadore, sua ultima opera in Marmo, alla
Regina il Salvadore medesimo di sua mano, al CardinalAltieri il Ritratto di
Clemente X., al CardinalAzzolini quello dInnocenzo X., & al Cardinal
Giacomo Rospigliosi un Quadro pure di sua mano, non havendo in Casa
altra cosa di marmo, oltre alla Verit, che lasci con perpetuo fidecommisso
alla sua Discendenza.
F universale il cordiglio per la perdita di questHuomo nella Citt di
Roma, che si riconosceva di tanta Maest accresciuta dalle sue indefesse
fatiche, e siccome la sua vita, cos ancora la morte f Soggetto allAccademie
di molti ingegnosi componimenti. Il seguente giorno colloccasione, che
mand il Papa a regalar la Regina, richiese questa al Cameriere di Sua
Santit, Che si dicesse dello stato lasciato del Cavalier Bernino? e rispostogli,
che Di quattrocento mila scudi in circa, essa soggiunse, Io mi vergognarei,
segli havesse servito mi, & havesse lasciato cos poco.
Il suo corpo con pompa f esposto nella Basilica di S. Maria Maggiore,
con funerale, distribuzione di cera, & elemosine a Poveri: E f tanto il concorso della gente, che convenne differirne per il seguente giorno la
sepoltura. Haveva gi egli preparata questa a s, & a i suoi nella medesima
Chiesa, onde in essa f posto dentro Cassa di piombo, con iscrizione dinotate il nome, & il giorno della sua morte.
Lavin VII. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap 14
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VII
Afterthoughts on Berninis Death
N my essay on Berninis death (The Art Bulletin, LIV, 1972, 15986) I

published what I take to be Berninis last and long lost sculpture, the bust
of the Savior in the Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, Virginia (Figs. 1, 3, 5, 7,
9). Following the appearance of that article, Professor Eric Van Schaack of
Goucher College signaled to me the existence, in the Cathedral at Ses
(Orne) in Normandy, of what can almost certainly be identified as the lost
copy of the Savior mentioned in a contemporary source (Figs. 2, 4, 6, 8,
10). Professor Van Schaack generously allowed me to publish this important discovery, which I present here together with some additional material
that has come to my attention.
The copy was commissioned by the artists friend Pierre Cureau de la
Chambre (16401693).1 Cureau, who was abb of the royal palace church
of Saint-Barthlemy in Paris, had met Bernini during the latters visit to that
city in 1665.2 He accompanied Bernini on his return trip to Rome, and
remained there a year, during which time he saw the artist frequently.
Thereafter, their friendship continued in an exchange of letters that lasted
Cf. Lavin, Berninis Death, 171.

Cureau is mentioned in Chantelous journal of Berninis stay in Paris, during which he
visited Saint-Barthlemy (P. F. de Chantelou, Journal du voyage du Cavalier Bernin en France,
ed. L. Lalanne, Paris, 1885, 120, 245, 256, 258). On Cureau and Bernini, cf. J. Vanuxem,
Quelques tmoignages franais sur le Bernin et son art au XVIIe sicle en France: labb de
la Chambre, Journes internationales dtude du Baroque. Acts. Montauban. 1963,
Toulouse, 1965, 15367.
1
2
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AFTERTHOUGHTS ON BERNINIS DEATH
355
throughout the remaining fifteen years of the artists life.3 In February,

1681, as soon as the news of Berninis death reached Paris,4 Cureau published in the Journal des Savans an Eloge de M. le Cavalier Bernin in which
he mentions the bust, adding that on verra bien-tost une belle Copie a saint
Barthelemy.5 Cureau planned to write a biography of Bernini, of which the
Preface was delivered as an address to the Academy on January 3, 1685, and
was published separately along with a reprint of the Eloge.6 In the reference
to the bust here, he notes that nous avons icy une belle copie.7 Cureau in
the end kept the sculpture not at Saint-Barthlemy but in his home, where
he also had other works by Bernini, including a self-portrait (cf. Fig. 12) and
a bust of Cureaus father.8 Nothing more is known of Cureaus copy,
although two points concerning the phraseology of his remarks are worth
making. The first is that the copy was clearly begun while Bernini was still
alive, since Cureau says that he wrote his Eloge immediately upon receipt of
the news of the artists death, at which time the copy was nearly finished.
Cureau himself described his relation with Bernini as follows: Jay eu lavantage daccompagner Monsieur le Cavalier Bernin, quand il sen retourna de Paris en Italie. Je le pratiquay pendant un an Rome, o je le voyais familierement & toute heure. Jay depuis cultiv son amiti par un commerce regl de lettres lespace de quinze annes, & jusqu sa
mort, Prface pur servir a lhistoire de Ia vie et des ouvrages du cavalier Bernin (Bibl. Nationale,
Paris, K. 4280), n.d., n.p., but 1685 (see note 6 below).
4
Eloge . . . que je lis pour me consoler de sa perte la premiere nouvelle qui nous vint
de sa mort (Bernini died November 28, 1680), (Prface, 15).
5
Journal des Savans, February 24, 1681, 61.
6
Cited in note 3 above. For the date, see P. Bayle, Nouvelles de la rpublique des lettres,
January, 1685, in uvres diverses, 4 vols., The Hague, 172731, I, 201 f; also 362 f.
7
Page 24.
8
This emerges from a passage in C. Le Maire, Paris ancien et nouveau, 3 vols., Paris,
1685, I, 30203: La Maison o demeure Monsieur LAbb de la Chambre de lAcademie
Franoise, est entre lHostel de Conty, & le College des quatre Nations . . . lon trouve chez
luy ce quil y a de plus rare voir: entrautres trois Busts en Marbre faits par le Chevalier
Bernin. Le premier est le Bust du Chevalier Bernin mesme, fait Rome peu de temps avant
sa mort. Le second est un Bust du Christ; & lautre est de Monsieur de la Chambre Pre
. . . & des modeles en Cire de quelques Status de Bernin . . . Cureau mentions the self-portrait in his Eloge of 1681: . . . un buste de luy nouvellement arriv icy, qui est parlant &
comparable tout ce quil y a de plus precieux & de plus achev en ce genre-l (p. 62; it is
presumably that which appears in the engraved vignette to Cureaus Prface, by S. Leclerc
[Fig. 12]).
Cf. Vanuxem, Quelques tmoignages (cited in note 2 above), 160, 162, 163 and
Fig. 18.
3
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356
Furthermore, there is nothing to prove that the copy was made in Italy and
shipped to Paris, as has been assumed.9
Neither the authorship nor the provenance of the bust in Ses is
recorded.10 As far as I can discover it appears only in the local literature on
the Cathedral, where it is attributed vaguely to Caffieri and said to have
been acquired by J.-B. Du Plessis dArgentr (17201805).11 DArgentr,
who had been preceptor to the grandsons of Louis XIV, was bishop of Ses
from 1775 until the Revolution; he was responsible for extensive alterations
and embellishments to the Cathedral.12
Let it be said at once that the Ses sculpture is effectively excluded as a
candidate for the original by its size. Berninis Savior was recorded in an
inventory of 1713 as being 103 cm. high (alto palmi di passetto 4 e due
terzi). The Norfolk bust is 93 cm. (92 cm. wide), that in Ses 74 cm. high
(67 cm. wide).13 Anyone familiar with inventories of the period will realize
that the former is a negligible discrepancy, whereas the latter is not.
The work is of fine quality, with neither the awkward proportions and
strained pose, nor the uneven handling of the Norfolk sculpture. The surfaces of skin and drapery are polished to a uniform luster and the hair and
beard are treated as a regular system of striated masses, in contrast to the
lacy drill work and sharp penetrations of the marble that form the locks of
the Norfolk head. Consistent with these differences are the facts that the
large fold of drapery at the center is attached to the back of the right hand,
and that marble struts join the fingers; in the Norfolk bust all these forms
are carved free. In sum, the Ses sculpture is careful and unadventuresome
9
This assumption evidently originated in a misleading phrase of S. S. Ludovici (una
copia della statua era pervenuta in Francia), who first called attention to the passage in
Cureaus Eloge in the Journal des Savans (ed. of F. Baldinucci, Vita di Gianlorenzo Bernini,
Milan, 1948, 259).
10
I am greatly indebted to the Cur Flament, archivist of the Cathedral, who searched,
in vain, for documentation concerning the bust, and provided the references given in the following note.
11
First mentioned in L. de la Sicotiere, Notice sur la cathdrale de Ses, Alenon, 1844,
22: sur le mur du pourtoire du choeur, on a plac depuis peu dannes, un buste du Christ
en marbrc blanc, dun beau travail; il vient, croyons-nous, de lancienne salle capitulaire;
Abb Dumaine, Buste en marbre dans la cathdrale. XVIIIe sicle, Bulletin des amis des
monuments ornais, III, 1903, 25 f: . . . attribu par quelques-uns Caffieri . . . On croit que
cest Mgr. dArgentr qui en fit lacquisition, par occasion . . . .
12
On DArgentr, cf. Dictionnaire de biographic franaise, Paris, 1929 ff, III, cols. 576 ff.
13
A large section at the left elbow has been broken off and reattached; condition otherwise excellent.
13/8/07
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Page 5
1. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Bust of the Savior.

Norfolk, Va., Chrysler Museum
(photo: R. Thornton, Providence, R.I.).
357
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Page 6
358
2. Copy after Bernini, Bust of the Savior.

Ses, Cathedral
(photo: Piels, Ses).
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Page 7
Bust of the Savior (detail).
Norfolk, Va.,
Chrysler Museum
Providence, R.I.).
4. Copy after Bernini,

Ses, Cathedral
359
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Page 8
360
Norfolk, Va.,
Chrysler Museum
Providence, R.I.).

Ses, Cathedral
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Page 9
Norfolk, Va.,
Chrysler Museum
Providence, R.I.).

Ses, Cathedral
361
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Page 10
362
Norfolk, Va.,
Chrysler Museum
Providence, R.I.).

Ses, Cathedral
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Page 11
11. Gianlornzo Bernini, Study of the Bust of the Savior, drawing, 171 x 254mm,
Rome, Gabinetto Nazionale delle Stampe.
12. S. Leclerc, Frontispiece to P. Cureau de la Chambre,

Preface . . . (1685), engraving.
363
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364
exactly what one would expect from an able copyist; that in Norfolk is
bold and challenging exactly what one would expect from the aged
Bernini.
In view of these considerations the Ses bust acquires an altogether
unexpected interest, since it is in many respects closer to the autograph
Corsini drawing (Fig. 11) than the Norfolk piece. The palm of the right
hand is not turned outward in an ambiguous gesture of abhorrence and
protection, but has the straightforward suggestion of benediction implied
in the drawing. The head and glance are not upward, but the head looks
directly to the side; the arrangement of hair and beard generally corresponds
more accurately with the drawing. To be sure, there are certain details in
which the Norfolk bust is closer: the locks falling on the right shoulder from
fluffy, clockwise spirals, whereas at Ses they turn back in tight, counterclockwise curls; the silhouette of the drapery at the Norfolk figures left is
also more like that in the sketch. Nevertheless, the Ses sculpture evidently
represents the conception shown in the Corsini drawing, whereas that in
Norfolk is a further development.
There is a simple and obvious explanation for this remarkable state of
affairs, the clue to which is provided by the inscription on the drawing. The
inscription chez S. A. M. le Duc de Bracciano refers to the bust and
indicates that it belongs to the Duke of Bracciano (Livio Odescalchi, who
inherited the work from Innocent XI, became Duke of Bracciano in 1696).
The inscription is in French, whence it is apparent that the drawing was
then in a French collection.14 In fact, Cardinal Neri Maria Corsini
(16851770), the great amateur and founder of the Corsini Collection,
spent years in Paris as minister of Grand Duke Cosimo III, and made many
acquisitions there.15 In all probability, Cureaus copy was made not from the
original, but from the drawing now in the Corsini Collection. Bernini himself must have sent the sketch to his friend, before his own work was finally
14
There was a French librarian of the Corsini in the early eighteenth century, J. D.
dInguimbert (16831757), native and subsequently Bishop of Carpentras (O. Pinto, Storia
della biblioteca corsiniana e della biblioteca dellAccademia dei Lincei, Florence, 1956, 22, 25,
40 f ); but he wrote and published many works in Italian, and his handwriting was completely different from that of the inscription (R. Caillet, Un prelat bibliophile et philanthropique. Monseigneur DInguimbert. Archevqiue-vque de Carpentras. 16381757, Audin,
1952, 101 ff, ill. opp. p. 80).
15
Pinto, Storia, 24 (cited in the preceding note); cf. F. Cerroti, Memorie per servire alla
storia dellincisione compilate nella descrizione e dichiarazione delle stampe che trovansi nella
biblioteca corsiniana, I, Rome, 1858, preface.
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365
carved.16 The inscription was added to the drawing while it was still in
France.
If this hypothesis is correct, the situation perhaps has an analogy in another
work commissioned by Cureau in Paris, reputedly after a design provided by
Bernini. This is the virtually unknown tomb of Cureaus father Marin Cureau
de la Chambre (16351669), physician to Louis XIV, in Saint-Eustache at
Paris (Fig. 13).17 Immortality is represented holding a medallion portrait of the
deceased.18 The Cureau tomb was executed by the Frenchified Roman
sculptor Jean-Baptiste Tuby (16351700); there are some similarities, in the
treatment of the drapery of the allegory and the hair of the portrait, which
suggest that Tuby might also have made the Ses bust.
Above all, I would emphasize the confirmatory evidence the Ses sculpture provides for the conceptual development between the Corsini drawing
and the version in Norfolk. While the unprecedented allusion within the
Salvator Mundi theme to Christ as intercessor was included from the outset, the horizontal glance and declamatory gesture of the Ses bust are distinctly extroverted; one modern observer understandably described the figure as teaching.19 The upward glance and reversed turn of the hand in the
Norfolk sculpture, by contrast, introduce a note of visionary withdrawal
and exaltation. I can think of no clearer insight into the tendency of
Berninis mind as he approached the end.
* * *
16
Brauer and Wittkower had suggested, and I doubted (Berninis Death, 172, n. 49),
that the head on the Corsini drawing was a later addition copied from the final work.
Perhaps the solution is that the head was added, to show Cureau how it would be.
17
The work was long at Versailles, but has recently been returned to Saint-Eustache.
According to another tradition, explicitly denied by M. Piganiol de la Force (Description de
Paris, 8 vols., Paris, 1742, III, 7), the design was by Le Brun (H. Jouin, Charles Le Brun et
les arts sous Louis XIV, Paris, 1889, 253 f, 615 f ). Cf. also E.-T. Hamy, Note sur un mdaillon de J.-B. Tuby reprsentant le portrait de M. Cureau de la Chambre, dmonstrateur au
Jardin Royal (16351669), Bulletin au Musum dhistoire naturelle, I, 1895, 22932; E.
Souli, Notice du muse national de Versailles, 3 vols., Paris, 188081, II, 67.
On Cureau father and son, see R. Kerviler, Marin et Pierre Cureau de la Chambre
(15931693), Le Mans, 1887, esp. 101, 118 f, 124 ff. On Cureaus artistic relations generally, cf. Kerviler, 127 f; he commissioned Pugets relief of St. Charles Borromeo at the Plague,
in Marseilles (K. Herding, Pierre Puget, Berlin, 1970, 198 f ).
18
On the tomb type, see R. Wittkower, Art and Architecture in Italy 1600 to 1750,
Harmondsworth, 1965, 294 f.
19
R. Gobillot, La cathdrale de Ses, Paris, 1937, 87.
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366
On the attitude toward death in the period generally, a valuable contribution will be found in M. Costanzo, Il Gran teatro del mondo, Milan,
1964, 47 ff, Pt. II, Mors victa.
In discussing Berninis drawing in Leipzig of the intercession of Christ
and the Virgin20 I overlooked two important contributions to the early
development of the theme, the study by M. Meiss, An Early Altarpiece
from the Cathedral of Florence, Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art,
n.s., XII, 1954, 30217, and the extensive list of examples given by F. Zeri,
Italian Painting. A Catalogue of the Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of
Art. Florentine School, New York, 1971, 58 f; some later examples are discussed in B. Knipping, De Iconographie van de Contra-reformatie in de
Nederlanden, 2 vols., Hilversum, 193940, II, 34 ff.
Concerning the group of drawings by Baciccio related to Berninis
Sangue di Cristo composition, which B. Canestro Chiovenda, seconded by
myself, associated with Baciccios unexecuted decoration for the vestibule of
the Baptismal Chapel in Saint Peters,21 see now H. Macandrew, II.
Baciccios Later Drawings: A Rediscovered Group acquired by the
Ashmolean Museum, Master Drawings, X, 1972, 253 ff.
In considering the sources and meaning of the bust of Louis XIV and
the pedestal Bernini intended for it, which included a terrestrial globe with
the words Picciola basa, I referred to the kings impresa appearing on a
medal of 1664.22 This showed the sun rising over a terrestrial globe with the
motto Nec Pluribus Impar (not unequal to many).23 My emphasis was
upon the visual analogy, but since discovering Ernst Kantorowiczs genial
study of the theme represented by Louiss device, Oriens Augusti Lever du
Roi, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, XVII, 1963, 117177, esp. 165 ff, it has
become plain to me that Berninis motto, too, was an allusion to that of the
king: this world is small for Louis, who is great enough to rule many.
Concerning the apparent weightlessness of the bust, suspended above the
globe by the wind-blown drapery, a passage in Domenico Berninis biography of his father documents the sculptors intention in this respect: Gli
Berninis Death, 169 ff, Fig. 3.
Ibid., 169, n. 32.
22
Ibid., 180, n. 68. A medal with the device bearing the date 1662 is reproduced in
C.-F. Menestrier, La devise du Roi justife, Paris, 1679, 30.
23
C. W. Faber, Symbol und Devise Ludwigs XIV., Mlhausen, 1878 (Staedtische
Gewerbeschule zu Mlhausen, Programm No. 427, Beilage).
20
21
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Page 15
13. J.-B. Tuby, Tomb of Marin Cureau de la Chambre, Paris, Saint-Eustache

(photo: Runion des Muses Nationaux, Paris).
367
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Page 16
368
14. Antique base of the

Colonna Claudius, restored
by Orfeo Boselli. Madrid,
Museo del Prado
(photo: Museo del Prado).
15. 17th-century
pedestal of the
Colonna Claudius
(detail).
Madrid, Museo
del Prado
(photo: Museo del
Prado).
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Page 17
369
sopravvenne allora da Roma un bel concetto dingegnoso Poeta, che in

questi pochi versi volle lodar lArtefice, lEffigiato, e lOpera.
Entrl Bernin in un pensier profondo
Per far al Regio Busto un bel sostegno,
E disse, non trovandone alcum degno,
Piccola base a un tal Monarca il Mondo,
e il Bernino incontanente rispose con ammirazione, e lode del R, e della
Corte:
Mai mi sovvenne quel pensier profondo
Per far di R s grande appoggio degno:
Van sarebbe il pensier, che di sostegno
Non h bisogno, chi sostiene il Mondo.24
(It never entered my head to give so great a king a worthy base; the
notion is vain, for he whom the world sustains needs no support.)
Jennifer Montagu of the Warburg Institute reminded me that the
Colonna Claudius now in the Prado, to which I attributed a significant role
in the genesis of the Louis XIV, was restored by the sculptor Orfeo Boselli
(Fig. 14).25 Boselli mentions the fact in his manuscript treatise Osservationi
della Scultura Antica.26 Although he does not say so, Boselli may also have
Vita del Cav. Giovan. Lorenzo Bernino, Rome, 1713, 136 f.

Berninis Death, 180 f. On Boselli see the excellent entry by G. Casadei in Dizionario
biografico degli italiani, Rome, 1960 ff, XIII, 240 f; also F. Martinelli, Roma ornata dallarchitettura, pittura, e scoltura (ed. C. DOnofrio, Roma nel Seicento, Rome, 1969, index, s.v.);
A. Pugliese and S. Rigano, Martino Lunghi il giovane architetto, in Architettura barocca a
Roma (Biblioteca di storia dellarte, VI), Rome, 1972, 180, index, s.v.
26
Bibl. Corsini, Rome, MS 36. F. 27, fol. 172r. Boselli also notes that he wrote a discourse on the significance of the work.
Cf. M. Piacentini, Le Osservationi della Scoltura Antica di Orfeo Boselli, Bollettino del
Reale Istituto di Archeologia e Storia dellArte, IX, 1939, 6, n. 3; P. D. Weil, Contributions
towards a History of Sculpture Techniques: I. Orfeo Boselli on the Restoration of Antique
Sculpture, Studies in Conservation, XII, 1967, 87, 97, n. 11.
24
25
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370
been responsible for the elaborate pedestal (Fig. 15) with eagles at the corners, relief landscapes representing cities, and phoenixes looking up toward
radiant emblems of the zodiac.27
On the pedestal cf. J. Villaamil y Castro, Grupo de mrmol conocido por la Apotosis
de Cludio que se conserva en el Museo Nacional de Pintura y Escultura, Museo Espaol de
Antigedades, V, 1875, 39 ff. We may add that the image of the phoenix looking toward the
zodiac recalls an emblem of the eagle gazing at the sun in G. Ruscellis
Le imprese illustri, Venice, 1566 (cf. F. A. Yates, The Emblematic Conceit in Giordano
Brunos De Gli Eroici Furori and in the Elizabethan Sonnet Sequences, Journal of the
Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, VI, 1943, 106) which, incidentally, appears as a religious
symbol on the balustrade of the altar of the Sacrament in San Giovanni in Laterano.
27
Lavin VIII. Revised:CHAPTER 25
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VIII
Letter to the Editor on a Review by Howard

Hibbard of Bernini and the Crossing
of St. Peters
OWARD Hibbards review of recent books on Roman Baroque architecture (The Art Bulletin, LV, March, 1973, 127135), which
included my monograph on the Crossing of Saint Peters, leaves an impression of the history of the baldachin that I fear may be misleading to the
casual reader. He writes (pages 128 f.):
Berninis design, preserved in the medal of 1626, in a sense contains almost no absolutely new elements: four angels, standing on twisted
columns, hold a baldachin. Over the whole are crossed ribs supporting
a figure of the Risen Christ. The ribs reflect Early Christian ciborium
designs. If the idea of bronze twisted columns was Madernos or at
least if it was an idea formulated under Paul V and if the idea of a
hanging that does not touch the columns or their cornice was also
Madernos, not much remains apart from the topmost statue and the
scale to attribute to Bernini but of course Madernos design may not
have looked anything like the medal of 1626. In the project of 1626 the
intimate combination of a ciborium with a permanent baldachin, apparently unprecedented, may be a reflection of the project reported by
Borromini [i.e., Madernos]. If one tries to envisage the Maderno project now, one inevitably sees such a combination thanks to the later
developments. And that is where we seem to be left.
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372
From all we now know of the pre-history of the baldachin, the fact remains that at least five revolutionary concepts appeared only after Bernini
entered the picture. Firstly, there is not the slightest evidence that Maderno
or anyone else had thought of true columns for the supports in a baldachin;
execution in bronze made it possible to preserve the tradition of twisted
columns in a monument of colossal scale. Secondly, the same may be said
for the angels who stand on the columns and carry the canopy by ribbons
(as, later, the Fathers of the Church sustain the Cathedra Petri by ribbons);
they work to link the architecture to the hanging. Thirdly, the same may be
said for connecting the columns by a cornice from which tasselled lappets
fall, a solution that actually preceded the 1626 medal (see further below);
this was also crucial to the ultimate fusion of the elements. Fourthly, the
same may be said for the basic point of the monument as a whole, which
is a new species comprising an architectural ciborium, a hanging canopy
and a processional baldachin; it is thus a kind of summa of the three main
honorific forms. All these features the baldachin-with-columns, the cornice-canopy, the carrying angels and the triune species are specifically
referred to Bernini in the criticisms of Agostino Ciampelli, who called his
design a chimera. Fifthly, the same may be said for the idea of imitating the
Early Christian form of the monument with open crossed ribs resting on
spiral columns, an allusion that became fundamental to the imagery of the
crossing.
Because its implications are relevant to the foregoing statements, I take
this opportunity to add a new piece that helps fill a large gap in the baldachin
puzzle. This is a temporary thalamus built by Orazio Torriani for the procession at Santa Maria sopra Minerva on the Feast of the Rosary (October 5)
in 1625, recorded in a description and an engraving (Fig. 1).1 It was over
My attention was first called to this work by the librarian at the Minerva, Benedetto
Cardieri O. P. See A. Brandi, Trionfo della gloriosissima Vergine del Santissimo Rosario celebrato
in Roma la prima Domenica dOttobre dell Anno Santo MDCXXV . . ., Rome, 1625, 5658,
ill. page 61 (copy in the Biblioteca Vittorio Emanuele, Rome). I quote the description in extenso: Prima bisogn pensare fabricare vn nobilissimo Talamo, che fusse come il carro
trionfale, in cui doueua portarsi limagine della Vergine, & essendo in Roma il Sig. Oratio
Torriani Architetto militare, & ciuile di S. M. Catolica, molto principale, adoperato
daSignori Cardinali, & da altri Prencipi, dal Sig. D. Carlo Barberino gli f commesso il disegno di questo Talamo, qual fece veramente ingegnoso, curioso, & vago. Era il Talamo
dordine Ionico, alto palmi trentadue, & mezo, & a proportione largo sedici, & haueua
nequattro angoli quattro basi, piedestalli alto palmi sei, & mezo, & di sopra quattro
colonne di rilieuo ritorte foggia di quelle del Tempio di Salomone, che hoggi si vedono
1
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LETTER TO THE EDITOR
1. Orazio Torriani, Thalamus for the Feast of the Rosary, 1625,

engraving (from A. Brandi, Trionfi . . ., Rome, 1625, 61).
373
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374
seven metres high and consisted of a perforated, ribbed cupola resting on

spiral columns imitating those at Saint Peters. Angels stood on the columns
and at the apex, and tasselled flaps hung from the entablature between the
columns. Torrianis design confirms the other evidence I cited to show that
the cornice-canopy device, which was preserved in the final version of the
baldachin, existed from the outset of planning under Urban VIII. In
particular, it reflects the project for the baldachin shown in an engraving of
Berninis decorations at Saint Peters for the canonization of Elizabeth of
Portugal in March, 1625 (Fig. 30 in my book, and on p. 90 above). A
significant difference is that whereas Torriani hung the flaps from the
architrave, Bernini boldly used them in place of both architrave and frieze.
With this confirmation of the priority of the cornice-canopy solution
the whole development of the baldachin becomes much clearer. It may be
summarized as follows. From early in Paul Vs reign, when it was decided
to separate the high altar from the tomb of the apostles, models of two contrasting types had been juxtaposed so as to complement each other: a
baldachin with staves over the tomb in the crossing, and a domed ciborium
(incorporating the twisted columns from the mediaeval sanctuary) at the
high altar in the choir. Later in Pauls reign Maderno introduced another,
capitello, dordine pur Ionico alto vn palmo, & mezo con suoi festoni, & voluti tutto messo
a oro, & sopra le quattro colonne recorreua vnarchitraue daltezza vn palmo, e vn quarto,
nel quale erano attaccati i pendoni a vso di baldachino dipinti con rose, & api che sono limpresa dell Eccellentissima fameglia Barberina, che dauano mirabil gratia a tutto il Talamo.
Sopra i quattro architraui veniua alzata in luogo di cupola vna bellissima corona imperiale
fatta alla grande, daltezza di palmi otto, & mezo, con sue costole inarcate, che andauano ad
vnirsi tutte insieme nella sommit. Era contornata tutta la corona di gioie, & di perle grosse
vnoncia, e meza lvna, & le gioie erano ouate, tonde, quadre, & a ottangoli, contornate doro
buono, & colorite di colore di smeraldi, di topazzi, carbonchi, giacinti, & diamanti, coperte
di talco per renderle pi lustre, che faceuano ricca, & superba mostra. Nella corona fra vna
costola, & laltra veniua posta con molto magistero vna tocca di finissimo argento fatta a
gelosia, con rose incarnate, rosse, & bianche di seta, & di cambrai negli scompartimenti, &
legature della mandola di detta tocca. Sopra le quattro colonne nequattro cantoni erano
quattro Angeli di rilieuo in piedi alti palmi tre, e mezo lvno, con le lorali, trauisati di tocca
dargento turchina, che teneuano da vna mano vna mappa grande di rose, & fior alla lor
grandezza proportionata, dallaltra rosari, e corone. Nella sommit in mezo a detta corona,
& cupola era vnAngelo dellistessa grandezza in atto di volare con vna mano piena di rose,
& laltra di corone, & di rosari, che parcua gli volesse gettare al popolo, & che linuitasse a
pigliarle.
Cf. G. Mazzuchelli, Gli scrittori dItalia, 2 Vols. in 6, Brescia, 175363, II, Pt. 4, 2010;
G. Ricciotti, ed., Giacinto Gigli, Diario romano, Rome, 1958, 8891.
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LETTER TO THE EDITOR
375
quite distinct tradition, that of the ceremonial cover suspended from above;
at the high altar he suggested hanging a canopy above twisted columns carrying an entablature, but with no contact between them. Urban VIII then
resolved finally to keep the tomb and high altar together, and gave the job
to Bernini. Berninis first proposal (as shown in the canonization engraving)
was to create a coherent monument by merging baldachin and ciborium
with each other and with the Early Christian prototype. The reference to
the central portion of the earliest, Constantinian shrine was accurate, and
the mixed marriage of types was complete. The union was sutured by the
cornice-canopy, and the result was a mysterious, hybrid creature. The next
stage was that shown in the medal of 1626. This was a merger of Madernos
project with Berninis initial design, motivated no doubt by the syntactical
criticisms levelled at the first version. The cornice between the columns was
eliminated and the canopy was suspended above the architecture; the angels
now provided a logical link by standing on the former and holding up the
latter. A new hybrid was created between hanging canopy and ciborium.
The final version was in turn a conflation of Berninis 1626 solution with
his original project, motivated this time by the practical objection we know
was raised, that the columns might give way under the weight of the figure
of Christ. The load was lightened by substituting the globe and cross, the
number of ribs was increased to add support, and their shape was changed
to verticalize the thrusts. But en revanche, the cornice-canopy was reintroduced to serve as ties between the columns. The contradiction in terms
inherent in the motif was resolved, or rather deliberately expressed through
the ambiguous task the angels now perform: they hold garlands that simply
disappear between the ribs and the cornice. The monument thus became
equally stable, logical and mysterious. So Bernini was able to eat Madernos
cake and have his own too.2
2
Incidentally, this interpretation, including Berninis ultimate return to his earliest design, helps to explain the latest in the series of his preserved sketches for the crown of the
baldachin (H. Brauer and R. Wittkower, Die Zeichnungen des Gianlorenzo Bernini, Berlin,
1931, Pl. 8). Here the ribs have virtually their final shape and the cornice-canopy runs between the columns. But the angels perform no task and the ribs are draped with ribbons, as
in the first project.
Lavin IX. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap VI
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IX
Calculated Sponteneity.
Bernini and the Terracotta Sketch
F all the treasures in the Fogg Museum perhaps the rarest and the richest is the series of clay preparatory sketches, or bozzetti, by the great
Roman baroque sculptor Gianlorenzo Bernini (15981680). Bernini was
over eighty when he died and he was extremely prolific; along with a continuous stream of drawings, he must have made many hundreds of these
small and fragile terracottas, of which only some forty survive. The Fogg has
by far the largest and most important collection, with fifteen pieces by the
Master. Since they cover nearly the whole of Bernini's creative life and
include instances of multiple studies for the same project, they offer a unique
opportunity to follow the generative process that yielded his famous sculptures in marble and bronze. Their main interest, however, lies not in their
rarity, nor yet in the insights they provide into the sequence of Bernini's
visual ideas. Rather, it is their quality as works of art that primarily commands attention, and this for one reason above all others their astonishing freshness and spontaneity. Not only do the figures represented act with
profound emotion and vivacious movement, the clay itself is worked with
the fingers and modelling tools in deft touches and rapid strokes that record
the artist's handiwork, literally for he left his finger-prints everywhere
as well as figuratively. They bespeak a kind of perfervid creative energy that
is virtually without parallel in the history of sculpture.1
1
The Fogg terracottas were first published by R. Norton, Bernini and Other Studies,
1914, pp. 4449; Bernini's models were the subject of a dissertation by the writer (The
Bozzetti of Gianlorenzo Bernini, 1955), who is preparing a critical corpus of these works for
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CALCULATED SPONTANEITY
377
The Bernini bozzetti are part of a group of twenty-seven models purchased by the Museum in 1937 from Mrs. Edward Brandegee of Brookline,
Massachusetts, whose husband had bought them in 1905 from Giovanni
Piancastelli, along with a portion of Piancastelli's large collection of Italian
baroque drawings.2 Piancastelli (18451926) was a well-known painter and
collector who was then Director of the Borghese Gallery in Rome. When
and where he obtained the terracottas is a mystery. The chances are that he
had not owned them for long when he sold them to the Brandegees: a major
exhibition of Bernini's work was held in Rome in 1899, which included a
number of Piancastelli's drawings; but none of the models is mentioned in
the reviews of the show, nor do any of them appear in the large biography
of Bernini published by Stanislao Fraschetti in 1900. They must have surfaced not long afterwards, and very probably as a group, since it is difficult
to imagine their being assembled from disparate sources in such a relatively
short period.
Piancastelli is known to have acquired the entire contents of artists'
studios from their heirs. Perhaps they had been brought together by some
previous collector, but it is tempting to suppose that those by Bernini had
always been together and that they originally came from the artist's own
studio. In the inventory of Bernini's possessions taken in 1681, shortly after
his death, it is in fact noted that a large number of such models were found
in the attic studio of the house; a second inventory taken in 1706 records
that many of the models had in the meantime been destroyed, but also that
a number of them had been given to the artist's favourite assistant in his
later years, the sculptor Giulio Cartari.3 It seems a fair guess that Cartari's
publication. Frequently discussed in the specialized Bernini literature,they are also noted in
the catalogue of the standard monograph on his sculptures by R. Wittkower, Gian Lorenzo
Bernini. The Sculptor of the Roman Baroque, 1966.
2
Piancastelli's drawings, later reunited, are now in the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, New
York.
3
'Nel d.o studio vi sono alcune quantit di teste di gesso et altre parti humane con alcuni
modelli di creta' (27 January, 1681); Rome, Archivio di Stato, Not. A.C. Mazzeschus,
Istrumenti, Busta 4246, fol. 501 verso.
'Nelli soffitti di sopra, in una vi una quantit di modelli di creta della b. m. del Sg.r Cav.re
. . . et altre robbe ...per la casa di poco valore, q.li robbe, cio modelli di creta col trasportarli in
altre stanze, e per il tempo di anni 25. si sono rotti . . .' (17 January, 1706); ibid., Not. A. C.
Francischinus, Istrumenti, Busta 3249, fol. 78 recto.
'Nel d.o studio vi erano alcune teste di gesso, et altre parti humane con alcuni modelli di creta
mezzi rotti, quali tutti per esser stati trasportati in guardaroba, si sono rotti, e
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collection formed at least the nucleus of that now in the Fogg; this would
offer a plausible explanation for the unique character of the group its
size, its wide chronological range and its inclusion of several studies for individual projects.
Although the making of models in preparation for works in sculpture
might seem to be a natural, and is in fact a very ancient practice, it does not
by any means enjoy a continuous history.4 Many Egyptian sculptors'
models are preserved, and the use of models in classical antiquity is amply
documented. In the Middle Ages, however, the practice was replaced by the
method commonly described as 'direct carving', that is, the work was conceived and executed simultaneously, as it were, without advanced preparation of this sort; the creative process, born of a millennial craft tradition,
was unified, internal and automatic. The sculptural model was reborn in
the Renaissance, when it acquired new forms and vitality it had never had
before. Its reappearance, both as an integral part of the sculptor's working
procedure and as an aesthetically appreciated art object, went hand in hand
with the emergence of a coherent theory of the creative process itself. In the
sixteenth century elaborate treatises, notably by Vasari and Benvenuto
Cellini, lay considerable stress upon successive stages in the preparation of
a work, and directions for making a sequence of models are set forth in
detail. From the same period, and beginning especially with Michelangelo,
various model-types are preserved which correspond more or less with these
prescriptions: the small, rapidly executed bozzetto; the more carefully finished intermediate study; and the full-scale model of which the final work
is essentially the duplicate in a permanent material. Paradoxically, therefore,
the record of the artist's spontaneous creative activity emerged as the
creative process itself became more discrete, external and deliberate.
While obviously rooted in this heritage, Bernini's models differ from
those of his predecessors in a variety of ways. One of these is in their number. Even the most stringent count leaves far more extant by him than by
spezzati, e non vi sono piu, e qualche portione ne fu donato al Sig.r Giulio Cardare allievo del
Sig.r Cav.re per esser cose di poco rilievo'; ibid., fol. 67 recto (published by S. Fraschetti,
Il Bernini, 1900, p. 431 n.).
4
For what follows see the writer's essay, Bozetti and Modelli. Notes on Sculptural
Procedure from the Early Renaissance through Bernini', in Akten des 21. internationalen
Kongresses fr Kunstgeschichte (1964), 1967, pp. 93104 The Standard collection of
sixteentheighteenth century examples is that of A. E. Brinckmann, Barock-Bozetti, 4 vols.
192325. For a general Survey of the history of sculptural procedure, see recently R.
Wittkower, Sculpture, Processes and Principles, 1977.
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any previous sculptor; and to judge from the report of a contemporary witness who was astonished to see in Bernini's studio no fewer than twentytwo small models for the figure of St. Longinus (the one now in the Fogg,
the only one preserved, may have been among them),5 there can be little
doubt that he actually produced many more such studies than had been
customary.
Other notable features of Bernini's preparatory sculptures concern their
physical character, that is, their relative scale, material and degree of finish.
Except under certain special conditions largely external to the imaginative
process when a try-out of the projected work was called for, when it was
to be submitted to a patron, when it was to serve as a prototype for execution by assistants or when it was to be cast in bronze Bernini seems to
have largely foregone the earlier system of bringing the work to completion
through stages of increasing scale and precision. To an unprecedented
degree, the small, rapidly executed terracotta sketch was his characteristic
instrument of creation in three dimensions. His preference for clay, which
may be worked rapidly but soon dries out, also contrasts with the frequent
earlier use of wax, which remains soft but must be laboriously modelled.
There are concomitant differences in technique from prior tradition.
Earlier models were generally built up by adding material and working with
the fingers, modelling tools being used to help achieve a relatively uniform
surface. Bernini continued to work partly in this way, but mainly he
gouged, scraped, poked and clawed away from a mound of clay, as if it were
a block of stone that had somehow become malleable, creating infinitely
more varied effects. Bernini's bozzetti are also novel in that they are normally worked only from one side. Heretofore, the sculptor's model was
almost always executed 'in-the-round', with the back as fully developed as
the front. The final works for which they were made were conceived to be
seen from all sides; indeed, one of the great achievements of the sixteenth
century was precisely this kind of sculptural self-sufficiency. By contrast,
Bernini's sculptures have a dominant viewpoint, and he tended to leave the
backs of his models rough, sometimes finishing them off into a smooth
pillar of clay that sufficed to buttress the figure.
5
Cf. J. von Sandrart, Teutsche Academie, Nrnberg, 1675, ed. A. Peltzer, 1925, p. 286
Sandrart notes that other sculptors made only one or two models. He mentions that the
studies were all three spans high (c. 68cm.) and made of wax; the material seems doubtful,
since this would be the unique instance of Bernini studying in wax.
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The sum of all these innovations is again paradoxical. On the one hand
it is clear that Bernini greatly increased the absolute quantity of preparation
for a work in sculpture, in the specific sense of trying out and rejecting
ideas in three dimensions. On the other, it is also evident that he did all
he could to 'streamline' the creative mechanism, reducing every aspect of
conception and manufacture to the barest minimum. His goal in this twofold method can only be understood from the relation of the models to the
finished products.
Among the earliest and most important of the Fogg terracottas is that for
the colossal marble figure of St. Longinus which the artist made in the 1630s
and '40s for one of the niches in the piers that support the dome of St. Peter's
in Rome (Fig. 1). The model documents the birth of one of Bernini's most
revolutionary conceptions a figure with both arms outstretched, and
therefore in utter defiance of the self-contained silhouette and closed form
that had been conventional for the monumental standing figure in marble.
The work alludes to the Roman centurion's sudden conversion at the
moment when he pierced the side of Christ on the Cross with his lance. The
event itself is not represented, however; instead, Bernini created an ideal
moment of self-realization in the crucifixion, to which the saint bore double
witness, as it were, through his actual participation and ultimately through
his own martyrdom. The shield and helmet at Longinus's feet refer to his
subsequent rejection of his violent worldly profession in favour of the religious life of peace. The pose not only imitates the crucifixion, but everything
in the composition strains upward in great, sweeping diagonals toward the
cross that was placed atop the baldachino over the high altar. Technically the
study is unusual among those remaining by Bernini. It is 52.7 cm. high,
rather larger in scale than the very small sketches, which average around 30
cm., it is smoothly finished and gilt, with the texture of the armour carefully
indicated by little pin-pricks; and it is hollowed at the back for firing (the
others must have been lightly baked, but would have cracked under very
high temperatures). All this indicates that the model had a special purpose;
perhaps Bernini used it to demonstrate his novel idea for the figure to the
governing body of the works at St. Peter's.
Another unusual model type is represented by the life-size (35.7 cm. high)
head of a bearded old man, which is a study for the marble figure of St.
Jerome Bernini executed during 166163 for the chapel of Pope Alexander
VII in the cathedral of Siena (Fig. 2). The lowered eyelids and open mouth
express the saint's utter devotion to the small crucifix he holds close to his
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1. St. Longinus, 163031. Terracotta, height 52.7 cm.

Cambridge, Fogg Art Museum, 1937.51.
381
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382
2. Head of St. Jerome,

c. 1661. Terracotta,
height 35.7 cm.
Cambridge, Fogg Art
Museum 1937.77.
4. Angel with the Inscription,

166768. Terracotta, height
28.3 cm. Cambridge, Fogg
Art Museum, 1937.69.
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3. Angel with the Crown of Thorns, 166869. Marble, over life-size.

Church of SantAndrea delle Fratte, Rome.
383
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5. Angel with the Inscription, 166768. Terracotta, height 29.2 cm.

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6. Angel with the Crown of Thorns, 166768. Terracotta, height 33.7 cm.
385
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386
7. Angel with the Crown of

Thorns, 166768.
Terracotta, height 44.5 cm.
Cambridge, Fogg Art
Museum, 1937.57.
8. Angel for the Sacrament Altar,

1673. Terracotta,
height 29.2 cm.
Cambridge, Fogg Art
Museum, 1937.66.
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9. Angel for the Sacrament Altar,

1673. Terracotta,
height 29 cm.
Cambridge, Fogg Art
Museum, 1937.62.
10. Angel for the Sacrament

Altar, 1673. Terracotta,
height 28.5 cm.
Cambridge, Fogg Art
Museum, 1937.64.
387
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388

height 34 cm.
Cambridge, Fogg Art
Museum, 1937.63.

height 34 cm.
Cambridge, Fogg Art
Museum, 1937.63.
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cheek in the final work. From a technical standpoint it is one of the richest of
all the studies, displaying in a kind of close-up view the subtly modulated
shapes and myriad textures Bernini achieved with his fingers and tools of different sorts not only the forms themselves but also highlights and shadows, even the tonal values of colours. This is especially evident in his use of
the toothed rasp: fine parallel lines evoke the feel and sheen of hair in the
beard, eyebrows, etc., as well as the reddening of the skin at the cheek-bone;
a stroke of a coarser rasp gives life to the depression at the left temple. Bernini
was acutely aware of the inherent colourlessness of sculpture and emphasized,
particularly in the matter of portraits, that it was often necessary to distort
natural form in order to render the effect of a change in hue. The Fogg terracotta is not a portrait, but the relationship is pertinent since, so far as we
know, it was only in preparing for portrait busts that Bernini modelled separate studies of the head from life. The work belongs in another context, as
well. Artists' studios at this period were filled with sculptural fragments of the
human anatomy such as hands, feet and heads; but mostly these were pieces
or casts from earlier sculptures, usually antiques, which served as reminders
and as examples to be copied by aspiring apprentices. The Fogg model is the
earliest monumental study-head that has come down to us, and as such it
anticipates the deliberately fragmentary portraits of Rodin.
The chief pride of the collection are the two series of studies for angels,
one standing, the other kneeling. The four standing figures form part of
Bernini's personal contribution to a project of the late 1660s in which,
under his general supervision the balustrades of a bridge across the Tiber
leading to the Holy City were decorated with ten over life-size statues in
marble of angels carrying the instruments of the Passion. Bernini's basic
conceit was to represent the figures as if they had just alighted from the blue
sky against which they are seen, bearing their mementos of Christ's sufferings. Bernini initially executed two angels, those carrying the inscription on
the cross and the crown of thorns; they were regarded as too fine to be
installed on the bridge and are now to be seen in the church of Sant' Andrea
della Fratte (Fig. 3). An assistant's copy of the angel with the crown was
installed on the bridge, along with a second version of the angel with the
inscription by Bernini himself. The Fogg possesses two models for the first
version of the angel with the inscription (Figs. 4, 5) and two for the angel
with the crown (Figs. 6 and 7),6 while several more are preserved in other
One of the Fogg bozetti (1937.68), sometimes identified with the angel with the crown, is
actually a study by Bernini for the angel with the scourge, which was executed by another sculptor.
6
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collections. The studies of these ethereal figures swathed in weightless

draperies document in extraordinary detail Bernini's development of a
complex counterpoint of forms and emotions to suggest the cruel irony of
the mock-regal insignia imposed on the King of Kings.
The pose of the angel with the inscription was established at the outset
and remained essentially unchanged. The main evolution in this figure took
place in the treatment of the drapery, which initially fell in long undulating
curves but became more voluminous, more deeply undercut and more complicated. This difference has its counter-part in the handling of the material; in the earlier of the two bozzetti a narrow scoop was used to gash deep
furrows with sharp, linear edges, while in that which followed the folds are
rounder and more softly modelled. The nude study of the angel with the
crown represents an early stage in the planning, where Bernini conceived of
the two figures almost as mirror images.
Ever since the Renaissance it had been common practice for artists to
study in the nude the disposition of figures intended eventually to be
draped. For the most part, however, such studies were fleeting sketches
which served to establish the action of the figure, rather than the physique
itself. Bernini's terracotta, instead, is a highly developed and delicately finished essay on the male nude in which there is a subtle consonance
between soft, ephebic flesh and a twisting, unstable pose.(The even, slightly
granular surface was produced by brushing on a thin coat of watered clay.)
Subsequently, the pose shifts, so that while the upper parts of the bodies and
the draperies at the legs remain mirror images, the stances of the figures
become parallel. The proportions become lither and more angular and,
while the drapery retains a strong linear component, the swinging movement of the nude acquires a distinct forward thrust. The figure now strides
toward the spectator in order to display his emblem; in comparison the
angel with the inscription seems retiring. By their complementary but contrasting natures these twin invaders from another world characterize the
messages they bear the aggressiveness of the one expressing the physical
pain of the crown of thorns, the inward withdrawal of the other, the moral
and intellectual wound inflicted by the taunting inscription.
The Fogg's series of five kneeling angels preserves successive steps in the
development of one of Bernini's last major undertakings (167374), an
altar for St. Peter's surmounted by bronze figures with a container to
honour the Holy Sacrament. Such altars had a long tradition, which
included as a kind of reliquary for the Host, an architectural tabernacle
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alluding to the sepulchre of Christ and adoring angels. Since the

Reformation the motif had become a veritable triumph of the Eucharist,
with the angels shown carrying the tabernacle aloft in exaltation. Bernini's
first project, for which there are two bozzetti (Fig. 8), was based on this idea.
The angels were to half-kneel on the altar, one hand holding a candlestick,
the other lifting a round tempietto, its dome topped by a cross signifying
the dominion of the Church. The open gestures, the transitory poses and
the sweeping masses of loosely modelled drapery, present the mystery of the
Eucharist as a momentary action, a miraculous elevation of the Host.
In the final work, for which there are three bozzetti (Figs. 9, 10 and 11),
a radical transformation took place.The tabernacle rests directly on the altar
and the cross is replaced by a figure of Christ rising from His tomb, an
explicit reference to the Holy Sepulchre. The angels now crouch on both
knees and once again adore the Sacrament, although in distinctive ways.
One, completely self-absorbed, inclines his head inward and down toward
the altar, hands joined together in prayer; the other looks out toward the
approaching worshipper while pressing his crossed hands to his breast in
supplication. The arrangement is thus no longer transitory and visionary
but stable and devotional. These changes from the first project signify a fundamental shift in emphasis, from the triumph of the Eucharist to a much
older theme that was revived with new urgency in the CounterReformation, that of the real and abiding presence of the body of Christ in
the Host.
A related alteration occurs in the treatment of the angels' draperies.
These no longer reflect a mechanical action, but seem to envelop the
bodies with streaks and flashes of pure energy the power of faith.
Especially in the second study for the praying angel (Fig. 10), the forms
seem dissolved by a pattern of striations on the surface and jagged scoops in
depth; yet each craggy and seemingly chaotic shape appears in the final
work as a lucid fold of material. The feverish excitement conveyed by these
late terracottas is the more to be wondered at because one of them bears the
traces of an unprecedented method of control that helped ensure accurate
transfer of the qualities of the study to the final work: at the side of the base
of the angel with crossed hands is a series of parallel incisions marking equal
intervals (Fig. 12). Bernini was apparently the first sculptor to provide his
models with such measured scales to serve in the system of proportional
enlargement. He left nothing to chance. Indeed, Bernini's finished sculptures seem so inspired and unpremeditated that one grasps the paradox of
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his painstaking yet efficient procedure.Through it he succeeded in all but

eliminating the difference between bozzetto and final execution.
On the Pedestal of Berninis Bust of the Savior
N an essay on Berninis death and the art he made in preparation for it,
I stressed the significance of the monumental support he designed for his
last work, the great marble bust of the Savior, now in the Chrysler Museum
at Norfolk, Virginia.1 The pedestal is described in an early inventory as consisting of a socle surmounted by two kneeling angels who held in their
hands a base of Sicilian jasper, on which the bust itself rested. The socle and
angels, made of gilt wood, were nearly two meters high, the jasper base was
28 cm. high and 50 cm. wide at the bottom, and the bust is 93 cm. high,
for a total of more than three meters. In a footnote I expressed puzzlement
as to how the weight of an over lifesize marble bust was sustained in the
hands of wooden angels.
I recently obtained a photograph of a splendid black chalk drawing in
the Bernini codex in the Museum der bildenden Knste (Fig. 2), which is
clearly an autograph study for the pair of kneeling angels and was no doubt
executed in conjunction with the famous sketch for the bust in the
Gabinetto delle Stampe in Rome (Fig.1).2 Although we still have no direct
1
Bernini's Death, Art Bulletin, LIV, 1972, 15886, cf. 171 ff; also, Afterthoughts on
Bernini's Death, ibid., LV, 1973, 429436.
2
151 x 188 mm. I am indebted for their kindness to Prof. Dr. Ernst Ullmann of Leipzig
University, to Prof. Dr. Gerhard Winkler, Director of the Leipzig Museum, and to KarlHeinz Mehnert, Curator of the drawing collection. The drawing is noted, without identification and as a workshop piece, in H. Brauer and R. Wittkower, Die Zeichnungen des
Gianlorenzo Bernini, Berlin, 1931, 172, n. 2.
The Rome drawing measures 171 x 254 mm. The sketches are reproduced here in proportion to their actual sizes.
394
1. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Study for the Bust of the Savior, drawing.

Rome, Gabinetto Nazionale delle Stampe.
2. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Study for the upper part of the pedestal of the Bust
of the Savior, drawing. Leipzig, Museum der bildenden Knste.
ON THE PEDESTAL OF BERNINIS BUST OF THE SAVIOR
395
evidence for the lowermost part of the design, the Leipzig sketch makes several important contributions to our understanding of Berninis conception.
The problem of supporting the sculpture was resolved by an ingenious
use of drapery, which envelops the angels arms and hands and falls in loose
vertical folds to the socle below. The device should not be thought of simply as a deception; rather, in classic Berninesque fashion it makes a virtue of
necessity, incorporating the ancient tradition of covering the hands of those
who touch sacred things.3 In this case the material seems to come from the
shoulders and may have a liturgical, specifically Eucharistic import:
the humeral veil worn during Mass by the subdeacon, who uses it to hold
the paten on which the Host rests, and by the celebrant to carry the monstrance in the procession of Corpus Christi and in giving benediction with
the Holy Sacrament.4 The top of the socle may have been stepped, as in certain comparable projects of the late period,5 but the sketch suggests that its
upper surface was roughly domical; if so, it presumably referred to Mount
Calvary, above which the image of the Savior is borne in triumph. This, too,
has resonance in other works of Bernini, notably the equestrian statue of
Louis XIV, which was shown at the summit of the rocky peak of Herculean
virtue .6 The reference to the Crucifixion was echoed in the half-hidden gesture of Christs left hand, which alludes to the wound from the lance of
Saint Longinus. The base held by the angels was evidently polygonal, rather
than round or square or oblong.7 This design, unique among Berninis
busts, serves to differentiate the portrait of Christ from those of ordinary
men, and recalls the fact that the regular polygon was one of the shapes he
considered most perfect.8 Finally, extrapolating to the drawing the dimensions given for the base, one deduces that the angels and the socle must each
3
On the motive of veiled hands, see R. Hatfield, Botticellis Uffizi Adoration. A Study in
Pictorial Content, Princeton, 1976, 35 ff.
4
Cf. J. A. Jungmann, The Mass of the Roman Rite: Its Origins and Development (Missarum
Sollemnia), 2 vols., New York, etc., 195155, II, 307; J. O'Connell, The Celebration of Mass.
A Study of the Rubrics of the Roman Missal, 3 vols., Milwaukee, 194041, I, 268 f.
5
See the sketches for sacrament altars reproduced in Brauer and Wittkower,
Zeichnungen, Pls. 131a, 133.
6
Cf. R. Wittkower, The Vicissitudes of a Dynastic Monument. Bernini's Statue of
Louis XIV, in M. Meiss, ed., De Artibus Opuscula, XL. Essays in Honor of Erwin Panofsky,
New York, 1961, 497531.
7
The polygonal design of the base is reflected in that of the copy of the Savior in Ses
Cathedral (partly visible in Lavin, Afterthoughts, Fig. 2).
8
See the record of Bernini's statement in Paris in 1665, in L. Lalanne, ed., Journal du
voyage du Cavalier Bernin en France par M. De Chantelou, Paris, 1885, 167.
396
have been about a meter high. The angels would thus have appeared as lifesize adolescents; placed at eye level, they provided a direct measure of the
superhuman scale of the object they held aloft.
Lavin XI. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap VIII
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XI
High and Low Before Their Time:

Bernini and the Art of Social Satire*
ODERNISM nowadays is so closely identified with formalism that a

new social awareness, which was a fundamental aspect of the modernist movement since the late nineteenth century, is often forgotten. This
new social concern, in turn, engendered a new appreciation of popular culture, and of unsophisticated culture generally in all its manifestations. The
thoroughness of modernisms rejection of traditional cultural values, and
the intimacy of the association modernism established between that rejection and social reform, were unprecedented since the coming of
Christianity. The association, however had a long prehistory to which the
modern movement was deeply indebted, but which we tend to overlook.
We tend, instead, to think of the development of culture in Darwinian
terms, as a progressive evolution leading inexorably if not necessarily to
improvement then at least to increased sophistication and facility. The
exceptions to this principle are just that, exceptions cases in which,
owing to special circumstances, a primitive cultural state is preserved acci-
* An earlier version of this essay appeared in Lavin et al. (1981) pp. 2554. Since the
original publication, Professor Dieter Wuttke of Bamberg has kindly brought to my attention an important article by Arndt (1970), in which several of the points dealt with here are
anticipated. In particular Arndt suggests (p. 272) a similar interpretation of the sketch by
Drer discussed below. On later appreciation of childrens drawings, see Georgel (1980).
Also, my colleague John Elliott acquainted me with a remarkable sketch in which Philip IV
of Spain and his minister Olivares are crudely portrayed as Don Quixote and Sancho Panza;
but the drawing is not independent and is clearly much later than the manuscript, dated
1641, to which it was added along with a postscript (on this point I am indebted to Sandra
Sider of the Hispanic Society of America). See Elliott (1964, Pl. 19 opposite p. 344).
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dentally, as in certain remote corners of the globe; or perseveres incidentally within the domain of high culture in certain extra-, preter-, or noncultural contexts, as in the art of the untutored (popular and folk, including graffiti), of children, of the insane.1
Without presuming to challenge the biological theory of evolution as
such, my view of the matter in art-historical terms is quite different. I would
argue that man has what might be described as an unartistic heritage that
persists, whether recognized or not, alongside and notwithstanding all
developments to the contrary. High and low, the sophisticated and the
naive, are always present as cultural alternatives in all societies, even
primitive ones exerting opposite and equal thrusts in the history of
human awareness and self-revelation. They may appear to exist, develop,
and function independently, but in fact they are perennial alter egos, which
at times interact directly. High and low art, like Beauty and the Beast, go
hand in hand.
A striking and surprising case in point is offered by a series of mosaic
pavements found in a great and lavishly decorated house at Olynthus in
Greece, dating from the early fourth century B.C.2 Here the figural compositions with concentric borders display all the order and discipline we
normally associate with Greek thought (Fig. 1). Traces of this rationality are
discernible in certain of the floors where large geometric motifs are placed
in the center above finely lettered augural inscriptions, such as Good
Fortune or Lady Luck, while various crudely drawn apotropaic symbols
circles, spirals, swastikas, zigzags appear here and there in the background (Fig. 2). Finally, the entire composition may be dissolved in an
amorphous chaos from which the magical signs shine forth mysteriously
helter-skelter like stars in the firmament the random arrangement is as
Insofar as the notion of high/low includes that of primitivism, there is a substantial
bibliography, beginning with the classic work of Lovejoy and Boas (1935); more recent
literature on primitivism in art will be found in Encyclopedia (195987, vol. 11, columns
70417), to which should be added Gombrich ([1960], 1985), and, for the modern period,
Rubin, ed., 1985. Further discussion of some aspects of the problem will be found in an
essay on Picassos lithographic series The BuIl, in a volume of my essays to be published by
the University of California Press (1991). If one includes related domains, such as popular
art, the art of children and the insane what I have elsewhere called art without history
the subject of their relations to sophisticated art has yet to receive a general treatment.
The development of interest in the art of the insane, in particular has now been studied in
an exemplary fashion by MacGregor (1989).
2
On the Olynthus mosaics, see Salzmann (1982, pp. 100 ff ).
1
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HIGH AND LOW BEFORE THEIR TIME
399
deliberate and significant as the signs themselves (Fig. 3). The entire gamut
of expressive form and meaningful thought seems here encapsulated, at the
very apogee of the classical period in Greece, when the great tradition of
European high art was inaugurated. The Olynthus mosaics reveal the common ground mans sense of the supernatural that lies between the
extremes of high and low to which we give terms like mythology and
superstition.
The subsequent development of Greco-Roman art also abounds in various kinds and phases of radical retrospectivity Neo-Attic, Archaistic,
Egyptianizing in which the naturalistic ideals of classical style were thoroughly expunged. Virtuoso performances by artists of exquisite taste and
refined technique recaptured the awkward grace and innocent charm of a
distant and venerable past. The retrospective mode might even be adopted
in direct apposition to the classical style, as in the reliefs of a late-fourthcentury altar from Epidaurus, where the archaistic design of the figure on
the side contrasts with the contemporary forms of those on the front (Figs.
4 and 5).3
A conspicuous and historically crucial instance of such a coincidence of
artistic opposites occurred at the end of classical antiquity, in the arch in
Rome dedicated in A.D. 315 to celebrate the emperor Constantines victory
over his rival, Maxentius. Parts of earlier monuments celebrating the emperors Trajan, Hadrian, and Marcus Aurelius were incorporated in the sculptural decorations of the arch, along with contemporary reliefs portraying
the actions of Constantine himself (Fig. 6). The rondels display all the
nobility and grace of the classical tradition, while the friezes below seem
rigid, rough, and ungainly, culturally impoverished. It used to be thought
that the arch was a monument of decadence, a mere pastiche in which
Constantines craftsmen salvaged what they could of the high style art of
their predecessors, using their own inadequate handiwork only when necessary. In fact, there is ample evidence to show that the juxtaposition was
deliberate, intended to create a complementary contrast that would illustrate Constantines intention to incorporate the grandeur of the Empire at
the height of its power with the humble spirituality of the new Christian
ideal of dominion. The latter mode may be understood partly in contemporary terms, as an elevation to the highest level of imperial patronage of
vulgar forms, whether native to the indigenous populace of Rome or
3
Cited in Hadzi (1982, p. 312).
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1. Olynthus, Villa of Good Fortune, pebble mosaic with representation

of Achilles, Thetis and Nereids [from Robinson (1934), pl. xxx].
2. Olynthus, Villa of Good Fortune, pebble mosaic with inscription and symbols
(double axe, swastika, wheel of fortune) [from Robinson (1934), p. 504, fig. 2].
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3. Olynthus, House A xi 9, pebble mosaic with many symbols, including

swastika and double axe [from Robinson (1934), pl. xxxi].
4. Front view of an altar from Epidaurus. Athens, National Archaeological Museum.
06:47
7. Two fighting figures, relief signed by Frotoardus. South

portal, La Celle-Brure (photo: courtesy M. Schmitt).
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5. Side view of an altar from Epidaurus.

Athens, National Archaeological Museum.

Page 6
402
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Page 7
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6. Arch of
Constantine,
medallions and
frieze on north side.
Rome (photo:
Alinari 12325).
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imported from the provinces.4 It has been suggested, however that the vulgar style, which was destined to play a seminal role in the development of
medieval art, was also a conscious evocation of Romes remote, archaic past,
when simplicity, austerity, and self-sacrifice had first laid the foundation of
a new world order.5
An analogous phenomenon has been observed in the context of
medieval art itself at the height of the Romanesque period. Many churches
of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, including some of the most illustrious, display more or less isolated reliefs executed in a crude, infantile manner and illustrating grotesque or uncouth subjects (Fig. 7).6 Although they
were formerly dismissed as reused debris from a much earlier preRomanesque period, recent study has shown that such works are in fact
contemporary with, often part of the very fabric of the buildings they
adorn. They might even proudly display the inscribed signature of the
sculptor and the bold suggestion has been made that the same artist may
also have been responsible for the more familiar and more sophisticated
parts of the decoration. Such stylistic and thematic interjections must be
meaningful, especially since they inevitably recall the real spolia, bits and
pieces of ancient monuments, with which many medieval churches are
replete. These deliberately retrieved fragments, often discordantly incorporated into the new masonry, bore physical witness to the supersession of
paganism by Christianity. Perhaps the substandard Romanesque reliefs
express a similar idea in contemporary terms.
The particular subject of this paper may thus quite properly be viewed
as one episode in the general history of the phenomenon of cultural
extremes that sometimes touch. The episode, however is an important one
in the development of European culture because, despite the many
antecedents, something new happened in the Renaissance. The classical
ideals of naturalism and high culture were not only retrieved, they were also
revived, refined, regularized, and embedded in a theoretical framework.
This philosophical, mathematical, even theological structure, which culminated toward the end of the sixteenth century in a treatise by Gian Paolo
Lomazzo with the significant title Lidea del tempio della pittura (1590),
See the exemplary discussion of the arch in Kitzinger (1977, pp. 7 ff ).
This last is the luminous suggestion of Tronzo (1986). For the parameters of this idea
in terms of classical literary style, see Gombrich (19661).
6
On these works see Schmitt (1980); the fundamental importance of Schmitts study for
our understanding of medieval art has yet to be fully grasped.
4
5
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405
served not only to explain and justify the classical values themselves; it also
raised their practitioners to the level of liberal, and therefore noble artists.
The classical ideals, albeit in many variations, were thus enshrined in a code
of visual behavior as it were, that had every bit the force of indeed, it was
often directly linked to a code of personal behavior in social terms. To
this unprecedented idea of a pure, high art, elevated to the apex of an
explicit theoretical and social scale of values, there was an equal and opposite reaction, on the same terms. One of the products of this reaction was
the creation of caricature, an art form that we still today think of as peculiarly modern.
Berninis caricature of Pope Innocent Xl (Fig. 8) is one of the few traces
of the artists handiwork that have come down to us from the very last years
of his life. Bernini was seventy-eight and had only four years to live when
Benedetto Odescalchi was elected pope, at the age of sixty-five, in 1676. As
a work of art, the drawing is slight enough a few tremulous, if devastating, pen lines sketched in a moment of diversion on a wisp of paper measuring barely four and a half by seven inches.7 Despite its modest pretensions
in part actually because of them, as we shall see the work represents
a monumental watershed in the history of art: it is the first true caricature
that has come down to us of so exalted a personage as a pope. Signifying as
it does that no one is beyond ridicule, it marks a critical step in the development, perhaps the beginning, of what can properly be called the art of social
satire, a new form of visual expression in which the noblest traditions of
European art and society are called into question. The forces here unleashed
would ultimately, in the modern period, challenge the notion of tradition
itself.
By and large, before Bernini there were two chief methods of ridiculing
people in a work of art. The artist might poke fun at a particular individual, independently of any setting or ideological context, if the victim occupied a relatively modest station in life. Such, evidently, were the informal
little comic sketches of friends and relatives by Agostino and Annibale
Carracci, described in the sources but now lost. These ritrattini carichi, or
charged portraits, as the Carracci called them, were certainly among the
For a description and bibliography, see Lavin et al. (1981, catalogue number 99,
pp. 33637). Traces of further drawing appear at the upper right. Bernini evidently cut off
a portion of a larger sheet in order to make the caricature, which he may have drawn for his
personal satisfaction and kept for himself. Twenty-five caricatures are mentioned in a 1706
inventory of Berninis household; Fraschetti (1900, p. 247).
7
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primary inspirations of Berninis caricatures (Fig. 9). Alternatively, the victim might be grand, and he would be represented in a context that reflected
his position in society. The artists of the Reformation, for example, had
made almost a specialty of satirizing the popes as representatives of a hated
institution and its vices (Fig. 10). In the former case the individuality of the
victim was important, but he was not; in the latter case the opposite was
true.8
The differences between Berninis drawing and these antecedents have to
do, on the one hand, with the form of the work a particular kind of
drawing that we immediately recognize and refer to as a caricature and,
on the other with its content the peculiar appearance and character of a
specific individual who might even be the Supreme Pontiff of the Roman
Catholic Church. I shall offer my remarks under those general headings.9
Much of what I shall have to say was already said, at least implicitly, in
the accounts of Berninis caricatures given by his early biographers, who
were well aware of the significance of his achievement in this domain.
Filippo Baldinucci reports that Berninis boldness of touch (franchezza di
tocco) in drawing was
truly miraculous; and I could not say who in his time was his equal
For a general account of social criticism in postmedieval art, see Shikes (1969).
A fine analysis of the nature of the Carraccis ritrattini carichi, with the attribution to
Annibale of the drawing reproduced here, will be found in Posner (1971, pp. 6570,
Fig. 59; and cf. Fig. 60, certainly cut from a larger sheet), but see also Bohlin (1979, pp. 48,
67, nn. 83 f ); so far as can be determined, Annibales drawings displayed neither the social
content nor the distinctive draftsmanship of Berninis caricatures, nor is it clear that they
were autonomous sheets. On the papal satires of the Reformation, see Grisar and Heege
(192123); Koepplin and Falk (197476, vol. 2, pp. 498522).
9
For caricature generally and for bibliography see Encyclopedia (195987, vol. 3,
columns 73435). For a useful recent survey of caricature since the Renaissance, see
Caricature (1971). On the development in Italy the fundamental treatment is that of
Juynboll (1934); important observations will be found in a chapter by E. Kris and E. H.
Gombrich in Kris (1952, pp. 189203), and in Gombrich (1972, pp. 330 ff ). The pages on
Berninis caricatures in Brauer and Wittkower (1931, pp. 18084), remain unsurpassed; but
see also Boeck (1949), Harris (1975, p. 158), and Harris (1977, p. xviii, numbers 40, 41).
The latter has questioned whether the caricatures in the Vatican Library and the Gabinetto
Nazionale delle Stampe in Rome, attributed to Bernini by Brauer and Wittkower, are autographs or close copies; however, the issue does not affect the general argument presented
here. Caricature drawings attributed to Bernini other than those noted by Brauer and
Wittkower and by Harris (1977) will be found in Cooke (1955); Sotheby (1963, Lot 18);
Stampfle and Bean (1967, vol.2, pp. 54 f ).
8
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in this ability. An effect of this boldness was his singular work in the
kind of drawing we call caricature, or exaggerated sketches, wittily
malicious deformations of peoples appearance, which do not destroy
their resemblance or dignity, though often they were great princes
who enjoyed the joke with him, even regarding their own faces, and
showed the drawings to others of equal rank.10
Domenico Bernini, the artists son, gives the following formulation:
at that time [under Urban VIII] and afterwards he worked singularly
in the kind of drawing commonly referred to as caricature. This was
a singular effect of his spirit, in which as a joke he deformed some
natural defect in peoples appearance, without destroying the resemblance, recording them on paper as they were in substance, although
in part obviously altered. The invention was rarely practiced by other
artists, it being no easy matter to derive beauty from the deformed,
symmetry from the ill-proportioned. He made many such drawings,
and he mostly took pleasure in exaggerating the features of princes
and important personages, since they in turn enjoyed recognizing
themselves and others, admiring the great inventiveness of the artist
and enjoying the game.11
In Berninis drawings, Si scorge simmetria maravigliosa, maest grande, e una tal
franchezza di tocco, che propriamente un miracolo; ed io non saprei dire chi mai nel suo
tempo gli fusse stato equale in tal facolt. Effetto di questa franchezza stato laver egli
operato singolarmente in quella sorte di disegno, che noi diciamo caricatura o di colpi caricati,
deformando per ischerzo a mal modo leffigie altrui, senza togliere loro la somiglianza, e la
maest, se talvolta eran principi grandi, come bene spesso accadeva per lo gusto, che avevano
tali personaggi di sollazzarsi con lui in si fatto trattenimento, anche intorno apropri volti,
dando poi a vedere i disegni ad altri di non minore affare. Baldinucci ([1682] 1948, p. 140).
11
Ne devesi passar sotto silenzio lhavere ei in quel tempo & appresso ancora, singolarmente operate in quella sorte di Disegno, che communemente chiamasi col nome di
Caricatura. F queste uneffetto singolare del suo spirito, poich in essi veniva a deformare,
come per ischerzo, laltrui effigie in quelle parti per, dove la natura haveva in qualche mode
difettato, e senza toglier lore la somiglianza, li rendeva su le Carte similissimi, e quali in sostanza
essi erano, benche se ne scorgesse notabilmente alterata, e caricata una parte; Invenzione rare
volte pratticata da altri Artefici, non essendo giuoco da tutti, ricavare il bello dal deforme, e
dalla sproporzione la simetria. Ne fece egli dunque parecchi, e per lo pi si dilettava di caricare
leffigie de Principi, e Personaggi grandi, per lo gusto, che essi poi ne ricevevono in rimirarsi
que medesimi, pur dessi, e non essi, ammirando eglino in un tempo lIngegno grande
dellArtefice, e solazzandosi con si fatto trattenimento. Bernini (1713, p. 28).
10
408
8. Bernini, caricature of
Pope Innocent XI,
drawing. Leipzig,
Museum der bildenden
Knste.
10. Lucas Cranach,

Pope Leo X as Antichrist
[after Passional (1885),
ill. 19].
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9. Attributed to Annibale Carracci, drawing. Windsor Castle,

Royal Library, No. 1928.
409
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11. Leonardo, grotesque heads, drawing. Windsor Castle,

Royal Library, No. 12495r.
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411
12. Physiognomical types,

Della Porta (1586)
[1650], pp. 116f.
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The explicit definition of caricature given in these passages a comic

exaggeration of the natural defects of the sitters features focuses on what
might be called the mimetic nature of the genre. It is essential that an individual, preferably of high rank, be represented, and that with all the distortion he remain individually identifiable. The formal qualities are expressed
implicitly: the drawings were independent works of art, conceived as ends
in themselves and appreciated as such; they were also true or pure portraits,
in that they depicted a single individual, isolated from any setting or narrative context; and they were graphically distinctive, in that they were drawn
in a singular manner (reflecting Berninis franchezza di tocco), specifically
adapted to their purpose.12
On all these counts Berninis drawings are sharply distinguished from
the tradition most often cited in the prehistory of caricature, physiognomics. The scientific or pseudoscientific investigation of ideal types as they
relate to moral and psychological categories originated in antiquity and
enjoyed a great florescence in the Renaissance. Leonardos studies of
grotesque heads as expressions of the aesthetic notion of perfect or beautiful ugliness (Fig. 11) are one familiar case in point. Another major aspect of
the tradition was the comparison of human and animal features, on the theory that the analogies revealed common psychological qualities: human
facial traits were assimilated to those of various animal species to bring out
the supposed characterological resemblances. The first comprehensive
tract on the subject was published in 1586 by Giambattista della Porta
(Fig. 12).13 Bernini was certainly aware of the physiognomical tradition,
both the association between exaggeration and character analysis and the
link between human and animal types. Yet, such studies never portrayed
specific individuals, they were never drawn in any special style of their own,
and they were never sufficient unto themselves as works of art.
It is well known that in the course of the sixteenth century drawing had
achieved the status of an independent art that is, serving neither as an
exercise, nor a documentary record, nor a preparatory design in a limited variety of forms. One was what may be called the presentation drawing, which the artist prepared expressly for a given person or occasion.
Michelangelos drawings for his friend Tommaso Cavalieri are among the
For the foregoing, see Lavin (1970, p. 144 n. 75).
Della Porta ([1586] 1650, pp. 116 f ). For general bibliography on physiognomics, see
Encyclopedia (195968, vol. 3, columns 380 f ).
12
13
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earliest such works that have come down to us (Fig. 13).14 Another category,
especially relevant in our context, was the portrait drawing, which by
Berninis time had also become a distinct genre. In the early seventeenth
century there was a specialist in this field in Rome, Ottavio Leoni; he portrayed many notables of the period, including Bernini himself (Fig. 14),
who also made regular portrait drawings of this sort (cf. Fig. 17).15 (In
Berninis case the complementarity and contrast between the two independent graphic forms extend even to the identifying inscriptions: on the
caricatures, a coarse scrawl with the name and professional qualification in
the vulgar language; on the formal portrait, a humanistic Latin epigraph in
calligraphic minuscules, but not the noble majuscules of classical epigraphy.) A common characteristic of these early autonomous drawings is that
they were highly finished, and the draftsman tended to invent or adopt special devices which distinguish them from other kinds of drawings:16
Michelangelos famous stippling and rubbing is one example, Leonis mixture of colored chalks is another. These works are carefully executed, rich in
detail, and complex in technique. The artist, in one way or another created
an independent form midway between a sketch and a painting or sculpture.
We shall explore the peculiar graphic qualities of Berninis caricatures
presently. For the moment it is important to note that they incorporate two
interrelated innovations with respect to this prior history of drawing as an
end in itself. Berninis are the first such independent drawings in which the
technique is purely graphic, i.e., the medium is exclusively pen and ink, the
forms being outlined without internal modeling; and in them the rapidity,
freshness, and spontaneity usually associated with the informal sketch
become an essential feature of the final work of art.17
Within the specific context of the autonomous portrait drawing,
Berninis caricatures also stand apart. The prevalent convention in this
Cf. Wilde (1978, pp. 147 ff ).
For portrait drawing generally see Meder (1978, pp. 335 ff.); for drawings by Leoni,
see Kruft (1969).
16
It is interesting that in both cases contemporaries were already aware of the distinctive
techniques used in these drawings; for Michelangelo, see Vasari ([1550, 1568] 1962, vol. 1,
pp. 118, 121 f; vol. 4, pp. 1,898 ff ); for the colored chalks and pencils of Leoni and Bernini,
see Baglione ([1642] 1935, p. 321) and Stampfle and Bean (1967, pp. 52 f ).
17
There was one class of sixteenth-century works, incidentally in which the loose sketch
might become a sort of presentation drawing, namely the German autograph album (album
amicorum or Stammbuch); see, for example, Thne (1940, pp. 55f, Figs. 1719) and
Drawings (1964, p. 23, numbers 33, 35).
14
15
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genre, and indeed in that of the painted portrait generally since the early
Renaissance, was to show the sitter in three-quarter views, whereas Berninis
caricatures are invariably either full-face or profile (Figs. 15 and 16). The
effect seems deliberately archaic, but his preference may also be seen in the
light of another equally striking fact: among Berninis own portrait drawings (other than caricatures) those that are independent are three-quarter
views (Fig. 17), while those that can be identified as studies for sculptured
portraits are in strict profile (Fig. 18).18 We know that the very first studies
he made from life for the famous bust of Louis XIV were two drawings, one
full-face, the other in profile.19 Bernini, of course, astonished his contemporaries by also making many sketches of the sitter moving and talking, and
18
For Berninis portrait drawings generally see Brauer and Wittkower (1931, pp. 11, 15,
29 f, 156 f ) and Harris (1977, passim.). It happens that the two preserved and certainly
authentic profile drawings by Bernini represent sitters of whom he also made sculptured portraits, i.e., Scipione Borghese (Fig. 18) and Pope Clement X [see Lavin et al. (1981, catalogue number 83, pp. 29499, 375)]. Conversely there are no recorded portrait sculptures
of the sitters of whom Bernini made drawings in three-quarter view. It is interesting in this
context to compare the triple views provided to Bernini by painters for four sculptured
busts to be executed in absentia by Van Dyck for portraits of Charles I and Henrietta
Maria, by Philippe de Champaigne for Richelieu, and by Sustermans and Boulanger for
Francesco I of Modena; cf. Wittkower (1966, pp. 207 f, 209 f, 224):
Subject
Right profile
Charles I
Henrietta Maria
Richelieu
Francesco I
x
x
x
x
Full-face
x
x
VIEW
Three-quarterto - left profile
x
x
Left profile
x
x
x
All four include the right profile, all but the third the full face, and all but the first the
left profile; only the first and third show the head turned three quarters (to the left).
Portraits, otherwise unspecified, were also sent from Paris to Bernini in Rome for the equestrian statue of Louis XIV; see Wittkower (1961, p. 525, number 47).
19
The first studies for the bust are mentioned in Chantelous diary June 23, 1665:
Le Cavalier a dessin daprs le Roi une tte deface, une de profil (Chantelou, p. 37);
cf. a letter of 26 June from Paris by Berninis assistant Mattia de Rossi, doppo che hebbe
fenito il retratto in faccia, lo fece in profile, Mirot (1904, p. 218n), and the remark of
Domenico Bernini (1713, p, 133), Onde a S. Germano f ritorno per retrarre in disegno la
Regia effigie, e due formnne, una di profilo, Ialtro in faccia. Charles Perrault in his
Mmoires of 1669 also mentions Berninis profile sketches of the king: [Bernini] se contenta
de dessiner en pastel deux ou trois profils du visage du Roi (Perrault, p. 61).
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these must have been extremely various.20 In actually preparing the sculpture, however the full-face and profile were evidently primary, perhaps
because the sculptor began by tracing them on the sides and front of the
block.21 We shall see that other factors were involved as well, but it seems
clear that in this respect Berninis caricatures transfer to the final work conventions proper to a preliminary stage.
Berninis caricatures have a distinct graphic style that marks them as caricatures quite apart from what they represent. They consist, as we have
noted, entirely of outlines, from which hatching, shading, and modeling
have been eliminated in favor of an extreme, even exaggerated simplicity,
The lines are also often patently inept, suggesting either bold, musclebound attacks on the paper or a tremulous hesitancy. In other words,
Bernini adopted (or rather created) a kind of lowbrow or everymans graphic
mode in which traditional methods of sophisticated draftsmanship are
travestied just as are the sitters themselves.22
If one speculates on possible antecedents of Berninis caricature technique, two art forms if they can be called that immediately spring to
mind, in which the inept and untutored form part of the timeless and
anonymous heritage of human creativity: childrens drawings and graffiti. It
is not altogether far-fetched to imagine that Bernini might have taken such
things seriously, as it were, in making his comic drawings, for he would certainly not have been the first to do so. Albrecht Drer drew a deliberately
crude and childish sketch of a woman with scraggly hair and prominent
nose in a letter he wrote from Venice in 1506 to his friend Willibald
Pirckheimer (Fig. 19). The drawing illustrates a famous passage in which
Drer describes the Italians favorable reaction to his Rosenkranz Madonna.
He reports that the new picture had silenced all the painters who admired
20
For the references to this aspect of Berninis procedure, see Brauer and Wittkower
(1931, p. 29), and Wittkower (1951).
21
Interesting in this context are Michelangelos frontal and profile sketches for the
marble block of one of the Medici Chapel river gods; see De Tolnay (194360, vol. 3, plate
131). Cellini (1971, p. 789), speaks of Michelangelos method of drawing the principal view
on the block and commencing carving on that side.
22
It is significant that Bernini employed a comparable technique when he portrayed
nature in what might be called a primitive or formless state, as in the sketches for fireworks
[Lavin et al. (1981, catalogue numbers 5658, pp. 21927)] or a project for a fountain with
a great display of gushing water [Brauer and Wittkower (1931, Pl. 101a); cf. Harris (1977,
p. xxi, number 70)].
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416
13. Michaelangelo, Fall of Phaeton, drawing. Windsor Castle,

Royal Library, No. 119.
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14. Ottavio Leoni, portrait of Gianlorenzo Bernini, drawing.

Florence, Biblioteca Marucelliana, Vol. H, fol. 15.
417
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418
15. Bernini, caricature of
Cardinal Scipione
Borghese, drawing.
Biblioteca Vaticana, MS
Chigi P. VI. 4, fol. 15.
16. Bernini, caricatures of

Don Virginio Orsini
(copy) and a military
captain, drawing.
Rome, Gabinetto
Nazionale delle Stampe,
Fondo Corsini 127521
(579).
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17. Bernini, portrait of Sisinio Poli, drawing. New York,

The Pierpont Morgan Library, No. IV, 74.
419
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420
18. Bernini, portrait of Scipione Borghese, drawing. New York,

The Pierpont Morgan Library, No. IV, 176.
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19. Albrecht Drer, letter to Willibald Pirckheimer.

Nuremberg, Stadtbibliothek, Pirckh. 394,7.
421
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422
his graphic work but said he could not handle colors.23 The clumsy-looking
sketch is thus an ironic response to his critics, as if to say, Here is my
Madonna, reduced to the form these fools can appreciate.
Something similar appears in certain manuscripts of Drers friend and
admirer Erasmus of Rotterdam (Fig. 20). Here and there he introduced
sketches one might almost call them doodles, except they are much too
self-conscious that include repeated portrayals of himself with exaggerated features, in what Panofsky described as the sharply observant, humorous spirit that animated his Praise of Folly.24 It might be added that the crude
style of the drawings also matches the ironic exaltation of ignorance that is
the fundamental theme of Praise of Folly. Although Erasmus was an amateur
it should not be assumed that the sketches are simply inept. He did know
better for he had practiced painting in his youth, and he had a discriminating art-historical eye that even encompassed what he called a rustic style,
which he associated with early medieval art.25 On the back of a
Leonardesque drawing from this same period, a deliberate graphic antithesis occurs in which a wildly expressive head is redrawn as a witty, schoolboyish persiflage (Fig. 21).
A childs drawing plays a leading role in a portrait by the mid-sixteenthcentury Veronese painter Giovanni Francesco Caroto (Fig. 22).26 Perhaps
the drawing is the work of the young man who shows it to the spectator.
He seems rather too old, however and a much more correctly drawn eye
Cf. Rupprich (195669, vol. 1, pp. 54 f ). The passage (my own translation) reads as
follows:
Know that my picture says it would give a ducat for you to see it; it is good and beautifully coloured. I have earned great praise for it, but little profit. I could well have earned
200 ducats in the time and have refused much work, so that I may come home. I have also
silenced all the painters who said I was good at engraving, but that in painting I did not
know how to handle colors. Now they all say they have never seen more beautiful colors.
Drer made the drawing immediately before he wrote this passage, which surrounds the figure. Lange and Fuhse (1893, p. 35, n. 1) noted long ago that the sketch must refer to this,
rather than the preceding portion of the letter
24
Panofsky (1969, p. 203). On Erasmuss self-mocking sketches, see Heckscher (1967,
pp. 135 f, n. 23) and the bibliography cited there.
25
Erasmus speaks of marveling and laughing at the extreme crudity of artists a century
or two earlier (admiraberis et ridebis nimiam artificum rusticitatem); see Panofsky (1969,
pp. 200, 202 f ), who also discusses Erasmuss early interest in and practice of painting and
drawing.
26
Franco Fiorio (1971, pp. 47 f, 100); for suggestive analysis of the painting, see
Almgren (1971, pp. 7173).
23
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(the eye of the painter?) appears at the lower right of the sheet.27 The suggestive smile and glance with which the youth confronts the viewer certainly convey a deeper sense of the ironic contrast between the drawing and
the painting itself.28
Graffiti have a particular relevance to our context because while their
stylistic navet may be constant, the sorts of things they represent are not.
Historically speaking, portrait graffiti are far rarer than one might suppose.
Considering the role of proper portraiture in classical times, it is certainly
significant that ancient draftsmen also inscribed many comic graffiti portraying real individuals often identified by name on the walls of
Roman buildings at Pompeii and Rome (Fig. 23).29 I feel sure Bernini was
aware of such drawings, if only because we know he was acutely aware of
the wall as a graphic field. It was his habit, he said, to stroll about the gallery
of his house while excogitating his first ideas for a project, tracing them
upon the wall with charcoal.30 Two extant wall compositions by him,
though not preliminary sketches, are in fact drawings (Fig. 24).31
The term graffito, of course, refers etymologically to the technique of
incised drawing. The beginning of its modern association with popular
On the eye of Painting, see Posner (1967, pp. 201 f ).
What may be a deliberately crude head appears among the test drawings and scratches
on the back of one of Annibale Carraccis engraved plates; Posner (1971, p. 70, Fig. 68); and
Bohlin (1979, p. 437).
29
Both ancient graffiti and grylloi (discussed below) are often considered in the literature
on comic art, e.g., Champfleury (1865, pp. 5765, 186203), but I am not aware that they
have hitherto been treated seriously as specific progenitors of the modern caricature. For
ancient graffiti generally see Enciclopedia (195866, vol.3, pp. 995 f ). For a recent survey of
the figural graffiti at Pompeii, see Cbe (1966, pp. 375 f ); for those on the Palatine in Rome,
see Vnnen (1966, 1970).
30
Il ma dit qu Rome il en avait une [a gallery] dans sa maison, laquelle est presque
toute pareille; que cest l quil fait, en se promenant, la plupart de ses compositions; quil
marquait sut la muraille, avec du charbon, les ides des choses mesure quelles Iui venaient
dans Iesprit (Chantelou, p. 19). The idea recalls the ancient tales of the invention of painting by tracing shadows cast on the wall; see Kris and Kurz (1979, p. 74 and n. 10).
31
I refer to the well-known Saint Joseph Holding the Christ Child at Ariccia [Brauer and
Wittkower (1931, pp. 15456, Pl. 115)], and a (much restored) portrait of Urban VIII in
black and red chalk, in the Villa La Maddelena of Cardinal Giori, Berninis friend and
patron, at Muccia near Camerino (Fig. 24). The attribution of the latter work, reproduced
here for the first time, I believe, stems from an inventory of 1712; Brauer and Wittkower
(1931, p. 151); cf. Feliciangeli (1917, pp. 9 f ). I am indebted to Professors Italo Faldi and
Oreste Ferrari for their assistance in obtaining photographs. Cf. also a portrait drawing in
black and red chalk in the Chigi palace at Formello; Martinelli (1950, p. 182, Fig. 193).
27
28
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satirical representations can be traced to the Renaissance, notably to Vasaris

time when sgraffito was used for a kind of mural decoration that often
included grotesque and chimeric forms with amusing distortions and transformations of nature, based on classical models (Fig. 25).32
It is also in the Renaissance that we begin to find allusions to popular
mural art by sophisticated artists. Michelangelo, who was full of references,
serious as well as ironic, to the relations among various kinds of art, was a
key figure in this development. By way of illustrating Michelangelos prodigious visual memory, Vasari tells an anecdote that also sheds light on this
neglected aspect of the masters stylistic sensibility. On an occasion during
his youth, when Michelangelo was dining with some of his colleagues, they
held an informal contest to see who could best draw a figure without
design as awkward, Vasari says, as the doll-like creatures (fantocci) made
by the ignorant who deface the walls of buildings. Michelangelo won the
game by reproducing, as if it were still before him, such a scrawl (gofferia),
which he had seen long before. Vasaris comment that this was a difficult
achievement for one of discriminating taste and steeped in design shows
that he was well aware of the underlying significance of such an interplay
between high and low style.33 Juxtapositions of this kind may actually be
seen among the spectacular series of charcoal sketches attributed to
Michelangelo and his assistants, discovered a few years ago on the walls of
chambers adjacent to and beneath the Medici Chapel in Florence
(Fig. 26).34
32
The association between sgraffiti and grotteschi is clear from Vasaris description and
account of their invention; see Vasari ([1550, 1568] 1966 ff, vol. 1, Testo, pp. 14245,
Commento, p. 212, vol. 4, Testo, pp. 51723); cf. Maclehose and Brown (1960, pp. 24345,
298303). On sgraffiti and grotteschi, see Thiem (1964) and Dacos (1969).
33
E stato Michelagnolo di una tenace e profonda memoria, che nel vedere le cose altrui
una sol volta lha ritenute si fattamente e servitosene in una maniera che nessuno se n mai
quasi accorto; n ha mai fatto cosa nessuna delle sue che riscontri luna con laltra, perch si
ricordava di tutto quello che aveva fatto. Nella sua giovent, sendo con gli amici sua pittori,
giucorno una cena a chi faceva una figura che non avessi niente di disegno, che fussi goffa,
simile a que fantocci che fanno coloro che non sanno e imbrattano le mura. Qui si valse
della memoria; perch, ricordatosi aver visto in un muro una di queste gofferie, la fece come
se lavessi avuta dinanzi du tutto punto, e super tutti quepittori: cosa dificile in uno uomo
tanto pieno di disegno, avvezzo a cose scelte, che no potessi uscir netto. Vasari ([1550, 1558]
1962, vol. I, p. 124; see also vol. 4, pp. 2,074 f ).
34
Dal Poggetto (1979, p. 267, no. 71, and p. 272, nos. 154, 156). A remarkable precedent for these drawings are those attributed to Mino da Fiesole, discovered on a wall in his
house in Florence; see Sciolla (1970, p. 113 with bibliography).
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An even more remarkable instance and, as it happens, almost exactly

contemporary with the Drer letter involves one of Michelangelos early
sonnets (Fig. 27). The poem parodies Michelangelos own work on the
Sistine ceiling, its gist being that the agonizing physical conditions of the
work impair his judgment (giudizio), that is, the noblest part of art, so that
he is not a true painter and he begs indulgence:
My bellys pushed by force beneath my chin.
My brush, above my face continually,

Makes it a splendid floor by dripping down.
And I am bending like a Syrian bow.

And judgment, hence, must grow,
Borne in mind, peculiar and untrue;
You cannot shoot well when the guns askew.
John, come to the rescue
Of my dead painting now, and of my honor;
Im not in a good place, and Im no painter.35
In the margin of the manuscript page he drew a sketch depicting his twisted
body as the bow, his right arm holding the brush as the arrow, and a figure
on the ceiling as the target. Of particular interest in our context is the strik-
35
ca forza I ventre appicca sotto I mento.
e I pennel sopra I vise tuttavia

mel fa, gocciando, un ricco pavimento.
e tendomi come arco soriano.

Per fallace e strano
surge il iudizio che la mente porta,
ch mal si tra per cerbottana torta.
La mia pittura morta
difendi orma, Giovanni, e I mio onore
non sendo in loco ben, n io pittore.
Girardi (1960, pp. 4f ); trans. from Gilbert and Linscott (1963, pp. 5 f ). The sheet has most
recently been dated 151112 by De Tolnay (197580, vol. I, p. 126), who also notes the disjunction between the two parts of the drawing.
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426
20. Erasmus, manuscript page. Basel, Universitts-Bibliothek, MS C.VI. a.68, p. 146.
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21. Leonardo (?),

sketches of heads,
drawing.
Royal Library, Windsor
Castle, No. 12673v.
22. Giovanni
Francesco Caroto,
Boy with Drawing.
Verona, Museo del
Castelvecchio.
427
13/8/07
428
23. Ancient graffiti on the walls of

buildings at Rome and Pompeii
[after Vnnen (1970), pp. 121,
213; Cbe (1966), pl. XIX, 3, 6].
24. Bernini (much restored),

drawing of Urban VIII.
Muccia, Villa della
Maddalena
(photo courtesy of
Oreste Ferrari).
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06:47
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25. Sgraffito decorations. Florence, Palazzo Bartolini-Salimbeni, courtyard

[after Thiem (1964), pl. 101].
429
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430
26. Michelangelo and assistants, wall drawings. Florence, San Lorenzo,

New Sacristy [after Dal Poggetto (1978), Pl. V].
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27. Michelangelo, sonnet on the Sistine Ceiling. Floence, Archivio

Buonarotti, Vol. XIII, fol. 111.
431
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432
ing contrast in style between the two parts of the sketch: the figure of the
artist is contorted but elegantly drawn in a normal way; that on the ceiling
is grotesquely deformed and drawn with amateurish, even childlike crudity,
Michelangelo transforms the Sistine ceiling itself into a kind of graffito,
deliberately adopting a subnormal mode to satirize high art in this case
his own. If as I suspect, the grotesque figure on the vault alludes to God the
Father (Fig. 28), Michelangelos thought may reach further still: the graffito
style would express the artists sense of inadequacy in portraying the
Supreme Creator and unworthiness in the traditional analogy between the
artists creation and Gods.36
Two further examples bring us to Berninis own time. In a view of the
interior of a church in Utrecht by the great Dutch architectural painter
Pieter Saenredam, a graffito of four men wearing curious armor and riding
a horse appears conspicuously on a pier at the lower right (Figs. 29 and
30).37 The drawing represents a well-known episode from a medieval French
romance, which had a wide popular appeal. Although the meaning of the
subject in the context of Saenredams picture is unclear the style of the
drawing may have been intended not only to suggest the hand of an
untrained graffito artist generally; it may also be a deliberate archaism to
evoke the medieval origin of the story and, incidentally, of the building
itself. Perhaps the boy standing nearby and about to draw on the wall refers
ironically to Saenredam himself; perhaps the companion group, a boy
seated with a schoolchilds box at his side and teaching a dog to sit up, refers
to the mastery of art achieved by instruction and practice. In any event, the
drawing must have had a special significance for Saenredam, since he added
his own signature and the date immediately below.38
On the analogy cf. Lavin (1980, p. 156).

A similarly crude drawing in white of a woman appears on the adjacent face of the pier.
38
The inscription, in white except for the artists signature, which is in black, reads: de
buer Kerck binnen utrecht / aldus geschildert int iaer 1644 / van / Pieter Saenredam (the
Buur church in Utrecht thus painted in the year 1644 by Pieter Saenredam). Cf. Maclaren
(1960, pp. 37981); Catalogue (1961, pp. 185 f ). For assistance in identifying the object at
the seated boys side, I am indebted to Dr. Jean Fraikin, Curator of the Muse de la Vie
Wallone at Lige, who cites the following bibliography on childrens school boxes: Dewez
(1956, pp. 36271); LArt (1970, pp. 372 ff ). Crude drawings two women (one of them
virtually identical with the one mentioned above), a tree, and a bird also appear on a pier
at the right, surrounding an inscription with the artists signature and the date 1641, in one
36
37
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433
Our final example is from Rome, in the form of a drawing by Pieter van
Laer nicknamed il Bamboccio. He was the physically deformed leader of a
notorious group of Flemish artists in Rome in the seventeenth century
called i bamboccianti (the painters of dolls), a contemporary term that
refers derisively to the awkward figures and lowlife subject matter of their
paintings. The members of the group formed a loose-knit organization, the
Bentvueghel, and were notorious for their unruly lifestyle, which made a
mockery of the noble Renaissance ideal of the gentleman artist. The drawing (Fig. 31) shows the interior of a tavern filled with carousing patrons; the
back wall is covered with all manner of crude and grotesque designs, including a caricature-like head shown in profile.39 Many works by the bamboccianti are reflections on the nature of art, both in theory and practice,
and Van Laers drawing is surely also an ironic exaltation of the kind of satirical and popular art held in contempt by the grand and often grandiloquent
humanist tradition. We are invited to contemplate this irony by the figures
who draw attention to the word Bamboo[ts] scrawled beneath a doll-like
figure, seen from behind, and the profile head the latter certainly a selfportrait of Van Laer The subtlety of the conceit may be inferred from the
fact that bamboccio, like its synonym fantoccio used by Vasari in the anecdote about Michelangelo, was specifically applied to the crude mural drawings of the inept.40
One point emerges clearly from our consideration of the prehistory of
Berninis deliberate and explicit exploitation of aesthetic vulgarity. The
artists who displayed this unexpected sensibility generally did so in order to
make some statement about the nature of art or of their profession. The
statements were, in the end, deeply personal and had to do with the relation between ordinary or common creativity and what is usually called art.
of Saenredams views of the Mariakerk at Utrecht; Catalogue (1961, pp. 212 f ). On this
painting see Schwartz (196667), who notes the association between such drawings and the
artists signature (p. 91, n. 43). Saenredams sensitivity to and deliberate manipulation of
stylistic differences are evident in the relationship between Gothic and Roman architecture
in his paintings, for which see now the thoughtful article by Connell (1980).
39
For this drawing, see Janeck (1968, pp. 122 f ). The figure shown from the back on the
wall recurs among other graffiti in a painting attributed to Van Laer in Munich; Janeck
(1968, pp. 137 f ); see also Kren (1980, p. 68).
40
Cf. Malvasia (1841, vol. 2, p. 67), with regard to the youthful wall scribblings of the
painter Mastelletta. For this reference I am indebted to David Levine, whose Princeton dissertation on the bamboccianti (1984) deals with their art-theoretical paintings and the Berlin
drawing.
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434
No doubt there is an art-theoretical, or even art-philosophical element in

Berninis attitude, as well, but with him the emphasis shifts. His everymans
style is not a vehicle for comment about art or being an artist, but about
people, or rather being a person. His visual lampoons are strictly ad
hominem, and it is for this reason, I think, that in the case of Bernini one
can speak for the first time of caricature drawing not only as art, but as an
art of social satire.
With respect to the context of Berninis caricatures outside the visual
arts, it is important to note that we can date the beginning of his production as a caricaturist fairly precisely It must have coincided with the earliest
datable example that has come down to us, the famous drawing of Cardinal
Scipione Borghese, nephew of Pope Paul V and Berninis greatest early
patron (see Fig. 15). A terminus ante quem is provided by Scipiones death
at age fifty-seven on October 2, 1633, but most likely the sketch was made
during the sittings for the even more famous pair of marble portrait busts
of the cardinal that are known to have been executed in the summer of
1632 (Fig. 32).41 It can scarcely be coincidental, moreover that probably in
November of the same year Lelio Guidiccioni, one of Romes literary lights
and a close friend and admirer of Bernini, acquired an important album of
drawings of genre figures, now lost, by Annibale Carracci.42
What especially suggests that Bernini started making caricatures at this
time is the fact that he then also developed a passionate interest in the comic
theater. Beginning in February 1633, and very frequently thereafter at carnival time, he would produce a comedy of his own invention, often in an
improvised theater in his own house, with himself his family, and his studio
assistants as the performers.43 His plays were extremely successful, and we
have many references to them in the early biographies and contemporary
sources, which report that the audiences included some of the highest members of Roman society. The significance of this parallel with the theater is
not simply that Berninis interest in caricature and comedy coincided, for it
is evident from what we learn about his plays that their relationship to their
predecessors was analogous to that of his caricatures to theirs.
The precise dating of the Borghese busts emerges from a letter of the following year
written by Lelio Guidiccioni [cf. DOnofrio (1967, pp. 38186)]. I plan to discuss the letter at greater length in another context.
42
On this and the following point, see Lavin (1970, p. 144, n. 75).
43
On Bernini and the theater see Lavin (1980, pp. 14557).
41
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435
Berninis comedies stemmed largely from the popular tradition of the

commedia del larte, in which troupes of professional actors assumed stock
character roles and performed largely conventional plots. The comic effect
depended heavily on the contrast of social strata achieved through the interplay of representative types, portrayed through stereotyped costumes, gestures, and dialects. The actors were so versed in their craft, and its conventions were so ingrained, that the plays were recorded only in the form of
brief plot summaries. The recitations were thus extemporaneous, but bound
to a tradition of virtuosity born of familiarity and repetition.
By way of contrast, I shall quote first Domenico Berninis account of
Berninis plays, and then just one contemporary description.44 Domenico
says:
The beauty and wonder [of his comedies] consisted for the greatest
and best part in the facetious and satiric jokes, and in the scenic
inventions: the former were so meaningful [significanti], spirited and
close to the truth [fondati sul vero], that many experts attributed the
plays to Plautus or Terence or other writers, whom the cavalier had
never read, but did them all by sheer force of wit. A most remarkable
thing is that each night the theater was filled with the highest
nobility of Rome, ecclesiastic as well as secular and those who were
targets of his jibes not only took no offense but, considering their
truth and honesty, almost took pride in being subjected to Berninis
acute and ingenious remarks. These then circulated throughout
Rome and often the same evening reached even the ears of the pope,
who seeing Bernini the next day took pleasure in having him repeat
them. Bernini not only labored to compose them, but also took great
pains to see that the actors, who were mostly members of his
entourage and not experienced in the theater; would give natural and
lively performances. In so doing, he served as everyones teacher
and the result was that they performed like long-time professionals
in the art.45
To savor the description that follows, which dates from February 1634,
it must be understood that Cardinal Gaspare Borgia was the Spanish
44
A convenient, but not complete, collection of early sources on Berninis theatrical
activities will be found in DOnofrio (1963, pp. 91110).
45
Bernini (1713, pp. 54 f ).
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436
28. Michelangelo, Creation of the Sun and Moon (detail).

Vatican, Sistine Chapel (photo: Alinari 7509A).
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06:47
Page 41
29. Pieter Saenredam, Interior of the Buurkerck, Utrecht.

London, National Gallery.
437
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06:47
Page 42
438
30. Pieter
Saenredam,
Interior of the
Buurkerck, Utrecht
(detail).
London, National
Gallery.
31. Pieter van

Laer,
Artists Tavern in
Rome.
Berlin, Staatliche
Museen
Preussischer
Kulturbesitz.
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Page 43
32. Bernini, bust of Cardinal Scipione Borghese.

Rome, Borghese Gallery (photo: GFN E33480).
439
13/8/07
06:47
Page 44
440
33. Pasquino. Rome (photo: Alinari 7080).
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34. Antonio Lafreri, Pasquino, engraving.

Yale University Library.
441
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442
ambassador to the Holy See, that his coat of arms included a striding bull,
and that he was notoriously overbearing and tactless in pursuing his countrys interests at the court of Urban VIII, who was strongly pro-French.46
Borgia is absolutely furious because, to everyones delight, Bernini in
his comedy introduced a bull being beaten on the stage; he is quite
aware it referred to him since he was a bull in arms and was called
that by the pope. Borgia was also upset because elsewhere in the
comedy a Spaniard argues with a servant who, having been told by a
Frenchman not to let himself be bullied, beats up the Spaniard to the
amusement of all. Borgia, who understands without gloss the recondite meanings of the actions and words, considers the king and the
whole Spanish nation offended by the pope himself, who knows perfectly well all the scenes of the comedy before they are performed.
Borgia is also angry about other jibes, though these are the worst, and
heaven protect Bernini from a bitter penance in the future, for
Borgia is not one easily to forget offenses.47
It is clear that Berninis plays broke with the commedia del larte conventions in various ways, of which three are especially important here. One
is that Bernini introduced all sorts of illusionistic tricks houses collapse,
the theater threatens to catch fire, the audience is almost inundated
tricks that not only added a kind of visual scenographic interest that had
been confined mainly to court spectacles, but also communicated with the
spectator directly and in a way that seemed, at least at first glance, quite
uncontrived. Furthermore, Berninis comedies were not enacted extemporaneously by professional actors but by amateurs who had been carefully
instructed and mercilessly rehearsed and who recited parts that as we
know from the manuscript of one of his plays that has come down to us
might be completely written out, as in the regular theater. His productions
combined the technique of raw talent with the conception of high art.
Finally, Bernini introduced topical allusions to current events and real people; with unexampled boldness, he poked fun at some of the highest members of Roman society, who might even be present in the audience. Berninis
On Borgia, see Pastor (18941953, vol. 28, pp. 28194), for example.
Letter to the duke of Modena from his agent in Rome, 23 February 1634 [Fraschetti
(1900, pp. 261 f, n. 4; see also the description of comedies in 1638, pp. 264 f, and 1646,
pp. 26870)].
46
47
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443
comedies thus included what can only be described as living caricatures,

witty distortions of the political allegiance or moral character of individuals, who remain readily identifiable. In general, his plays may be said to have
involved a dual breach of decorum, treating low comedy performed by amateurs as if it were legitimate theater; and treating exalted personages as if
they were ordinary people.
Although Bernini may be said to have introduced an element of social
satire to the stage, there was one literary tradition in Rome to which it was,
so to speak, endemic. This was the so-called pasquinade, or satire in verse
or prose, which poked fun, often in very bitter terms, at the religious and
civic authorities for their personal foibles or for whatever of the citys current ills could be attributed to their greed or ineptitude. The diatribes were
occasionally gathered together and published, so that the pasquinade
became a veritable genre of popular literary satire. It was the custom to
write a pasquinade in Latin or Italian on a scrap of paper and attach it to
one of several more or less fragmentary ancient statues that were to be seen
about town. These talking statues, as they were sometimes called, became
the loudspeaker through which the vox populi expressed its wit and discontent. The genre derives its name from the most infamous of the sculptures (Fig. 33), nicknamed Pasquino according to one version of the
legend, after a clever and malicious hunchbacked tailor who lived nearby in
the Piazza Orsini, considered the heart of Rome, and who started the custom early in the sixteenth century.48 It is no accident, of course, that the
speaking statues of Rome were all antiques. From biblical times the issue of
idolatry was focused chiefly on sculpture, the three-dimensionality of which
gave it special status in the hierarchy of representation. The early Christians
regarded pagan statuary as literally the work of the devil and endowed with
demonic powers, notably the power of speech. Indeed, Pasquinos irreverent
and malicious comments were often downright diabolic.
As a literary genre the pasquinade might well be described as something
like a verbal graffito in that, by contrast with the high art of satire, it tended
to be more topical in content and more informal in style and, though wellknown writers such as Pietro Aretino often joined in the sport, it was charThe bibliography on Pasquino and the pasquinade is vast. For a recent survey see
Silenzi (1968). The best orientation within the literary context remains that of Cian (1945,
vol. 2, pp. 81107, 32137). On the sculpture, see now Haskell and Penny (1981,
pp. 29196). For a valuable study of the high and low traditions of satire with respect to
Berninis rival, Salvator Rosa, see Roworth (1977).
48
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444
acteristically anonymous. Indeed, this popular and rather underprivileged

element lies at the very heart of the tradition, for there is a remarkable and
surely not accidental consonance between the character of Pasquino the
tailor; a lowly artisan and man of the people, grotesquely deformed yet pungently articulate, and the character of the sculpture itself pathetically
worn and mutilated, yet also pathetically expressive. The fundamental irony
of the groups brutish appearance and caustic eloquence was perfectly
explicit: in the eloquent engraving of the group signed and dated 1550 by
Antonio Lafreri (Fig. 34), Pasquino says of himself:
I am not, though I seem so, a mutilated Baboon, without feet and
hands . . . but rather that famous Pasquino who terrifies the most
powerful . . . when I compose in Italian or Latin. I owe my physique
to the blows of those whose faults I faithfully recount.49
If the pasquinade is something like a verbal graffito, Berninis caricatures
can be thought of as visual pasquinades, almost literally so if one considers
Berninis very special relationship to the statue itself. The group is mentioned in the biographies as well as in Chantelous diary, always with the
same point illustrated by an anecdote: Asked by a cardinal which was his
favorite ancient statue, Bernini named the Pasquino, of which he said that
mutilated and ruined as it is, the remnant of beauty it embodies is percep-
49
From the inscription on the base:
Io non son (come paio) un Babbuino

stroppiato, senz piedi, et senza mani,
Ma son quel famosissimo Pasquino

Che tremar faccio i Signor piu soprani,
Quando compongo in volgare, o in latino.

La mia persona fatta in tal maniera
Per i colpi chhor questo her quel maccocca
Per chio dice i lot falli a buena cera.
Our transcription is based on a corrected but unsigned and undated version of the print in
a copy of Lafreri in the Marquand Library, Princeton University: Fig. 34 is reproduced from
Lafreri (1575), Beinecke Library, Yale University.
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tible only to those knowledgeable in design.50 Indeed, he regarded it as a

work of Phidias or Praxiteles. The cardinal thought his leg was being pulled
and was infuriated. Bernini was said to have been the first to place the highest value on the Pasquino as a work of art.51 The appreciation of antique
fragments was by now nothing new, so that whether true or not, the claim
and likewise the cardinals anger only makes sense in view of the satirical tradition with which the Pasquino was primarily associated; Bernini
It is especially interesting that Bernini distinguished between complete and incomplete
statues, and among the latter noted the subtle differences between the Belvedere torso and
the Pasquino, ranking the Pasquino highest of all. The passages referred to are:
50
M. le nonce, changeant de matire, a demand au Cavalier laquelle des figures antiques

il estimait devantage. Il a dit que ctait le Pasquin, et quun cardinal lui ayant un jour fait la
mme demande, il lui avait rpondu la mme chose, ce quil avait pris pour une raillerie quil
faisait de lui et sen tait fach; quil fallait bien quil neut pas lu ce quon en avait crit, et
que le Pasquin tait une ftgure de Phidias o de Praxitle et reprsentait le serviteur
dAlexandre, le soutenant quand il reut un coup de fIche au sige de Tyr; qu la vrit,
mutile et ruine comme est cette figure, le reste de beaut qui y est nest connu que des
savants dans le dessin. (Chantelou, pp. 25 f.)
Diceva che il Laocoonte e il Pasquino nellantico avevano in s tutto il buono deIlarte,
perch vi si scorgeva imitato tutto il pi perfetto della natura, senza affettazione dellarte.
Che le pi belle statue che fussero in Roma eran quelle di Belvedere e fra quelle dico fra le
intere, il Laocoonte per lespressione dellaffetto, ed in particolare per lintelligenza che si
scorge in quella gamba, la quale per esserve gi arrivato il veleno, apparisce intirizzita; diceva
per, che il Torso ed il Pasquino gli parevano di pi perfetta maniera del Laocoonte stesso,
ma che questo era intero e gli altri no. Fra il Pasquino ed il Torso esser la differenza quasi
impercettibile, n potersi ravvisare se non da uomo grande e pi tosto migliore essere il
Pasquino. Fu il prime il Bernino che mettesse questa statua in altissimo credito in Roma e
raccontasi che essendogli una volta state domandato da un oltramontano qual fusse la pi
bella statua di quella citt e respondendo che il Pasquino, il forestiero che si credette burlato
fu per venir con lui a cimento. [Baldinucci ([1682] 1948, p. 146).]
Con uguale attenzione pose il suo studio ancora in ammirar le parti di quei due celebri
Torsi di Hercole, e di Pasquino, quegli riconosciuto per suo Maestro dal Buonarota, questi
dal Bernino, che f il primo, che ponesse in alto concetto in Roma questa nobilissima Statua;
Anzi avvenne, che richiesto una volta da un Nobile forastiere Oltramontano, Quale fosse la
Statua pi riguardevole in Roma? e rispostogli, Che il Pasquino, quello di s le furie, stimandosi burlato, e poco manc, che non ne venisse a cimento con lui; E di questi due Torsi
era solito dire, che contenevano in se tutto il pi perfetto della Natura senza affettazione
dellArte. [Bernini (1713, pp. 13 f ).]
51
The Pasquino had long been esteemed, cf. Haskell and Penny(1981, p. 292), but I have
not found precedent for Berninis placing it foremost.
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even said that one must disregard what had been written about the sculpture. No less remarkable is the reason he gave for his esteem that the
work contains the highest perfection of nature without the affectation of art
[italics mine].
The drawing of Innocent Xl is unique among the preserved caricatures
by Bernini because it is the only one datable to the very end of his life, and
because it represents the most exalted personage of all. The skeletal figure
with gargantuan nose and cavernous eyes is immediately recognizable
(cf. Figs. 8 and 35).52 What makes the characterization so trenchant, however; is not only the treatment of the popes physical features, but also the
fact that he is shown incongruously wearing the regalia of the bishop of
Rome and bestowing his blessing while reclining in bed, propped up by
huge pillows. The pope is thus ridiculed on two levels at once, both of
which reflect aspects of his personality and conduct that were notorious.53
This remarkable man was by far the most irascible and ascetic individual to
occupy the papal throne since the heyday of the Counter Reformation a
century before. He was utterly indifferent to the amenities of life himself
and lived in monastic austerity, He was indefatigable in his efforts to purify
the Church of its abuses, the boldest and best known of which was his war
on nepotism. He rigorously excluded his family from Church affairs and
sought to ensure that his successors would do likewise. He was equally
staunch in his defense of the Church against heretics and against attempts
to curtail the prerogatives of the Holy See. His financial contributions to
the war against the Turks, made possible by a fiscal policy of absolute parsimony, were a major factor in the victory at Vienna in 1683 that saved
Europe from the infidel. The process of sanctification was initiated soon
after his death and is still in progress; he was beatified in 1953.
Although his virtues may indeed have been heroic, Innocent Xl was not
without his faults. He demanded the same kind of austerity from his subjects that he practiced himself. Public entertainments were banned, and
with edict after edict he sought to rule the lives of his people down to the
pettiest details of personal dress and conduct. He suffered the consequences
of his disagreeableness, which won him the epithet The Big No Pope (Papa
Mingone, from the word minga, meaning no in his native Lombard
A photograph of Innocents death mask will be found in Lippi (1889, frontispiece).
For Innocent generally and bibliography see Bibliotheca (196169, vol. 7, columns
84856); for most of what follows, see Pastor (18941953, vol. 32, pp. 1337, 15367).
52
53
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dialect). A notice of 1679 reports that several people were jailed for circulating a manifesto with the punning and alliterative title, Roma assassinata
dalla Santit (Rome Assassinated by Sanctity santit in Italian means
both holiness and His Holiness).54
In addition, Innocent Xl was a sick man, plagued by gout and gallstones.55 These sufferings real and imagined, for he was certainly a
hypochondriac must have exacerbated the harshness of an inherently
acerbic personality. His ailments often conspired with a natural tendency to
reclusiveness to keep the pope confined to his room and to his bed. For
days, weeks, months on end he would remain closeted, refusing to see anyone and procrastinating in matters of state conduct that elicited a brilliant pasquinade, reported in July 1677:
Saturday night there was attached to Pasquino a beautiful placard
with a painted poppy [papavero in Italian the opium flower] and
the following legend [like a medicinal prescription] beneath: Papa
Vero = Per dormire [true Pope = to sleep]; next morning it provided
a field day for the wags, including the whole court, which is fed up
with the current delays and cannot bear such irresolution.56
On rare occasions during these periods, when the popes condition
improved or in matters of special importance, visitors might be admitted to
his chamber; where he received them in bed. Berninis drawing captures the
irony of this spectacle of the Supreme Roman Pontiff conducting the most
dignified affairs of state in most undignified circumstances.
54
E poi stato mandato in Galera quel libraro francese Bernardoni che faceva venir libri
centro cardinale e ministri della chiesa sendo anco stati carcerati alcuni copisti per essersi
veduto un Manifesto intitolato; Roma assassinata dalla santit. Unpublished avviso di Roma,
July 8,1679, Vatican Library MS Barb. lat. 6838, fol. 154v. For collections of pasquinades
on Innocent Xl, see Lafon (1876, p. 287); Pastor (18941953, vol. 32, p. 30, n. 8); Besso
(1904, p. 308); Romano (1932, pp. 7274); Silenzi (1933, pp. 251 f ) [reprinted in Silenzi
(1968), pp. 278 f ]; Cian (1945, vol. 2, pp. 260 f, 516, n. 22830).
55
On the popes health, see Pastor (18941953, vol. 32, pp. 51519); Michaud
(188283, vol. 1, pp. 158 f ).
56
Sabbato nette fu fatto a Pasquino un bellissimo Cartello con un Papauero dipinto,
e sotto la presente Inscrittione = Papa Vero = Per dormire, il che la mattina non pochi motivi
di discorso diede gli otiosi, nel cui numero vi si comprende la corte tutta, la quale attediata dalle lunchezze correnti non pu soffrire tante irresolutioni. Unpublished avviso di
Roma, July 5, 1677, Vatican Library MS Barb. lat. 6384, fol. 200.
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35. Bernini, profile of
Innocent XI, drawing.
Rome, Gabinetto
Nazionale delle Stampe,
Fondo Corsini 127535
(578).
37. Bernini, Ludovica

Albertoni. Rome, S.
Francisco a Ripa
(photo: postcard).
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36. R. de Hooghe, The Death of Moriens, engraving [De la Vigne (1673?) pl. 39].
449
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450
38. Tomb of Erard de la Marck, engraving. Formerly Lige, Cathedral

[Boissard (15971602), part IV, tome II, title page].
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39. Medal of Innocent XI with Pius V on reverse.

London, British Museum (photo: Warburg Institute, 1403/98).
40. Medal of Pius V, 1571.

London, British Museum (photo: Warburg Institute, 703/49).
451
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452
The character of the portrait itself has no less significant implications

than its appurtenances. In a quite remarkable way, as we know from many
descriptions and other depictions, the popes appearance matched his personality, He was exceedingly tall and gaunt, with a huge aquiline nose and
protruding chin. These features are glossed over in many straight portraits
of Innocent, but we have a drawing, perhaps by Bernini himself, in which
his crabbed and rather chilling aspect appears unmitigated (Fig. 35). The
profile of the pope, also wearing the bishops miter; may have been in preparation for a sculptured portrait, and the caricature may have originated in
one of Berninis sessions sketching the man in action repeating the
process we suggested in connection with the Scipione Borghese portraits
done nearly fifty years earlier.57
Bernini certainly had reason enough to take an unsympathetic view of
the pope, whose indifference, if not actual hostility, to art was notorious. It
was Innocent who in January 1679 refused to permit the execution of the
final block of the portico in front of Saint Peters, thus dooming to incompletion the greatest architectural project of Berninis life. It was he who
prudishly forced the artist to cover the bosom of the figure of Truth on the
tomb of Alexander VII. It was Innocent who ordered an inquiry into the
stability of the dome of Saint Peters where cracks had appeared, which
some of Berninis critics falsely attributed to his work on the supporting
piers many years before.58
It would be a mistake, however; to think of the drawing simply as an
exercise of Berninis spleen upon Innocents character and appearance. The
basic design and the specific deformations it embodies are rife with reminiscences and allusions that augment its meaning. The reclining figure performing an official act recalls those most peculiar and regal ceremonies
Bernini must have become aware of on his visit to the court of Louis XIV
in 1665, the lit de justice and the lever and coucher du roi, in which the Sun
King received homage as he rose in the morning and retired in the
57
The drawing, in red chalk, conforms in type to Berninis studies for sculptured portraits (see above, p. 21), and its plastic modeling led Brauer and Wittkower (1931, p. 157)
to consider it a copy after a lost original; I suspect it is original, overworked by another hand.
No sculptured portrait of Innocent by Bernini is recorded, unless he made the model for a
bronze, datable 1678, by a certain Travani, once in S. Maria in Montesanto, Rome; see
Martinelli (1956, p. 47, n. 95).
58
On the foregoing, see Pastor (18941953, vol. 32, p. 35); Wittkower (1981, p. 260).
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evening.59 The image also reflects the tradition of the reclining effigy on
tomb monuments and the reclining Moriens in the innumerable illustrated
versions of the Ars Moriendi (The Art of Dying Well) (Fig. 36); the latter
genre had an important role in the devotions of the Confraternity of the
Bona Mors at the Ges, in which Bernini and the pope himself, when he
was cardinal, participated regularly.60 Bernini had only recently adapted this
convention for his portrayal of Blessed Lodovica Albertoni in a state of
ecstatic expiration in her burial chapel in San Francesco a Ripa in Rome
(Fig. 37). He may even have recalled a sixteenth-century Flemish tomb, an
engraving of which there are other reasons to suppose he knew, where a
beckoning skeleton replaced the figure of the deceased (Fig. 38).61 The
somewhat lugubrious irony of this conflation of regal pomp and funereal
decrepitude was surely deliberate.
So, too, were aspects of the rendering of the popes physiognomy and
gesture. Innocent followed like a chill wind after the florid exuberance of
the long, Baroque summer of the Church Triumphant. He was, as we have
noted, a veritable throwback to the rigorous pietism of the Counter
Reformation, and quite consciously so, for he took as the model for all his
actions the most austere pontiff of that whole period, Pius V (15661572),
who had also been unrelenting in his zeal to cleanse the Church of its vices,
including nepotism, and protect it from its enemies (the Turks were
defeated in the momentous naval battle at Lepanto during his reign).62 He
had been beatified in 1672, shortly before Innocent XI took office, and was
canonized in 1712. It happened that Innocent also bore a striking physical
resemblance to Pius, whose desiccated and otherworldly features seem perfectly to embody the spiritual fervor of his time. Innocent actually had him-
See the classic study by Kantorowicz (1963, pp. 16277).

For Bernini and the Ars Moriendi, see Lavin (1972, pp. 15971); on Innocent and the
Bona Mors, see Pastor (18941953, vol. 32, p. 14).
61
For this tomb, cf. Lavin (1980, p. 136, n. 10) and Lavin et al. (1981, catalogue numbers 25, n. 13).
62
For Pius V see Bibliotheca (196169, vol. 10, columns 883901). Innocents emulation of Pius is attested in the sources, e.g., a letter to Paris from the French agent in Rome,
May 11, 1678: On travaille icy en bon lieu pour inspirer le dessein au pape de proffiter de
sa fortune en imitant seulement Pie V que Saintt paroit sestre propose pour le modle de
ses actions. Paris, Ministre des affaires trangres, Correspondance de Rome, vol. 256, fol.
141 (modern foliation), quoted in part by Michaud (188283, vol. 1, pp. 152 f ); cf. Pastor
(18941953, vol. 32, pp. 184, 518, 523).
59
60
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self depicted as a kind of reincarnation of his saintly idol on a very unusual

medal where portraits of the two men appear on the two faces (Fig. 39).63
Bernini must have had the analogy in mind when drawing the caricature:
the emaciated figure with spidery hand raised in blessing distinctly recalls a
particular medallic image issued by Pius himself, which is one of the most
penetrating of all the portrayals of the great reformer (Fig. 40).64 In this way
Bernini assimilated both Innocent and his prototype into a composite
image of the pontifical arch zealot.
In some respects the drawing of Innocent reaches beyond the limits of
portraiture; the exaggeration is so extreme that the figure scarcely resembles
a human being at all, but rather some monstrous insect, with pillows for
wings and bishops miter for antennae, masquerading as a person. Again, I
doubt that the analogy is fortuitous. To be sure, insects in general were not
a very important part of the physiognomical tradition discussed earlier; but
one insect in particular; or at least the name of it, played a considerable role
in the history of comic monstrosities in Western art namely, the cricket.
In a famous passage Pliny says that the Greek artist Antiphilos established a
new genre of painting by a comic portrayal of a man called Gryllos in a
ridiculous costume, from which, Pliny says, all such pictures are called
grylloi.65 Although the exact meaning of the passage is in dispute, it is generally agreed that Pliny must be referring to amusing depictions of cavorting dwarfs and hybrid and humanoid creatures, of which numerous examples are known. No doubt this interpretation dates from the Renaissance
and is based in part on the happenstance that the word, when spelled with
a lambda in Greek, means pig, and with two ls in Latin means cricket.66
63
Cf. Trsor (183458, vol.6, p. 38 and Pl. xxxvi, number 8); Patrignani (1953, p. 78,
number 2). There are also plaques on which the two popes portraits are paired, and
Innocent struck a medal and coins to celebrate the victory at Vienna with the same inscription used by Pius on a medal celebrating the victory at Lepante; cf. Hiesinger and Percy
(1980, pp. 130 f ); Venuti (1744, pp. 125 f., number VII, p. 299, number XXVIII); Serafini
(196465, vol. 2, pp. 298 f ).
64
Venuti (1744, p. 125, numbers V, VI).
65
Idem iocosis nomine Gryllum deridiculi habitus pinxit, unde id genus picturae grylli
vocantur. Jex-Blake and Sellers (1975, pp. 146 f ). For the ancient genre, see Enciclopedia
(195866, vol. 3, pp. 1,065 f ).
66
On the modern use of the term, see the basic contributions in the journal Proef (1974)
by Miedema, Bruyn, and Ruurs (kindly called to my attention by David Levine); cf. Alpers
(197576, p. 119 and n. 15); Miedema (1977, p. 211, n. 29). See further Wind (1974,
pp. 28 f ) and the references given in the next footnote.
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As early as the mid-sixteenth century the works of Hieronymus Bosch,

which contain all manner of mixed human and animal forms, were called
grylloi (Fig. 41); so, too, were Arcimboldos polymorphous transmutations
of traditional frontal and profile portrait types.67 Berninis caricature of
Innocent looks like nothing so much as a great cricket, and I have no doubt
that this novel assimilation of insect and human likenesses was made in
deliberate reference to, and emulation of, the new art of comic portraiture
invented by the ancient master.
I suspect, moreover; that the analogy reached beyond physical appearances to a moral and psychological level as well, through another remarkable wordplay of the sort that always fascinated Bernini. In Italian grillo
would refer not only to the classical prototype of the comic portrait, but
also to the character or personality of the insect itself. Owing to the creatures peculiar life-style, the word grillo has a meaning roughly equivalent to
whim or caprice in English. The term appears frequently in the art literature of the period in reference to the artists inventiveness or even his personal stylistic idiosyncrasies.68 More generally, to have a cricket in ones
head (avere un grillo in testa) is to have a bee in ones bonnet an expression that seems to suit Innocent Xl as if it were tailored for him. In Berninis
sketch, the popes appearance and character merged with the invention of
comic portraiture in a grandiose pun linking antiquity to the present under
the aspect of satire.
The chain turns full circle, as it were, when two additional links are
added that pertain to the Pasquino. In the early sixteenth century there had
been a one-eyed barber named Grillo who had written pasquinades that
were actually called grilli, which he was said to have had in his head. The
frontispiece of a volume of the poems he attached to the Pasquino shows
him chasing after crickets in the field (Fig. 42).69 Perhaps Grillos memory
was still alive in Berninis time. In any case, Bernini seems not to have been
the only one to apply an image of this sort to Innocent. One is tempted to
imagine that his drawing may have inspired the following verses from a
67
For Bosch, see the remarks by Felipe de Guevara, trans. in De Tolnay (1966, p. 401);
cf. Gombrich (19662, pp. 113, 115, n. 30); Posner (1971, pp. 69, 164, n. 94). For
Arcimbeldo, see Kaufmann (1975, pp. 28082). The word was also applied by Lomazzo
([1584] 197374, p. 367) and Tesauro ([1670] 1968, p. 85) to the kind of grotesque decorations discussed above.
68
See the passages noted in the index to Lomazzo ([1584] 197374, p. 672, s.v. Grillo).
69
Silenzi (1933, pp. 17, illustrated opposite p. 100, 339 f, 343).
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vicious pasquinade occasioned by the popes death in 1689:

Ive not found in the annals of ancient things
A worst beast, who beneath hypocrisy clings
And tinges in others blood his beak and wings.70
I have so far discussed rather specific aspects of the form, sources, and
significance of Berninis caricatures. Insofar as they are documents of social
comment, however, certain more general features of the context in which
they were produced must also be considered. With hindsight it seems
inevitable that the true caricature should have emerged in Rome and
nowhere else.71 Rome was then, as it still is, unlike any other major
European city in that, from the point of view of commerce and industry, it
was insignificant; its only reasons for being were administrative and symbolic. It was the capital of a great state, which, though of diminished political and military importance, retained a spiritual force that made it a focal
point of international relations, secular as well as ecclesiastical. There was
nothing in Rome to match the growth of the bourgeoisie in the urban
centers of the north, but in the bosom of the Church men could, and very
often did, rise from the humblest circumstances to the heights of power and
wealth. As the headquarters of the Catholic hierarchy. and especially of the
religious orders, the city was filled with people who, like Bernini, had
broken through the barriers of traditional class hierarchy. Social irony was
almost a natural by-product of this extraordinary environment, wherein
moral pretense and cosmopolitan reality were extremes that touched.
The birth of caricature was also related to the rise in status for which
artists had been struggling since the Renaissance, and of which Bernini was
in some respects the epitome. A major theme of the biographies by
Baldinucci (written at the behest of Berninis close friend, Queen Christina
of Sweden) and by his son Domenico was precisely his acceptance by the
great people of his day, even at a certain risk to themselves. This could
70
Io non retrovo ancor nei vecchi annali
Bestia peggior, che sotto hipocrasia
Col sangue altrui tingesse e l becco e lali
Silenzi (1968, p. 279).

71
There is no comprehensive social history of Rome at this period. For a recent general
survey with useful bibliographical indications, see Petrocchi (1975).
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41. Hieronymus Bosch (shop of Hieronymus Cock), drollery, engraving.

New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art.
457
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458
42. Carmina apposita Grillo Monoculo: ad Pasquill, 1526, title page

[after Silenzi (1933), ill. opp. p. 100].
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43. Copy after a model by Bernini, bust of the Duke of Bracciano,

Bracciano Castle (photo: GFN E34349).
459
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460
easily be dismissed as mere propaganda, but I think their wonderment at

Berninis social achievement was genuine. The point is vividly illustrated in
the matter of caricature by a satirical poem published in 1648 by the duke
of Bracciano, one of the leading figures of the day, of whom Bernini did a
bust, preserved in a marble copy, that some critics have regarded as a sort of
formal caricature (Fig. 43).72 The duke describes a merry gathering at his
villa at Bracciano of the cream of Roman nobility, at which he and Bernini,
whom he lists among the guests as animator of marbles, joined in making
comic drawings of the participants.73 In 1665, during his visit to Paris to
design the Louvre, Bernini introduced the concept and example of his persiflages to Louis XIV and his court, who were greatly amused.74
Berninis career, in fact, would indeed be difficult to match by that of
any other artist not Velsquez, whose aspiration to nobility was a central
factor in his life; not Rubens, whose position in the world was inseparable
72
On the portrait, see Wittkower (1966, p. 204 ff ). A document recently published by
Rubsamen (1980, p. 45, number 72), makes it clear that this bust is a copy after a (lost)
model by Bernini, as had been suggested by Martinelli.
73
Fra questi v Paol Emilio Orsino,
Il Duca Sforza & ambi i Mignanelli
Animator di marmi euui il Bernino,
Hor mentre battagliauano costoro,

Bernine, & io sopra un buffetto parte
Presemo caricare alcun di lore.
Orsini (1648, pp. 63, 65); first published by Muoz (1919, pp. 369 f ).
74
Caricatures are mentioned in two sharp and revealing passages in the diary of Berninis
visit kept by Chantelou (1885, pp. 106, 151; interestingly enough, Chantelou uses the
phrase attributed to the Carracci, charged portraits). During an audience with the king
. . . le Cavalier a dit en riant: Ces messieursci ont le Roi leur gr toute la journe et ne
veulent pas me le laisser seulement une demiheure; je suis tent den faire de quelquun le
portrait charg. Personne nentendait cela; jai dit au Roi que ctaient des portraits que lon
faisait ressembler dans le laid et le ridicule. LAbb Butti a pris la parole et a dit que le
Cavalier tait admirable dans ces sortes de portraits, quiI faudrait en faire voir quelquun
Sa Majest, et comme lon a parl de quelquun de femme, le Cavalier a dit que Non
bisognava caricar le donne che da notte. Subsequently Butti was himself the victim
. . . quelquun parlant dun portrait charg, le Cavalier a dit quiI avait fait celui de labb
Butti, lequel il a cherch pour le faire voir Sa Majest, et, ne layant pas trouv, il a
demand du crayon et du papier et la refait en trois coups devant le Roi qui a pris plaisir
le voir, comme a fait aussi Monsieur et les autres, tant ceux qui taient entrs que ceux qui
taient la porte.
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from his activity as a diplomat. Bernini never lost touch with the humble
craft origins of his profession. He became early on a member of the marble
workers guild, to which he remained very attached and contributed generously later in life;75 and although much indebted to the humanist tradition,
he laid no claim to recondite learning or theoretical speculation. His freedom of wit and satire and his ability to consort on equal terms with the high
and mighty were based solely on the quality of his mind and art. In this
sense he fulfilled the Renaissance ideal, while helping to create a new role
for the artist in society.
In the end, however, the caricatures must be thought of as a deeply personal expression of Berninis creative genius, for two reasons in particular.
One is that and this is true of his comedies as well although he circulated them among his friends, there is no evidence he ever intended to
publish his drawings in the form of prints. We owe the caricature as an
instrument of social reform in this sense to eighteenth-century England.
Berninis little lampoons sprang from a deep well within, however, and were
far from mere trifles to him. Both points emerge from the last document I
shall quote, a charming letter Bernini wrote to a friend named Bonaventura
(Good Fortune in Italian) accompanying two such sketches, now lost:
As a cavalier I swear Ill never send you any more drawings because
having these two portraits you can say you have all that bumbler
Bernini can do. But since I doubt your dim wit can recognize them
Ill tell you the longer one is Don Giberti and the shorter one is Bona
Ventura. Believe me, youve had Good Fortune, because Ive never
had greater satisfaction than in these two caricatures, and Ive made
them with my heart. When I visit you Ill see if you appreciate them.
Rome, 15 March 1652.
Your True Friend
G. L. Bern.
75
See Lavin (1968, pp. 236f ).
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This is, incidentally, the first time the word caricature is used as we use
it today, as the name for a certain class of drawings.76
76
. . . mio sigre
Da chavaliere vi giuro di non mandarvi pi disegni perch avendo voi questi dui ritratti
potete dire davere tutto quel che pu fare quel baldino di bernino, ma perch dubito che il
Vostro corto ingegno non sapia conoscerli per non vi fare arrossire vi dico che quel pi lungo
Don Ghiberti e quel pi basso Bona Ventura. Credetemi che a voi e toccato aver la buona
Ventura perch mai mi sono piu sodistatto che in queste due caricature e lo fatte di cuore.
Quando vedr costi vedr se ne tenete conto. Roma li 15 Marzo 1652.
Vero Amico
G. L. Bern.
Ozzola (1906, p. 205); cf. Lavin (1970, p. 144 n. 75). Ozzela guessed from the letter itself
that the addressee might have been named Bonaventura. I have no doubt that the fortunate
recipient was, in fact, the Bolognese painter and Franciscan friar Bonaventura Bisi. Bisi was
a friend and correspondent of Guercino, who also made a caricature of him, datable
165759, with an inscription punning on his last name (cf. Galleni, 1975).
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Lavin XII. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap 17
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XII
Berninis Memorial Plaque for Carlo Barberini*
ARLO BARBERINI, brother of Pope Urban VIII and commander of

the papal armies (Generale di Santa Chiesa), died during a mission in
Bologna on 25 February 1630.1 The event was commemorated in Rome by
three major works in which Bernini had a hand. A monumental plaque
designed by Bernini was placed on the interior faade of S. Maria in
Aracoeli (Fig. 1); a magnificent temporary catafalque also designed by
Bernini was erected in the same church for the obsequies that were held
there on 3 August; and a life-size statue, an ancient torso restored by Bernini
(who carved the portrait head) and Algardi, was placed in the Sala dei
Capitani of the Palazzo dei Conservatori.2 This trio of monuments specifically echoed a tradition that had been established within living memory by
* This note is excerpted from an entry in a projected corpus of the terracotta sketches of
Gianlorenzo Bernini, a work first envisioned by the writer in his doctoral dissertation written at Harvard in 1955 under John Coolidges supervision.
1
On Carlo Barberini, cf. Dizionario biografico degli italiani, Rome, 1960 ff, VI,
170173; on his death, L. von Pastor, The History of the Popes, 40 vols., St. Louis, Mo.,
18941953 XXVIII, 44.
2
Cf. S. Fraschetti, Il Bernini. La sua vita, la sua opera, il suo tempo, Milan, 1900, 9398.
On the Aracoeli plaque, R. Wittkower, Gian Lorenzo Bernini. The Sculptor of the Roman
Baroque, Oxford, 1981, 195196; and most recently, N. Courtright in I. Lavin et al.,
Drawings by Gianlorenzo Bernini from the Museum der bildenden Knste, Leipzig, German
Democratic Republic, exh. cat., Princeton, 1981. 7277. On the catafalque, M. Fagiolo
dellArco and S. Carandini. Leffimero barocco. Strutture della festa nella Roma del600, 2 vols.,
Rome, 19771978, I, 7981; a ground plan in Vienna, drawn by Borromini, was identified
as for the Barberini catafalque by I. Lavin, Bernini and the Crossing of St. Peters, New York,
1968, 13, n. 58. On the statue of Carlo Barberini, Wittkower, Bernini, 196; M. Heimbrger
Ravalli, Alessandro Algardi scultore, Rome, 1973, 6061.
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470
the Conservators of Rome, in celebrating three previous commanders of the

papal military forces. Marcantonio Colonna (died 1584), Alessandro
Farnese (died 1592) and Gian Francesco Aldobrandini (died 1601), had all
been honored by splendid ceremonies and monumental commemorative
plaques in the Aracoeli, and by statues in the guise of ancient Roman military commanders in the Sala dei Capitani.3
Whether Bernini was familiar with the earlier temporary installations is
not clear, but the permanent memorials were certainly significant, formally
no less than conceptually. The Aldobrandini statue and inscription are
specifically alluded to in the initial proposal made before the Conservators
for commemorating Carlo Barberini.4 The Bernini-Algardi statue is closely
related to the earlier examples, recreating as they had the type of the victorious general of antiquity.5 Similarly, throughout the development of his
design for the memorial plaque Bernini made reference to its predecessors.6
For the inscriptions in the church cf. V. Forcella, Iscrizioni delle chiese e daltri edifici di
Roma dal secolo XI fino ai giorni nostri, Rome,14 vols., 18691884, I, 197, no. 751, 206, no.
790, 213, no. 823. On the statues, cf. G. A. Borboni, Delle statue, Rome, 1669, 287 ff; P.
Pecchiai, Il campidoglio nel cinquecento, Rome, 1950, 160161; C. Petrangeli, La sala dei
capitan, Capitolium, XXXVII, 1962, 640648; also A. Muoz, La scultura barocca e lantico, Larte, XIX, 1916, 143. The ceremonies and decorations in S. Maria in Aracoeli are
described in F. Casimiro, Memorie istoriche della chiesa e convento di S. Maria in Aracoeli di
Roma, Rome, 1845, 522 ff, 623 ff.
4
5 March 1630: . . . fiant magnifica, et solemnia funeralia digna Romani Populi, ac
tanti viri . . . et simulacrum marmoreum eiusdem Ill.mi et Ex.mi D. Don Caroli in Palatio
Capitolij una cum ornatissimis inscriptionibus, quemadmodum fuit factum fe: me: Ioanne
Franc.o Aldobrandino . . . Archivio Storico Capitolino, Decreti di Consegli, Magistrati e
Cittadini, 16751640, Cred. I, vol. 33, fols. 73 verso74 recto.
Ippolito Buzio was responsible for the Farnese statue (Pecchiai, Campidoglio, 161, n.
212; the payment cited makes no specific reference to the head, however); it is not clear who
executed that of Colonna (ibid.,161), nor did a search of the documents by the writer yield
the author of the Aldobrandini figure.
5
The statues of Alessandro Farnese and Francesco Aldobrandini were also restored
ancient fragments (cf. H. Stuarcjones, A Catalogue of the Ancient Sculptures Preserved in the
Municipal Collections of Rome. The Sculptures of the Palazzo dei Conservatori, Oxford, 1926,
4142).
6
The Farnese inscription, dated 1596, on the north end wall of the transept, was probably designed by Giacomo della Porta, who authorized payments to the sculptor Ruggiero
Bescap and others between June 1595 and February 1598 (Arch. Stor. Capit., Registro di
Mandati a favore degli offiziali er artisti del Po: Ro:, 15941603, Cred. VI, vol. 26, 128 [cf.
F. Fasolo, Lopera di Hieronimo e Carlo Rainaldi. 15701655 e 16111691, Rome, n.d., 263],
154, 157, 159, 170, 197, 198, 215, 247, 276, 291; the contracts are quoted by A. Bertolotti,
Artisti lombardi a Roma nei secoli XV, XVIe XVII, 2 vols., Milan, 1881, II, 310311). On the
3
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Page 3
BERNINIS MEMORIAL PLAQUE FOR CARLO BARBERINI
1. Gianlorenzo
Bernini, memorial
plaque of Carlo Barberini.
Rome, S. Maria
in Aracoeli (photo:
Moscioni).
2. Memorial plaque of
Alessandro Farnese.
Rome, S. Maria
in Aracoeli
(after Fasolo,
Rainaldi, fig. 3).
471
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Page 4
472
3. Memorial plaque of Gian

Francesco Aldobrandini.
Rome, S. Maria
in Aracoeli
(after Fasolo,
Rainaldi, pl. 6).
study for the Barberini
plaque, drawing.
Leipzig, Museum der
bildenden Knste.
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Page 5
5. Catafalque of Carlo Barberini, Ferrara, 1630, etching.
473
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Page 6
474
6. Catafalque of Carlo
Barberini, Ferrara, 1630,
etching, detail
study for the Barberini
plaque, terracotta.
Cambridge, Fogg Museum.
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Page 7
475
In both the Farnese and Aldobrandini memorials (Figs. 2, 3), the flat
inscribed surface is surrounded by elaborate frames and surmounted by
pediments upon which female allegories carved in high relief are seated; in
the Farnese monument two female terms in low relief also flank the inscription laterally. A sketch in Leipzig (Fig. 4) shows that Bernini, while greatly
simplifying the design, first adopted the traditional rectilinear shape and the
flanking figures of the Farnese plaque, replacing the latter by winged personifications of Fame that seem at once to rest against the framed inscription tablet, and to carry it aloft.7 In the final work Bernini adopted the idea
of seated allegories with complementary meanings that had also appeared
on the earlier plaques.
The allegory on the left, identified as the Church in the early sources,
has a shield bearing the papal arms; a huge snake, ancient symbol of heresy,
is under her right foot, the tail (partly broken) curling around the front of
the plaque. Between the forefinger and thumb of her right hand may be discerned a fragment of a thin rod, probably part of a staff (see below). The
shield of the figure on the right contains a laurel wreath and lightning bolt,
the significance of which is explained by a passage in Cesare Ripa's
Iconologia, under the heading Virt insuperabile:
Roman commemorations of Alessandro Farnese see D. Bodart, Crmonies et monuments

romains la mmoire dAlexandre Farnse, duc de Parme et de Plaisance, Bulletin de
lInstitut historique belge de Rome, XXXVII, 1966, 122-136 (although not properly acknowledged, 136, n. 3, the documentation cited by Bodart from the Archivio Storico Capirolino
was brought to his attention by this writer).
The inscription to Gian Francesco Aldobrandini, on the east wall of the south transept
wing, together with its counterpart honoring Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini, on the corresponding wall of the north transept, both dated 1602, were the work primarily of Ippolito
Buzio and Camillo Mariani, according to payments between May 1602 and February 1603,
authorized by della Porta before his death on 2 September 1602 (A. Schiavo, Notizie biografiche su Giacomo della Porta, Palladio, VII, 1957, 41), then by Girolamo Rainaldi (Arch.
Stor. Capit.,Registro di mandari . . ., 15991603, Cred. VI, vol. 27, 126, 127, 128, 132,
135 [payments to January 1603]; cf. Casimiro, Memorie, 627, and Fasolo, Rainaldi,
264265.
The Colonna inscription, on the faade wall over the main entrance just to the right of
Berninis, has no allegorical figures (payment to Pietro Paolo Olivieri, authorized by della
Porta, 29 September 1587; Arch. Stor. Capit., Registro di Mandati, Cred. VI, vol. 25, 95).
7
Compare an inscription flanked by winged putti, by Camillo Mariani in S. Bernardo
alle Terme (G. Fiocco, Camillo Mariani, Le arti, III. 19401941, 84 and Fig. 30); trumpeting figures of Fame are seated on the pediments of the Sforza tombs in S. Maria Maggiore
(cf. G. Ferrari, La tomba nellarte italiana, Milan, n.d., Pl. XCI).
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476
. . . for a crest she will carry a laurel plant, menaced but not struck
by lightning. . . . Virtue, as a warrior who struggles continually with
her enemy, is portrayed armed with lightning, which, as Pliny
recounts, cannot with all its violence damage laurel. . . .8
Under her foot is a globe encircled by the band of the Zodiac, of which only
the sign of Scorpio is visible. The scorpion as an astrological sign is the
attribute of Mars, God of War.9 The figures thus symbolize the Church's
victory over spiritual evil and virtue's victory over earthly strife, both
achieved through Carlo Barberini's military prowess. Perhaps the best
expression of their meaning is provided by the funeral oration delivered by
Giulio Cenci at the obsequies in S. Maria in Aracoeli, in which Barberini is
hailed as defender of the public well-being and maker of Christian peace.10
Bernini's explicit references to the earlier works provide a foil for the
fundamental thematic and formal transformations he introduced. Neither
Carlo Barberini nor the three others were actually interred in Aracoeli.
Hence the funereal note sounded in Bernini's final version, chiefly by the
winged skull at the base of the inscription, and the melancholic pose of the
figure on the right, was quite foreign to the purely commemorative import
of the tradition.11 Perhaps this reinterpretarion was motivated by the consideration that Barberini would not in fact have a public tomb; he was
buried in an obscure and inaccessible niche adjoining the family chapel in
8
. . . per cimiero, portar una pianta dalloro minacciata, ma non percossa dal fulmine.
. . . La virt come guerriera, che di continuo col vitio suo inimico combarte, si dipinge
armata, & col fulmine, il quale come racconta Plinio, non pu con tutta la sua violenza
offendere il lauro. . . . Ed. Rome, 1603 (reprint 1970), 509.
9
Cf. G. De Tervarent, Attributs et symbols dans lart profane, 3 vols., Geneva. 19581964,
II, col. 340.
10
propugnator publicae salutis et Christianae pacis auctor (In funere illustrissimi, &
excellentissimi principio Caroli Barberini generalis S.R.E. ducis. Oratio habita in aede B. Virg.
in Capitolio a Iulio Cincio Sacr. Consist. Aulae, & S.P.Q.R. advocato Anno Domin
MDCXXX.iij. Non Aug., Rome, 1630, 8).
11
M. Jaff has pointed out that the motif at the bottom in the Leipzig drawing is not a
skull but a helmet (review of I. Lavin et al., Drawings, in Times Literary Supplement, 15
October, 1981, 1127). On the pose of Melancholy, see recently W. S. Heckscher,
Melancholia (1541). An Essay in the Rhetoric of Description by Joachim Camerarius, in H.
Baron, ed., Joachim Camerarius (15501574). Beitrge zur Geschichte des Humanismus im
Zeitalter der Reformation, Munich, 1978, 4950.
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477
S. Andrea della Valle.12 In any case, the new figural type was evidently
derived from a great catafalque that had been erected in the Cathedral of
Ferrara for obsequies held in honor of Carlo Barberini on 13 May 1630 at
the behest of Cardinal Lorenzo Magalotti, Archbishop of Ferrara, who was
Carlo's brother-in-law and a close friend and advisor of the Pope.13 The oration delivered on this occasion, by one Alfonso Pandolfi, was published
along with an illustration of the catafalque (Figs. 5, 6).14 Seated on the steps
before the structure is an allegory of the Church wearing the papal tiara and
carrying a long, crossed staff. Her costume, pose and heavy monumentality
12
On his burial, cf. G. Gigli, Diario Romano, ed. G. Ricciotti, Rome, 1958, III; cited by
Fraschetti, Bernini, 93,n. 1); a seated portrait of him in armor (cf. V. Martinelli, Contributi
alla scultura del seicento. I. Francesco Mochi a Roma, Commentari, II, 1951, 231, Fig. 284)
is placed in a niche above the sarcophagus.
13
On Magalotti, cf. von Pastor, History of the Popes, XXVIII, 3940.
14
Oratio in funere illustriss. & excellentiss. D. Caroli Barberini pontificiae classis imperatoris, habita iussu Eminentiss. & Reverendiss. D. Cardinalis Magalotti Ferrariae Episcopi, dum
in Cathedrali Ecclesia Sororio Principi magnificentissime parentaret. Ab Alfunso Pandulfo
Ferrariensi eiusdem Ecclesiae Canonico Theologo, Ferrara, 1630; O. Berendson, The Italian
Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Catafalques, unpub. diss., New York University, 1961,
203; the text is also cited and the print illustrated, without comment, in Fagiolo dellArco
and Carandini, Leffimero, I, 80.
Cardinal Antonio and Taddeo Barberini, both sons of Carlo, were present at the ceremony in Ferrara. Its date, 13 May, is evident from the following passages in letters written
by Taddeo Barberini to Cardinal Francesco in Rome.
From Ferrara, 11 May 1630:
Qui in Ferrara me tratterr fino Lunedi matt.a pr.ma nella quale il S. Card.e
Magalotti vol fare lossequie al Sig. D. Carlo nr.o Pr.e di bo: me: (Biblioteca Vaticana,
Ms. Barb. Lat. 9268, fol. 6 recto.)
From Ancona, 19 May 1630:
Io part da Ferra insieme con lIll.mo S.re Car.le Ant.o nro. fratt.lo et mio S.re il Luned,
che fummo alle 13 assai tardi, ci alle 18 hore sonate. (ibid., fol. 7 verso.)
The presence of Cardinal Antonio and Don Taddeo is also noted in a description of the obsequies by the contemporary chronicler C. Ubaldini, Storia di Ferrara dallanno 1597 a tutto
lanno 1633, Ferrara,Biblioteca Comunale, Ms. Cl. I. 418, fol. 80 verso ff:
Venne (Antonio) di Maggio . . . a Ferrara . . . alla cattedrale, essendovi anche D.
Tadeo Barberini suo fratello, che era venuto da Roma, per ritrovarsi alle esequie di
Carlo loro padre.
(I am indebted to Dr. L. Capra, Director of the Biblioteca Comunale in Ferrara for having
transcribed the relevant passage for me.)
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478
closely anticipate Bernini's right-hand figure, and may have helped to determine his final treatment of the plaque.15
The change in the meaning of the work was accompanied by a change
in its design. In the Leipzig drawing the tablet was a closed, stable form,
while the flanking figures were irregular and dynamic. The entire monument would have been flat on the wall and carved in low relief. In Bernini's
bozzetto in the Fogg Museum (Fig. 7), the roles of the principal elements
tend to converge, the figure becoming solid and stable, while the tablet
takes on a curved, slightly concave shape.16 The figure and tablet are raised
into high relief released from the wall, as it were and a flat slab is
placed behind. In the executed version the inscription is given an almost
entirely curvilinear form which approximates a pediment at the top, and to
which the figures are even more tightly bound through the displacement of
the frame; the latter now serves to enclose the background slab. The ultimate effect of these changes is that the figures and inscription are perceived
as a single organic unit floating freely on be winged death's head at the bottom, within and before the space defined by the frame. Bernini adopted a
similar illusionistic device shortly thereafter in the plaque honoring Urban
VIII, which occupies the faade wall above the Carlo Barberini plaque;17 the
conception also reflects the kind of thinking that resulted in the perspectivized double niche of the Countess Matilda monument.18
The Fogg terracotta, for the right-hand figure, is broken at the bottom
but preserved intact at the top and sides; it was therefore executed separately
15
The Ferrarese ceremony is mentioned in the oration by Cenci in Aracoeli (above, n.
10). Its effect in Rome can be shown in another way. One of the early sources says that
Alfonso Pandolfis oration at Ferrara was so impressive (naming Cardinal Antonio specifically) that it won for him the bishopric of Corracchio (A. Libanori, Ferrara doro imbrunito,
3 vols., Ferrara, 16651674, I, 104). In fact, in a letter of 4 May 1630, i.e., before the obsequies, from Cardinal Magalotti to Cardinal Francesco reporting the imminent death of the
bishop of Comacchio. Pandolfi is merely listed with several other candidates among whom
the Pope and Cardinal Francesco might choose (Bibl. Vat., Ms. Barb. Lat. 8731, fol. 126
recto). Subsequently, in letters of 29 May, after the obsequies, Cardinal Antonio reports
Pandolfis selection by the Pope and praises him (Bibl. Vat., Ms. Barb. Lat. 6045, fol. 14
recto, to Pandolfi; ibid., Ms. Barb. Lat. 6046, fol. 8 recto, to Cardinal Francesco).
16
Inv. No. 193775, 101/4 x 10 in.
17
Illustrated in Wittkower, Bernini, 206. The memorial to the Pope may be thought of
as combining and developing elements from the early and final stages of the Carlo Barberini
plaque into a fully dynamic design: the supporting figures are now angels in full flight and
the inscription is wholly curvilinear.
18
Illustrated in Wittkower, Bernini, 200.
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479
and not as part of a study for the whole plaque. Baglione and Titi note that
the figure of the Church, i.e., that on the left, was the work of Stefano
Speranza,19 and her drapery in fact seems less animated than that of the allegory on the right. Hence it may be that, as the model also suggests, Bernini
assumed most of the responsibility for executing the latter figure.20 The
bozzetto is datable to the summer of 1630, after the obsequies in Ferrara.
The plaque is alluded to in Cenci's oration, and was probably completed
for the funeral.21 Bernini received final payment on 30 September.22
As pointed out by A. Muoz, Studi sul Bernini, Larte, XIX, 1916, III; cf. G.
Baglione, Le vite de pittori scultori architetti . . ., Rome, 1642, 352; F. Titi, Ammaestramento
utile, e curioso di pittura scoltura et architettura nelle chiese di Roma, Rome, 1686, 172 f.
20
Cf. Wittkower, Bernini, 196.
21
Pp. 2930 (cited above, n. 10).
22
Fraschetti, Bernini, 94, n. 1.
19
XIII
Berninis Baldachin: Considering a Reconsideration
N important if by no means exclusive key to an understanding of that

extraordinary image Bernini created in the baldachin of St. Peters lies
in the series of provisional monuments installed in the crossing and in the
choir of the building by the predecessors of Berninis patron, Pope Urban
VIII (16231644). There were two main stages in this prior history of the
baldachin. Clement VIII (15921605) removed the medieval installation at
the altar over the tomb of the apostles Peter and Paul and erected in its place
a ciborium with a cupola resting on columns, made of temporary materials.
In the new church, however, the high altar was in the crossing, far removedfrom the choir where ceremonies involving the College of Cardinals normally took place. To deal with this problem, Paul V introduced a second
altar in the choir, and with it a fundamental visual and conceptual distinction between the resulting two focal points. The type of architectural ciborium Clement had placed over the high altar was transferred to the choir
altar, where the ancient marble spiral columns that had decorated the early
Christian presbytery were reused as supports for the cupola and as part of a
screen across the apse. The altar that remained in the crossing was now
given an altogether different kind of covering, also impermanent, consisting of a baldachin with a tasseled canopy supported by staves which were
held erect by four standing angels. No doubt the purpose of these two contrasting but complementary forms was to express, on the one hand, the
function of the altar in the choir as the liturgical focal point of the building, and, on the other hand, the symbolical significance of the site in the
crossing where the remains of the apostles were interred. The two structures
were variously repaired, rebuilt and replaced until a permanent solution to
BERNINIS BALDACHIN
481
the problem was reached under Urban VIII; he renounced the arrangement
in the choir, leaving the monument in the crossing to convey the meanings
of both predecessors. The great achievement of Berninis baldachin was to
merge in coherent form the two traditionally independent prototypes,
adapting elements from each: a structural crown above a cornice with tasseled lambrequin resting on true spiral columns and sustained by angels.
Two points should be borne in mind when considering this development. The baldachin idea first appeared at St. Peters only when Paul V
decided to establish a second papal altar in the choir; indeed, only in such
a context would the baldachin type make sense, i.e., as a contrasting and
complementary supplement to the ciborium type that had been used by his
predecessors. Moreover, the final baldachins patently chimerical combination of elements from both prototypes was precisely what was attributed to
Bernini in a bitter criticism of the work by the painter Agostino Ciampelli,
recorded by Borromini on a manuscript guide to Rome written by one of
his friends: (Ciampelli) said that baldachins are not supported by columns
but by staves, and that the baldachin should not run together with the cornice of the columns, and in any case he wanted to show that it is borne by
angels: and he added that it was a chimera.1
In a recent article W. Chandler Kirwin has provided a good deal of additional information concerning this prehistory of Berninis baldachin.2 The
new material comes mainly from two kinds of sources, which Kirwin has
examined more thoroughly than any of his predecessors: on the one hand,
the actual accounts of payments to workmen, prepared by and for professionals in matters of architecture and construction; on the other hand, the
minutes of meetings of the Congregation of Cardinals that supervised the
building of St. Peters, and the diaries of the papal Masters of Ceremonies,
written by and for amateurs in such matters. We now know that the temporary structures erected over the two altars were more numerous than we
had suspected (though not so numerous as Kirwin makes out), we have a
clearer image of what certain of these structures were like, and we have a
better idea of how the altars were used. These are real, but disappointingly
modest gains, and evidently in a misguided effort to inflate his own contriFor details on all the foregoing, see I. Lavin, Bernini and the Crossing of St. Peters, New
York, 1968; also idem, Letter to the Editor, The Art Bulletin, LV, 1973, 475476, and
Bernini and the Unity of the Visual Arts, New York and London, 1980, 1921.
2
Berninis Baldacchino Reconsidered, Rmisches Jahrbuch fr Kunstgeschichte, XIX,
1981, 141171.
1
482
bution, Kirwin assumes the task of deflating Berninis. He concludes with

proclamations of Berninis power, innovative brilliance and genius; but
he offers no definition of these achievements, and the effect of his argument
is to assign to Bernini the improbable role of executant of his predecessors
basic ideas. We shall see that, on the contrary, Kirwins results in no way
alter the substance of what could be surmised from the material previously
available and add remarkably little to our understanding of the genesis of
Berninis creation. Perhaps more important, however, and certainly more
dispiriting, is the intricate pattern of misinterpretation, misrepresentation,
and actual misquotation of evidence that Kirwin has woven to support his
undertaking. The following consideration of Kirwins reconsideration is
therefore intended not only to refute his thesis, but also to expose his
method. The reader must be forewarned that although I have simplified it
to the extent possible, the subject is complicated as much by Kirwins
construals as by the nature of the evidence itself.
Clement VIIIs Ciborium(s) in the Crossing
Kirwin naturally starts with the ciborium of wood, canvas, and papier
mach erected by Clement VIII over the altar in the crossing. Here payments to the workmen clarify the picture of the structure: it had eight
columns with bases and foliated capitals3 Kirwin tries to connect the work
described in these documents with one illustrated in a drawing in
Stockholm (Figs. 1, 2). The project represented here is octagonal in plan
and consists of eight angels standing on balustrades with pedestals bearing
the arms of the Aldobrandini pope Clement VIII. The angels grasp elaborately carved staves which support a canopy. The identification is quite
untenable. The drawing represents a baldachin, not a ciborium. The payments consistently refer to a ciborium and columns with bases and foliated capitals terms no one versed in such matters would use for the
work shown in the drawing (see below for the terms used when a real baldachin was built). The documents make no reference to angels. Particularly
telling is a contemporary writers comment that this monument was similar
to a catafalque,4 a type of structure which had nothing in common with the
design in Stockholm. Catafalques, however fanciful, and including those
3
4
Kirwin, Appendix IA, p. 165.

J. A. F. Orbaan, Documenti sul barocco in Roma, Rome, 1920, 47 f, n.
BERNINIS BALDACHIN
1. Baldachin bearing Aldobrandi Arms, drawing.

Nationalmuseum, Stockholm.
483
484
3. Sacrament altar,
St. Johns in the Lateran,
engraving (showing figures
falsely described by Kirwin as
angels reclining on the
pediment). After Buonanni,
Numismata pontificum,
1699, II, 457, fig. XI.
BERNINIS BALDACHIN
4. Sacrament altar, St. Johns in the Lateran, medal of

Clement VIII. Bibliothque Nationale, Paris.
5. Archivio della Reverenda Fabbrica di San Pietro, I Piano, serie 1, vol. 2,

fasc. 4, fol. 3 verso (showing dash [-] falsely identified by Kirwin as a colon [:].
St. Peters, Rome.
485
486
cited by Kirwin himself, were essentially architectural monuments with true

columns and monumental superstructures; they might be amply decorated
with sculptures, but never with figures holding up the columns.5
Furthermore, the documents indicate that Clement expected to execute his
ciborium in marble, a material that certainly could not have been envisaged
for the delicate affair depicted in the Stockholm drawing.6 Finally, and perhaps most important, Clement had no motive for introducing a baldachin
in isolation at St. Peters. If, on the contrary, one supposes Clements ciborium to have established the type followed subsequently at St. Peters
basically square in plan with a cupola resting on paired columns placed
diagonally at the corners all these difficulties disappear.
The drawn project does significantly anticipate the baldachin Paul V
later erected in the crossing when he added the second altar in the choir,
and Kirwins eagerness to establish that fact by associating the design with
St. Peters seems to have blinded him to what is evidently its real purpose.
This is suggested by the bust-length figures represented in the lappets of the
canopy: Christ appears in the center flanked at his right by the Virgin, John
the Evangelist, and Peter, and at his left by John the Baptist, James Major,
and Paul. The inclusion of the apostles John and his brother James in this
context makes no sense for the altar of Peter and Paul at St. Peters, a difficulty Kirwin tries to dispose of in his description by relegating the interlopers to a footnote.7 The disposition makes perfect sense, however, at one
place in particular at St. Johns in the Lateran. There it would be eminently proper to give precedence after the Deisis to John the Evangelist (to
whom, along with the Savior and the Baptist, the church is dedicated) and
James; and to include after them Peter and Paul, relics of whom are preserved at the high altar. The connection with the Lateran helps to explain
the form and function of the project, because we know from a contemporary source that Clement VIII planned to do at the Lateran something very
similar to what Paul V later actually did at St. Peters, namely, move the
Gothic ciborium over the altar of the apostles farther back from the cross5
For surveys of funeral catafalques, see in general O. Berendson, The Italian Sixteenth
and Seventeenth Century Catafalques, unpub. Ph.D. diss., New York University, 1961; for
Rome, M. Fagiolo dellArco and S. Carandini, Leffimero barocco, 2 vols., Rome,
19771978.
6
Kirwin, App. IB, p. 165.
7
Kirwin, 149, n. 49. The Evangelist is identifiable by the chalice he holds, James Major
by his pilgrims staff and kinship with John.
BERNINIS BALDACHIN
487
ing into the tribune.8 The baldachin shown in the Stockholm drawing
would thus have contrasted with the architectural monument in the choir.
The whole scheme adds to the accumulation of testimony I have given of
the importance of Clement VIIIs work at the Lateran for the subsequent
developments at St. Peters.9
We next learn that less than three years later, in the first months of 1597,
this ciborium was rebuilt or refurbished.10 The new structure, which must
have incorporated elements from the previous one, again consisted of eight
columns, four of feigned Portasanta marble and four of feigned yellow marble, placed against eight pilasters also in imitation marble, which supported
a superstructure with architrave, frieze, cornice and pediment, surmounted
by a cupola.11 Clement replaced the ciborium a second time in 1600 for the
jubilee year. The documents give no hint of the design of this work, but
again there is no reason to assume it was radically different from the extant
8
Nella visita del Papa a S. Gio. Laterano, volse vedere minutamente la capella et li
organi che vi si fabricano, et se bene S. S.ta sia molto essausta de danari ordin agli architetti
che tirassero lopera fine dovendovisi rimover quel gran tabernacolo che contien li corpi
delli dui Principi dApostoli et metter sotto la tribuna, et farvi il pavimento di nuovo (E.
Rossi, Roma ignorata, Roma, XII, 1934, 40). This matter will be discussed by Mr. Jack
Freiberg of New York University, in his dissertation on the sixteenth-century redecorations
of the Lateran.
9
Lavin, Crossing, 1618. Precisely the opposite must be said of Kirwins own attempt to
supplement the evidence. Discussing (p. 149, n.49; cf. also p. 163, n. 154) the motif of the
angels reclining on a pediment which appears on the canopy of the baldachin in the
Stockholm drawing, he cites, without illustration, an engraving published in 1699 depicting
a medal of the Sacrament altar erected at the Lateran by Clement VIII for the jubilee in 1600
(Fig. 3; F. Buonanni, Numismata pontificum romanorum quae a tempore Martini V usque ad
annum MDCXCIX, 2 vols., Rome, 1699, II, 457, Fig. XI [not IX as in Kirwin]). Kirwin
describes this engraving as a contemporary source according to which the Lateran altar was
also originally conceived to include two reclining angels on the outer edges of the pediment
above it. In fact, no such figures appear in the engraving or in the original medal on which
it was based (Fig. 4).
10
Kirwin, 151, App. II, pp. 165 ff.
11
Kirwin, 152, makes a separate project out of a summary invoice for the decoration of
a ciborium by the painter Cesare Nebbia, which includes a payment dated September 1598
(App. III, cf. No. 11, p. 166). The work must have been done on the structure built in 1597,
however, since two payments for that project made to Nebbia in March 1597 (Kirwin, App.
II, No. 1, p. 165) were deducted from the amount owed him in the later bill (Kirwin, App.
III, No. 11, p. 166).
Four papier mach bases paid for in March 1597 (Kirwin, App. II, No. 2, p. 165) were
evidently partial replacements for those of the 1594 ciborium.
488
ciborium.12 Three years later, canvas was purchased for still another state of
the ciborium, of which nothing more is heard before Clements death.13
Two conclusions, neither of them suggested by Kirwin, may be offered
at this point. The Stockholm drawing shows that Paul Vs idea for a baldachin supported by standing angels, used as a counterpart in the crossing
for an architectural ciborium in the choir, may have originated in Clement
VIIIs plans for the Lateran. Kirwins documents indicate that Clement
VIIIs ciboriums (ciborium, if my suspicion is correct that the successive
replacements were essentially refurbishings of the first monument) also
anticipated the form Paul V gave to the centerpiece of the ciborium he
added in the choir of St. Peters.
Paul Vs Baldachin in the Crossing and Ciborium(s) in the Choir
Paul adapted Clements baldachin by reducing the number of staves and
supporting angels, and he adapted the ciborium by flanking it with additional columns so as to create a screen across the apse. In essence, the latter
arrangement recalled the situation that had obtained in the Constantinian
presbytery at St. Peters, an evocation that was reinforced by incorporating
ten of the spiral columns from the original structure. Eight of the columns
were used for the centerpiece, while the screen consisted of three columns
extending laterally on each side, the two outermost being original marble
spiral columns while the two pairs of inner ones were made ex novo. Here,
Kirwins two kinds of sources create a problem because they contradict each
other, a problem which recurs and which each time Kirwin either overlooks
or ignores. In the present case, the papal diarist reports that the new
columns were made of cement and stone and imitated as closely as possible
the original marble columns, which were of the composite order;14 instead,
the actual bill for the work, submitted by the craftsman and countersigned
by the architect Carlo Maderno, shows that the new columns, like the
entire superstructure, were actually made of wood and were of the Doric
Kirwin, 151, App. IV, p. 166.

Kirwin, 151, App. V, p. 167.
14
Ex dictis sex columnis, quae coronidem praedictam sustinebant, duae quidem marmoreae erant et ex eisdem, quas a templo Salomonis translatas esse traditur, aliae quattuor
ad illarum similitudinem, quantum licuit, ex cemento ac lapidibus fabricatae fuerunt (italics
mine; Kirwin, App. VIA, No. 4, p. 168).
12
13
BERNINIS BALDACHIN
489
order.15 We must certainly lend credence to the professionals, especially in

the accounting records, where accuracy was a matter of hard finances. The
discrepancy effectively rules out Kirwins attempt to identify with this structure a drawing of the ciborium and screen made later by Borromini,
inscribed with the name of Paul V.16 Here the columns are all of the same,
composite order, except that the outer two are spirals whereas the inner four
are straight. The additional evidence reinforces my identification of the
drawing with a refurbishing of the 1606 structure carried out under Pauls
successors, which the inscription and other evidence indicate must have
been envisaged toward the end of Pauls reign.17
The ciborium and screen in the choir remained unchanged for a decade
and a half. Here, in order to circumvent an inconvenient document, Kirwin
creates a grotesque straw man. He imputes to Oskar Pollak a nugatory error
in the transcription of a painters invoice, an error by which I was supposedly misled to the assumption that the work was for a ciborium and screen
at the high altar.18 Pollak was not in error, however, and the full description
of the work and the repeated use of the word rifatto show patently that it
was a renewal of the monument in the choir.19 The only significant change
from the predecessor is that the four columns were now remade with fluted
and foliated shafts;20 they certainly could not have had Doric capitals, and
there is no indication they were spiral in form. For these reasons, and
15
Invoice of Giuseppe di Banchi falegname (carpenter) in Borgo . . . per quattro
colonne tonde con base, capitello di ordine dorico, November 23, 1606 (Kirwin, App.
VIA, No. 2, p. 167).
16
Kirwin, 154 ff.
17
See Lavin, Crossing, 8, 43 f, Nos. 26, 27.
18
Kirwin, 160, n. 118.
19
See O. Pollak, Die Kunstttigkeit unter Urban VIII, 2 vols., Vienna, 19281931, II,
12 f; cf. Lavin, Crossing, 8,44, No. 27. Kirwin, who misquotes the text itself, says that Pollak
omitted a colon (:) after the words San Pietro (cf. Fig. 5), whereas Pollak simply replaced the
dash by dots, a typographical practice followed throughout the book. The successive clauses
describe distinct tasks on various parts of the structure.
The term cappella del coro introduced by Kirwin nowhere occurs in this document.
The phrase actually employed, choro, dove f capella il Papa, is equivalent to the ciborio
dove fa Cappella Nostro Signore Papa used for the 1606 version (Kirwin, App. VIA, No.
2, p. 167).
I have not troubled to check all of Kirwins transcriptions, but we shall see that each time
he accuses Pollak of error Kirwin himself is tendentiously at fault. I am indebted to Jack
Freiberg for taking the photographs of documents reproduced here.
20
. . . quattro Colonne scanellate e fogliami finti di chiaro e scuro con li suoi
Capitelli . . . (Pollak, Kunstttigkeit, II, 12).
490
because the other details correspond exactly, the drawing by Borromini

mentioned earlier must reflect the renewed, rather than the original state of
the monument.
One other thing of importance happened under Paul V. Borromini, in
the same text referred to earlier, records that Carlo Maderno submitted a
project which included a baldachin canopy and spiral columns.21 This project, otherwise unrecorded, is important because it is the first evidence we
have of an attempt to combine the baldachin and ciborium prototypes.
Borrominis purpose was clearly to record this precedent for the bronze baldachin of Bernini, so several points concerning his carefully worded statement must be understood: he says explicitly that the canopy did not touch
the cornice of the columns, he does not suggest that the spiral columns were
to be imitated in bronze on a colossal scale, and he makes no reference to
supporting angels. All these were essential features of Berninis baldachin,
and it is unimaginable that Borromini would have failed to mention them.
Kirwins new material bears on Madernos project in only one respect: the
papal diarists continued to refer to the altar at the tomb of the apostles as
the high altar, although it was used only rarely after the new altar was introduced for regular services in the apse. Since Borromini says Madernos project was for the high altar, Kirwin argues that it was meant for the tomb
altar rather than the apse altar, as I had surmised. The matter is not quite so
simple as Kirwin makes out. In the identifying inscription on a drawing of
the ciborium in the choir by a contemporary French architect, the apse altar
is described as le grand autel.22 Borrominis usage may be comparable to
that of certain early seventeenth-century sources concerning the Lateran,
which refer to the great Sacrament altar built by Clement VIII in the
transept of the church, rather than to the altar of the apostles in the crossing, as the altar maggiore (cf. Fig. 6)23 Moreover, Kirwins attempt to locate
Madernos project in the crossing conflicts with the report we have that Paul
V intended to execute the 1606 baldachin with supporting angels permanently in bronze.24 Kirwins theory that Paul intended to do away with his
Lavin, Crossing, 11 f, 42, No. 17.
Cf. Lavin, Crossing, 47, No. 1, Fig. 28 A.
23
See the avviso of 22 April 1600 quoted in E. Rossi, Roma ignorata, Roma, XII, 1934,
323. Our Fig. 6 is from an incomplete set of photographs in the Bibliotheca Hertziana of a
suite of engravings by Giovanni Maggi and Matthias Greuter (Lavin, Crossing, 41, No. 8);
cf. C. DOnofrio, Roma vista da Roma, Rome, 1968, 65.
24
Lavin, Crossing, 6, n. 24.
21
22
BERNINIS BALDACHIN
491
own new second altar in the choir is belied by the evidence alluded to above
that he began a refurbishment of the ciborium and screen. In any case, there
was never any doubt that the project of Maderno recorded by Borromini
was of seminal importance for Berninis design. The precise meaning and
implications of Borrominis canny formulation are debatable, but its veracity is not; and Kirwin utterly misrepresents the case in stating that I seriously questioned Borrominis accuracy and reliability.25
Gregory XVs Baldachins in the Crossing
The subsequent history of the baldachin at the crossing was also essentially one of renewing the structure erected at the beginning of Paul Vs
reign. A baldachin with staves supported by kneeling rather than standing
angels was erected for a canonization celebration in March of 1622.
Contemporary engravings show that the staves were richly carved with floral motifs and Kirwin cites a descriptive pamphlet in which the phrase
colonne allantica is used;26 but the term was obviously used loosely, for it
is evident from the engravings that the supports were not true columns.
Kirwin next shows that a design for replacing this baldachin was submitted by May 12, 1622.27 He would have us believe, however, that the
work was completed in less than three weeks, citing in evidence (but not
quoting) a passage in a papal diary to the effect that the pope celebrated
mass at the altar on June 29. The passage in fact says nothing about a new
baldachin and the design approved in May was surely that for which
Bernini made a set of kneeling angels.28 Payments to the craftsmen begin a
month later and thereafter complement each other chronologically as well
as substantively.29 Kirwin seeks to avoid the inevitable conclusion that only
one work was involved by again falsely accusing Pollak of an error, this time
Kirwin, 158.
Kirwin, 161, n. 125.
27
Kirwin, 161, App. IX, No. 1, p. 170.
28
Lavin, Crossing, 8 f, 41 f, No. 13. In a letter written before January 1, 1624, Teodoro
della Porta complains about the provisional works at the Altare magg(io)re che stato fatto
e rifatto quattro volte . . . come hora segue medemam(en)te (Pollak, Kunstttigkeit, 11, 71);
he was presumably referring to the ciborium of Clement VIII, Paul Vs baldachin of 1606,
the canonization baldachin of 1622, and the replacement baldachin of 16221624.
29
Cf. Pollak, Kunstttigkeit, II, 306 ff, Nos. 984 ff. Significantly, only payments to the
woodcarvers who made the supports predate the instructions to erect them (Kirwin, App.
IXB, Nos. 1, 2, p. 170); work by the other craftsmen followed afterward.
25
26
492
of having incorrectly transcribed a date on the woodcarvers invoice.

Pollaks transcription of the year, 1621, is perfectly accurate (cf. Fig. 7), and
Kirwins emendation to 1622 (which he describes as indesputable [sic]) is
simply based on an unexplained and unwarranted transposition of the date
of the succeeding document in the volume.30
The worst is yet to come. In 1976 a volume of the minutes of the meetings of the Congregation of Cardinals that supervised St. Peters was rediscovered by the archivist of the Fabbrica. In the minutes of meeting of July
3 and October 6, 1623, the secretary of the Congregation speaks of four
columns of wood made to support the baldachin over the high altar;
Kirwin takes these references as evidence of still another temporary baldachin and as proof that the idea of supporting a baldachin on columns
dates from this period.31 He quotes a payment to a scarpellino who worked
on the baldachin in the following way: a mastro Bettino Albertini 61.39,
il resto di 101.39 per i lavori del baldacchino allaltare.32 This payment
had already been published by Pollak, the accuracy of whose transcription I
30
Kirwin, 161, n. 129. The essence of Kirwins method is betrayed by his discussion of
the year 1621 inscribed on the outside of this invoice, a summary of work done on several
projects submitted by the woodcarver G. B. Soria for final payment. Kirwin refers to the
document by citing Pollak, Kunstttigkeit, II, 1720, No. 35, and his operative sentence
concerning the data is as follows: The date 1622 is indesputable (see A.F., I Piano, serie 1,
vol. 4, fascioli n. 12). The implication is that proof of the emended date will be found in
the two documents cited in the parentheses. But fascicule 1 is the same as Pollak No. 35, and
fascicule 2 is nothing more than an order of July 1622 to pay one of the sums mentioned in
the invoice, one of the long series of payments to Soria that continued through 1624.
(Fascicule 2 had also been published by Pollak, whom Kirwin fails to cite although I had
given the reference, Ausgewhlte Akten zur Geschichte der rmischen Peterskirche
[15351621], Jahrbuch der preussischen Kunstsammlungen XXXVI, 1915, Beiheft, 107,
No. 57.)
Thus, with no justification, Kirwin transfers the date of the single, interim payment to
the whole invoice. This extrapolation in turn entails the extraordinary assumption that, for
no apparent reason, the woodcarver was paid for finished work in installments over the next
two years! The example of belated payment Kirwin cites as a parallel (App. III, p. 166) is
totally inapt: final settlement was delayed because the charges were disputed by the authorities and ultimately reduced.
The inscribed date does require explanation: Pollak thought it might be a scribes error
for 1624, when the invoice was submitted and final payment made; I suggested that it
recorded the intended beginning of work on the project.
31
Kirwin, 161, App. IXB, Nos. 1, 2, p. 170.
32
Kirwin, App. IXB, No. 4, p. 170.
BERNINIS BALDACHIN
493
6. St. Johns in th Lateran, engraving by Giovanni Maggi

and Matthias Greuter (showing sacrament altar labeled
ALTAR MAGGIORE).
7. Archivio della Reverenda Fabbrica di San Pietro, I Piano, serie 1, vol. 4, fasc. 1,
fol. 1 recto (showing date, 1621, correctly [not erroneously, as stated by Kirwin]
transcribed by Pollak). St. Peters, Rome.
8. Archivio della Reverenda Fabbrica di San Pietro, Serie armadi, vol. 240, fol. 19 verso
(showing portino of document di scarpello per li piedestalli intorno alaste
omitted by Kirwin). St. Peters, Rome.
494
have verified against the original (Fig. 8).33 In this case, Kirwin does not
refer to Pollak, a convenient oversight since Kirwin omits a crucial phrase.
The passage actually reads: . . . per lavori di scarpello per li piedestalli intorno
alaste del baldacchino alaltare (italics mine). In point of fact, the term
aste is used repeatedly and exclusively in the payments to the workmen and
in the invoices, which are countersigned by the architect, Carlo Maderno.
These men, unlike the cardinals of the Congregation, were professionals; we
must take them at their word and the word aste means stave. I emphasized that the staves of this last temporary baldachin before Berninis had
decorations (including colarini and piedi rather than capitals and bases)
which might have evoked the original twisted columns;34 but after Clement
VIIIs ciborium, column does not appear in the financial records concerning the structures erected at the altar of the apostles until the reference is to
Berninis project.
Urban VIIIs Competition and Berninis Contribution
Another interesting resolution of the Congregation is recorded in the
newly discovered volume of minutes. On June 7, 1624, that is, under
Urban VIII, the overseer of the Fabbrica was instructed to issue an edict
soliciting ideas and models for the baldachin to be prepared along with a
verbal explanation by the next meeting of the group fifteen days later.35
Kirwin sees this record as evidence of a formal competition, of which a
mockery was made by the foregone conclusion of Berninis victory as the
popes favorite. It is difficult to see why Urban VIII should have stooped to
such a subterfuge, and in fact nothing more is heard of the matter, although
there was plenty of criticism of Berninis ideas and we know a number of
alternative projects. Urbans choice of the designer for the baldachin was
certainly a foregone conclusion, however, and there can be no doubt of the
essential reason.
Despite Berninis manifold dependence on predecessors both in the far
and in the near past, the major novelties of his solution emerge clearer than
ever from Kirwins attempt to obfuscate them: Bernini used true columns
to support a baldachin, imitating the ancient spiral columns on a colossal
Kunstttigkeit, II, 307, No. 993.
Pollak, Kunstttigkeit,11, 18; cf. Lavin, Crossing, 9.
35
Kirwin, 162 ff, App. X, No. 1, p. 170. This document had already been cited by C.
DOnofrio, La papessa Giovanna, Rome, 1979, 243.
33
34
BERNINIS BALDACHIN
495
scale in bronze; he shifted the angels from beside the monument (where
they were no longer needed to support staves) to the tops of the columns
where they carry the canopy; and he completed the marriage of processional baldachin with architectural ciborium by connecting the columns
through a cornice from which, in place of the traditional architrave and
frieze, tasseled lappets hang. His design thus fused the three main types of
honorific covers, the architectural ciborium, the processional baldachin,
and the hanging canopy.36 Finally, Bernini imitated the early Christian form
of the altar covering, in which crossed ribs rested on spiral columns. I have
defined these innovations before and Kirwins material requires not the
slightest emendation to any of them.37
36
O. Berendsen has recently pointed out that canopies were suspended from domical
superstructures above the bier in certain catafalque designs (I primi catafalchi del Bernini e
il progetto del Baldacchino, in M. Fagiolo and G. Spagnesi, eds., Immagini del barocco.
Bernini a la cultura del seicento, Florence, 1982, pp. 133143.
Before encountering J. Traegers explication of the feigned canopy in the vault of
Raphaels Stanza dEliodoro especially the allusion to Peters vision of a great sheet let
down from heaven by four corners (Acts 10 :11, 11:5) I had not been fully aware of the
significance of this motif for the covering of the tomb of the apostle and for the Eucharist
(Raphaels Stanza dEliodoro and ihr Bildprogramm, Rmisches Jahrbuch fr
Kunstgeschichte, XIII, 1971, 2999, esp. 54 ff, 65 f ).
37
See above, n. 1.
Lavin XIV. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap III
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XIV
Berninis Bust of Cardinal Montalto
N the Hamburg Kunsthalle is a marble bust of a cardinal (Figs. 14)

bequeathed to the museum in 1910 by Freiherr Johann Heinrich von
Schrder, along with his collection of nineteenth-century paintings.1 The
records of the gift are silent concerning the sculpture: no attribution or
date, no mention of the time or place of acquisition. Described in the
museums 1918 inventory as by an Italian Master of the Seventeenth Century,
it was re-assigned in 1939 to an Unknown Master of the Nineteenth Century.
The work remained in the museum storeroom until the spring of 1984,
when preparations were being made for a special exhibition of the von
Schrder collection. The curator, Dr. Georg Syamken, then wrote to
Jennifer Montagu of the Warburg Institute and myself, enclosing photographs of the bust and indicating that he had become doubtful of the nineteenth century date.
Dr. Montagu and I independently identified the sculpture as the lost
portrait by Gianlorenzo Bernini of Cardinal Alessandro Damasceni-Peretti
Montalto (15711623), grandnephew of Pope Sixtus V Peretti (1585 90).
Indeed, to anyone knowledgeable in the field of Roman seventeenthcentury sculpture, the sitter is immediately recognizable as the same personage represented by a well-known, half-length portrait of Cardinal
Ein Hamburger sammelt in London. Die Freiherr J. H. von Schrder Stiftung 1910,
Hamburger Kunsthalle 1984. The present note is by way of a preliminary announcement of
the discovery of the bust, which I shall discuss in a larger essay on Berninis portraiture.
The condition is excellent except for a nick in the upper edge of the figures left ear, and
the addition to the base, to be discussed below. Height overall 88 cm., with original portion
of base 79 cm., without base 68.5 cm.; width 65 cm.
1
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BERNINIS BUST OF CARDINAL MONTALTO
1. Cardinal Alessandro Damasceni-Peretti Montalto, by Gianlorenzo Bernini.

Marble; height, with original base, 79 cm. (Kunsthalle, Hamburg).
497
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498
2. Another view of the bust

reproduced in Fig. 1.
3. Rear view of the bust

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3. Detail of the bust reproduced in Fig. 1.
4993
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500
Alessandro in the Bode Museum, Berlin (Fig. 5). This sculpture, attributed
to Algardi since the mid-eighteenth century, was acquired in 1786 along
with an unfinished companion piece representing Alessandros brother
Michele (15711631), from the Villa Montalto in Rome.2
The list of Berninis works appended by Filippo Baldinucci to his biography of the artist published in 1682 includes a portrait of Cardinal
Montalto in Casa Peretti, the immense villa that had been created by Pope
Sixtus on the Esquiline hill (on the site now occupied mainly by the railroad station).3 The bust is mentioned in inventories of the villa and in a
guide to Rome written about 1660; it was placed on a carved and gilt
wooden pedestal in a room adjoining the main salone on the piano nobile of
the palace facing the Piazza di Termini, i.e., the Baths of Diocletian.4 The
Hamburg marble is so closely related to other busts by Bernini dating from
the early 1620s, and its quality is so high, that there can be no doubt of its
being the lost work and, in my opinion, a completely autograph masterpiece by the young sculptor.
Cardinal Alessandro was an impassioned builder and patron of the arts.
Among his most notable enterprises were the construction of the church of
Sant Andrea della Valle and, together with his brother, the embellishment
of the Villa Montalto. By far the most splendid addition to the garden of
the latter was Berninis Neptune Fountain that adorned the great fishpond
at the southwest corner of the property.5 There is no documentary evidence
concerning the fountain, but it is generally assumed to have been made
sometime between 1620 and 1623. The villa passed through several hands
during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, remaining more or
less intact until it was acquired in 1784 by a speculator who systematically
2
See M. Heimburger Ravalli, Alessandro Algardi scultore, Rome 1973, No: 26, 99 f, 179
(the bust of Alessandro, dated c. 1634, is wrongly reported as destroyed).
3
F. Baldinucci, Vita del Cavaliere Gio. Lorenzo Bernino, Florence, 1682, ed. S. S.
Ludovici, Milan, 1948,176; cf. R Wittkower, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Oxford, 1981, 268,
No. 81(7). On the villa, besides the basic monograph by Massimo cited in the next footnote,
see C. DOnofrio, Una grande scomparsa, Capitolium 45, 1970, 5963; D. R Coffin, The
Villa in the Life of Renaissance Rome, Princeton, 1979, 36569.
4
V Massimo, Notizie istoriche della Villa Massimo alle Terme Diocleziane, Rome, 1836,
164; F. Martinelli, Roma ornata dallarchitettura, pittura a scultura, 166063; ed. C.
DOnofrio, Roma vista da Roma, Rome, 1968, 326: La testa con busto del Card. Alessandro
Montalto di marmo bianco del Cav. Bernino.
5
J. Pope-Hennessy, Catalogue of Italian Sculpture in the Victoria and Albert Museum,
London, 1964, No. 637, 596 ff; Wittkower, Bernini,177 f, No. 9.
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501
sold its contents. The Neptune group, now in the Victoria and Albert
Museum in London, went to England in 1786 and in view of the fact that
the bulk of von Schrders collection was acquired during his stay in
England, one may surmise that Berninis bust of the cardinal had a similar
fate.
The bust must have been made at the same time as the Neptune group,
since it has two salient features in common with a series of portraits by
Bernini that can be dated 162123 on independent grounds. One of these
features is the low base with a cartouche carved on the front, the other is
the bow-shaped lower silhouette. Parallel instances are the busts of Cardinal
Giovanni Dolfin, before May 1621 (Fig. 6), Cardinal Escoubleau de
Sourdis, before July 1622 (Fig. 7) and Antonio Cepparelli, AprilAugust
1622 (Fig. 8).6 The carefully finished back of the Hamburg bust, with two
large hollows at the sides flanking a central vertical spine that includes the
base, is very close to that of Berninis recently rediscovered bust of Gregory
XV, datable FebruarySeptember 1621 (Fig. 9).7 Another feature common
to nearly all these works, including the new one, is the rendering of the iris
and pupil of the eye as a hemispherical depression surrounded by a thin,
faintly-incised ring and filled with a tear-shaped protrusion; the configuration imparts to the eyes depth, sharp focus and a lively glint.
While the cartouche base alone suffices to assign the work to the 1620s,
since the motif occurs in Berninis busts only at that time, the design of the
torso suggests a more precise date. A steady increase in the relative width
and in the curvature of the bottom of the torso is evident throughout the
series, culminating in the bust of Antonio Cepparelli. In the new portrait
the upward and outward flare is even more dynamic. Of particular importance is the fact that the shoulders in the Hamburg sculpture are not parallel to the picture plane: the right shoulder is thrust slightly forward,
imparting a subtle but insistent movement that is also found in the
Cepparelli portrait. This action, in turn, has its counterpart in the treatment of the drapery, which seems more complex and broken than in the
6
For the dating and a discussion of these works, see I. Lavin, Five New Youthful
Sculptures by Gianlorenzo Bernini and a Revised Chronology of his Early Works, The Art
Bulletin 50,1968, 238 ff. Very similar as well, although with a different kind of base, is the
bust of Monsignor Carlo Antonio dal Pozzo, which is undated but must also belong to this
period: S. Rinehart, A Bernini Bust at Castle Howard, The Burlington Magazine 109, 1967,
43743.
7
I shall discuss this work in the study mentioned in n. 1 above.
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502
5. Cardinal Alessandro Damasceni-Peretti Montalto, attributed to Alessandro

Algardi. Marble, height 91 cm. (Bode Museum, Berlin).
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6. Cardinal Giovanni Dolfin, by

Gianlorenzo Bernini.
Marble, life-size
(S. Michele allIsola, Venice).
7. Cardinal Escoubleau de
Sourdis, by Gianlorenzo
Bernini. Marble,
height 75 cm.
(St. Bruno, Bordeaux).
503
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Page 10
504
8. Antonio Cepparelli, by Gianlorenzo Bernini. Marble, height 70 cm.

(S. Giovanni dei Fiorentini, Rome).
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Page 11
9. Rear view of bust of Pope

Gergory XV, by
Gianlorenzo Bernini.
Marble, height 83.5 cm.
(Aart Gallery of Ontario,
Toronto).
10. Detail of the bust

505
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506
other works of the group. All these features, which will play significant roles
in the later developement of Berninis portraiture, situate the Hamburg
work toward the end of the series, 1622early 1623.8
Other considerations help to confirm this chronology and may indicate
the purpose for which the sculpture was made. Berninis bases were regularly carved from the same block as the bust, unless a different colored stone
was used. The base of the Hamburg portrait, which stood on its own
pedestal in the Montalto villa, has a separate lower section that must have
been added to increase the width and height. The upper, original portion
alone does seem disproportionately small, suggesting that the sculpture was
not designed to be seen in isolation but in an architectural context, such as
a niche.
Cardinal Montalto died on 3 June 1623. His testament has not yet come
to light, but according to the sources he stipulated that his heart be left to
the Theatine Fathers of Sant Andrea della Valle, and that his body be
buried in the sumptuous chapel built by his granduncle at Santa Maria
8
Cartouche bases also appear in three busts dating from early in the reign of Urban VIII,
elected August 1623. The type is virtually the same in the diminutive and exceptionally
lively, informal bust of the Pope now in the collection of Prince Augusto Barberini; the scroll
motif is developed into wing-like membranes combined with the Barberini bee in the portraits of Monsignor Francesco (National Gallery, Washington, previously dated by me two
or three years too early: Youthful Sculpture, 241 f ) and Antonio Barberini (Galleria
Nazionale, Rome, attribution disputed but in any case closely dependent on Bernini), where
the bulk and animation of the torsos are markedly increased; cf. Wittkower, Bernini, 184,
No. 19(1), 191 f., Nos. 24 (a, b).
I append here a table of the dimensions in centimeters of some early busts of Bernini;
those datable on external grounds are named in italics. (On the bust of Antonio Coppola in
San Giovanni dei Fiorentini, Rome, cf. Lavin, Youthful Sculpture, see note 6, pp. 223 ff.)
H
h
W
Ratio
Ratio
Height
Height
without
Width
H
h
overall
base
W
W
____________________________________________________
Coppola
Gregory XV
De Sourdis
Cepparelli
Montalto
Dal Pozzo
F. Barberini
67
83.5
75
70
79
82.5
80.3
58
63.5
62
60
68.5
68.5
62.2
48
62.5
61
60
65
68.5
66.1
1.4
1.34
1.23
1.17
1.22
1.2
1.22
1.21
1.02
1.02
1
1.05
1
0.94
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507
Maggiore.9 These provisions were duly carried out, yet it seems anomalous
that no monument or inscription was installed in either building. A contemporary account of the funeral suggests that a sculptural commemoration
was intended at Santa Maria Maggiore, and most probably in the form of a
portrait.10 I submit that the image was commissioned as part of a memorial
to be placed in the Sistine chapel. The project was for some reason abandoned after the Cardinals death and the bust, its base raised, was displayed
in the villa as an independent work along with a bronze portrait of Pope
Sixtus himself.11
These observations may help to determine the date and purpose of the
work, but its historical importance derives from the extraordinary qualities
of vitality and refinement with which Bernini suffused the conventions of
formal ecclesiastical portraiture. The symmetrical shape retained from earlier tradition seems to take flight on the wings of the undulating lower edge.
A generally symmetrical arrangement of the drapery is also retained, but the
surfaces and edges of the folds are modulated and subtle asymmetries that
reflect the action of the sitter are introduced. The Cardinal had evidently
suffered from smallpox at some point in his life, and a remarkable feature
of the portrait is the pockmarks that dot the cheeks.12 Such a detail should
not be taken simply as a bit of virtuoso realism,or a moralistic proclamation
of unvarnished truth like Cromwells insistence that his portraitist include
pimples, warts and everything.13 In an uncanny way, the blemishes on
9
A. Chacon, Vitae et res gestae pontificum romanorum et S.R.E cardinalium, 4 vols.,
Rome, 1677, IV, 149, G. Gigli, Diario romano (16081670), ed. G. Ricciotti, Rome,
1958, 71.
10
. . . si port alla Chiesa di S. Maria Maggiore, dove finita la cerimonia dell Essequie f
sepulto nella ricca, a sontuosa Capella del presepio, fabricata con tanta spesa dalla buona mem.
di Sisto V. suo zio, dove essendo viva la memoria sua, & de Pio Papa V. viver ancora la sua scolpita ne marmi [emphasis mine], ma molto pi nel petto de glhuomini . . . (G. Briccio, Il
pianto, et la mestitia dellalma citt di Roma per la morte dellillustriss. et reverendiss. sig.
Alessandro Peretti cardinal Montalto, vescovo Vicecancellario, summator papae, & protettore di
Polonia, Rome, 1623, last page of preface).
11
On the portrait of Sixtus by Bastiano Torrigiani, which exists in two versions, see
Pope-Hennessy, Catalogue, No. 523, 494 f.
12
The pockmarks, faintly visible in our Fig. 4, should not be confused with the flecks of
black that occur naturally in the marble. Dr. Syamken kindly informs me that the pockmarks also appear in the bust in the Bode Museum.
13
Cf. The Dictionary of National Biography, 29 vols., Oxford, 191781. V. 182. (I am
indebted to William Heckscher for reminding me of the source of this dictum.)
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508
Cardinal Alessandros face also evoke the passage of time, comparable to the
movement of the drapery, the turn of the body, and the intense
concentration that animates the face.
XV
Berninis Cosmic Eagle
T is a commonplace of the literature on Bernini that he was a supreme

realist. He observed aspects of the visible world movement, expression,
texture, effects of light and recorded or evoked them in marble or bronze
as had no previous sculptor. This unprecedented sensitivity to and analysis
of the physical world parallels the revolutionary achievements in scientific
thought and observation that took place during the artists lifetime. Yet, as
far as we know, Bernini was not directly concerned with these great developments unlike the painter Cigoli, for example, who was a friend of
Galileos and represented a telescopic view of the moon in one of his paintings.1 Bernini had a close association with one of the lesser known scientists
of the day, however, the Jesuit Nicolo Zucchi, author of a two-volume treatise on optics, the Optica Philosophia, published at Lyons in 165256.2 For
this work Bernini designed a frontispiece, engraved by Franois Poilly (Fig.
1), which has received almost as little attention from art historians as Nicolo
Zucchi and his treatise have from historians of science. The study by
William Ashworth appearing on the preceding pages of this volume helps
1
Recently, H. Feigenbaum Chamberlain has attempted to establish Berninis use of
Galileos theory of gravity in solids, The Influence of Galileo on Berninis Saint Mary
Magdalen and Saint Jerome Art Bulletin LIX, 1977, 7184; on Cigoli and Galileo, see E.
Panofsky, Galileo as a Critic of the Arts, The Hague, 1954.
2
Optica Philosophia Experimentis et Ratione a Fundamentis Constituta, 2 vols., Lyons,
165256; the frontispiece appears in both volumes. The engraving was first noted by H.
Brauer and R. Wittkower, Die Zeichnungen des Gianlorenzo Bernini, Berlin, 1931, 151, n. 3,
and first reproduced by M. and M. Fagiolo dellArco, Bernini. Una introduzione al gran
teatro del barocco, Rome, 1967, No. 136; see recently Bernini in Vaticano, exh. cat., Rome,
1981, 86 f., No. 63.
510
to place Berninis composition against the background of the illustrated

frontispieces and title pages included in comparable scientific publications
of the period.3 It might be objected that Berninis attitude toward the scientific study of nature is too large a theme to be explored in so modest a
work as this engraving, a mere book illustration and one not even executed
by his own hand. Such a misconception is belied, however, by a remarkable
passage in Baldinuccis biography of the artist: In his works, whether large
or small, Bernini did his utmost in order that there should shine forth that
beauty of concept which the work itself made possible, and he said that it
was his wont to devote as much study and application to the design of a
lamp as to that of a statue or a noble building.4 Evidence of the truth of this
statement lies in the inordinately large number of extant preparatory studies by Bernini for another book illustration, the engraving of Saint John the
Baptist Preaching which he designed for a 1664 edition of the sermons of
his close friend Giovanni Paolo Oliva, head of the Jesuit order.5
From the prints considered by Ashworth it is clear that the frontispiece
to Zucchis optical treatise is quite unlike the kinds of illustrations such
works had received previously. Instead of an elaborate hieroglyphicalallegorical-symbolical conglomeration of motifs, Bernini portrays one
coherent subject: An enormous eagle clutching a lightning bolt flies high
above the earth while looking back toward the sun, whose rays stream
down. The appropriateness to a book on optics of an image of an eagle staring at the sun seems obvious, except that the motif had evidently not been
used before in a scientific context. Indeed, while it expresses the subject of
vision with stunning force, the design conveys nothing of the actual content of the treatise. The fact is that although the basic ingredients of the
frontispiece may be found among its predecessors in scientific texts, the
conception stems in large part from a different tradition and has a largely
different significance.
3
W. Ashworth, Divine Reflections and Profane Refractions: Images of a Scientific Impasse
in Seventeenth Century Italy, in I. Lavin, Gianlorenzo Bernini. New Aspects of His Art and
Thought. A Commemorative Volume, University Park PA, and London, 1985, 179208.
4
Nellopere sue, o grandi, o piccole chelle si fussero, cercava, per quanto era in se, che
rilucesse quella bellezza di concetto, di che lopera stressa si rendeva capace, e diceva, che non
minore studio ed applicazione egli era solito porre nel disegno duna lampana, di quello, ch
e si ponesse in una Statua, o in una nobilissima fabbrica (F. Baldinucci, Vita del cavaliere
Gio. Lorenzo Bernino, Rome, 1682, 71).
5
Cf. I. Lavin, et al., Drawings by Gianlorenzo Bernini from the Museum der bildenden
Knste, Leipzig, German Democratic Republic, Princeton, 1981, 254 ff., Nos. 6577.
BERNINIS COSMIC EAGLE
511
Nicolo Zucchi was born in Parma in 1586 and he died in 1670 in

Rome.6 He taught rhetoric, philosophy, theology, and mathematics at the
Jesuit College in Rome and served for seven years as Apostolic Preacher,
delivering sermons to the Pope and the papal court (an office subsequently
also held for many years by Zucchis good friend and advisee, Giovanni
Paolo Oliva).7 His prowess as an orator was eloquently attested by Bernini,
who reported that when Zucchi preached one felt oneself completely alone
with the speaker.8 Zucchi wrote numerous devotional tracts, and in 1682
one of his fellow Jesuits, Daniele Bartoli, published a biography that
focused mainly on Zucchis religious and ascetic activities. Apart from the
fact that he met and sought to convert Kepler during a visit in 1623 to the
court of the Hapsburg Emperor Ferdinand II at Prague, Zucchi appears in
the literature of science for two reasons: He claimed to have had the idea for
a reflecting telescope as early as 1616, and to have discovered the spots of
Jupiter in 1630. He dedicated his magnum opus in science, the Optica
Philosophia, to Archduke Leopold William, son of Ferdinand II. Leopold
For most of what follows see: A. de Backer and C. Sommervogel, Bibliothque de la
Compagnie de Jsus, 12 vols., Brussels, 18901960, VIII, cols. 15251530; Enciclopedia cattolica, 12 vols., Florence, 19481954, XII, cols. 1827 f.; P. Riccardi, Biblioteca matematica
italiana, 2 vols., Milan, 1952, II, cols. 671 f.; Dictionary of Scientific Biography, 16 vols., New
York, 19701980, XIV, 636 f.; P. Redondi, Galileo eretico, Turin, 1983 (cf. index).
See also the following references, kindly brought to my attention by Professor Ugo
Baldini: H. Weyermann, Nicholas Zucchi und sein Spiegelfernrohr, Die Sterne, XXXIX,
1963, 229 f.; M. D. Grmek, Getaldi, Prodanelli et le tlescope catoptrique Dubrovnik,
Actes du symposium international La gometrie et lalgbre au dbut du XVIIe sicle loccasion
du quatrime centenaire de la naissance de Marin Getaldi; Zagreb, 1969, 17584; U. Baldini,
in G. Micheli, ed., Storia dItalia. Annali 3, Turin, 1980 (index); idem, Una lettera inedita
del Torricelli ed altre dei gesuiti R. Prodanelli, J. C. della Faille, A. Tacquet, P. Bourdin e F.
M. Grimaldi, Annali dell Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza di Firenze, V, 1980, 1537.
7
Cf. L. von Pastor, The History of the Popes, 40 vols., St. Louis, 19381952, XXXI, 126;
A. Neri, Saggio della corrispondenza di Ferdinando Raggi agente della republica genovese a
Roma, Rivista europea, V, 1878, 663, 668, 675.
8
E sopra cio solea dire il Cavalier Bernini, huomo di grande ingegno, e daltrettanto giudicio, che gli altri Predicatori, hora parlauan seco, hor n, ma con niuno, o non sapeua con
chi: Ma il P. Zucchi del primo salir che faceva in pergamo, gli si poneua a faccia a faccia dauanti,
e staua seco parlando a lui solo, quanto duraua il predicare a gli altri. Egli poi veramente commosso moueua, e acceso infiammaua, e con le lagrime sue ammolliua il cuore de gli ascolanti
(D. Bartoli, Della vita del P. Nicolo Zucchi della Compagna di Giesu, Rome, 1682, 146).
In his diary of Berninis visit to Paris in 1665, Chantelou remarks on the artists close
friendship with Zucchi, from whom Bernini received a letter reporting a grave illness of his
wife (P. F. de Chantelou, Journal du voyage du Cavalier Bernin en France, ed. L. Lalanne,
Paris, 1885, 158).
6
512
William, a devout and orthodox Catholic, was then actively engaged in the
effort to suppress the Jansenist movement in Flanders, of which he was
governor.9
Zucchis dedication begins on the page facing the engraving, with two
lines of Latin verse that explain the underlying meaning of Berninis image:
Parvos non aquilis fas est educere foetus/ante fidem solis iudiciumque poli:
Eagles may not rear their young without the suns permission and the good
will of heaven. These are the first two verses of Claudians panegyric on the
third consulship of the Emperor Honorius, and their significance emerges
in the subsequent lines of the poem.10 Claudian tells about the extreme trial
to which young eagles are put by their elders. The parent bird carries its offspring aloft and bids him look directly at the sun; if the fledgling cannot
bear the sight, he is immediately cast down to the earth; if he can, he is nurtured to be the king of birds, heir to the thunderbolt, destined to carry
Joves fiery weapon. The eagle of the engraving, identified as the imperial
bird by the lightning bolt held in its claws, refers to Leopold Williams
imperial heritage; the story depicted refers to the princes worthiness of that
heritage; and the motto inscribed below, between Berninis and the
engravers names UTROQUE POTENS, powerful in both (realms)
refers to the princes spiritual and terrestrial achievements, which are also
extolled in the text of the dedication.11 The image and its motto together
form an ingenious conceit incorporating an encomium of this particular
patron with an allusion to the theme of this particular book.
It is clear that in devising their invention Zucchi and Bernini turned primarily to works that invoked Hapsburg patronage. The three basic components of the frontispiece had appeared in the illustrations of earlier Jesuit
scientific texts published under the imperial aegis: Scheiners treatise of
1619 on the eye, dedicated to Ferdinand II (Fig. 2); and Kirchers 1646
work on light and shade, dedicated to Archduke Ferdinand III (Fig. 3).12
The two earlier designs are conceived as a panoramic landscape view with
an eagle appearing between the sun and the earth as part of the allegorical
Pastor (as in n. 6), XXX, 312 ff.
The source of the lines was printed in the margin in Zucchis second volume. Cf.
Claudian, ed. M. Platnauer, 2 vols., Cambridge, Mass., and London, 1956, I, 268 f.
11
Heroicae virtutis, & eximiae Pietatis Ferdinandi II. Imperatoris Haeres, in Solem eductus,
rebus pi fortitrque gestis, dignum te tanto Parente filium Christiano Orbi, hostibus autem
Imperij luminis & fulminis Arbitrum comprobasti . . . (Zucchi, Optica, dedication).
12
Discussed by Ashworth (as in n. 3), 181 ff., 187 f.
9
10
1. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Frontispiece of N. Zucchi, Optica Philosophia,

2 Vols. (Lyons, 165256), engraving by F. Poilly.
513
514
apparatus. Both birds are identified with the Hapsburgs: in the first case by
the famous motto PLVS VLTRA, further beyond, inscribed above; in the
second case by the double head.
In neither case, however, is the bird specifically identified as the imperial eagle. Nor is there any direct link between sun, eagle, and earth, whereas
the relationship between these three elements is the focus of Zucchis and
Berninis conception. These differences stem in part from a tradition of verbal and visual conceits that had contributed many individual motifs to the
composite allegories illustrating the scientific texts, the emblem or impresa.
In this mode, a coherent, overriding idea was expressed aphoristically in a
combination of words and picture, often as a personal or family device. The
story of the eagles trial by the sun well known from ancient sources and
in the later bestiary literature is the subject of many such devices.13
Several appear, for example, in Giovanni Ferros Teatro dimprese, published
in Venice in 1623 with a dedication to one of Berninis greatest patrons,
Cardinal Maffeo Barberini, who became Pope Urban VIII that same year
(Fig. 4).14
Although Zucchis and Berninis conceit is clearly rooted in the basic tradition represented by the emblems in Ferros compilation, there are important differences: The earth appears not as a landscape but as a segment of a
globe; the eagle is now the imperial bird, identified by the lightning bolt in
its claws; and both the motto and the birds action flying toward the
right while looking back over its shoulder convey the eagles pivotal role
between the two celestial spheres. I have found no single prototype that
incorporates these features. All but the first, however, were surely evolved
from a merging of two emblems reproduced in a great collection of papal,
imperial, and royal devices published at Prague at the turn of the century.
The author, Jacob Typotius, was a court humanist of Rudolph II and the
13
Cf. M. Goldstaub and R. Wendriner, Ein tosco-venezianischer Bestiarius, Halle, 1892,
384 f.
Pt. 2, p. 82, upper two and middle-right emblems.
For a survey of eagle emblems, see A. Henkel and A. Schne, Emblemata. Handbuch zur
Sinnbildkunst des XVI.und XVII. Jahrhunderts, Stuttgart, 1967, cols. 757 ff.; on this theme
in particular, D. W. Jns, Das Sinnen-Bild. Studien zur allegorischen Bildlichkeit bei Andreas
Gryphius, Stuttgart, 1966, 148 f.
14
2. Frontispiece for Christoph Schreiner, Oculus

(Innsbruck, 1611); unsigned.
2. Frontispiece for Athanasius Kircher, Ars Magna Lucis et

Umbrae (Rome, 1646); Petrus Miotte Burgundus Sculp.
515
516
4. Eagle emblems from G. Ferro, Teatro dimprese

(Venice, 1623), Pt. 2. 82.
5. Emblem of Rudolph II from J. Typotius, Symbola

divina & humana, I (Prague, 1601), 56 (detail).
6. Emblem of Philibert II, Duke of Savoy, from Typotius,

Symbola, III (Prague, 1603), 25 (detail).
517
518
7. Medal of Ferdinando Gonzaga (d. 1626).

London, British Museum.
8. Medal of Carlo Spinelli, 1564.

9. Medal of Carlo Gonzaga, 1628.

10. Andrea Sacchi, allegory of Divine Wisdom.

Rome, Palazzo Barberini.
519
520
engraver was Aegidius Sadeler.15 A binary motto appears with the bicephalic
Hapsburg eagle in an emblem of Rudolph II himself (Fig. 3) inscribed
VTRVNQUE, both, or each (head). Typotius explains that the bird
perched atop the mountain represents the emperor enthroned; the two
heads are his Power and Prudence, one looking up to the sun, the other
looking down toward a swarm of serpents crawling up the summit.16 An
emblem of Philibertus II of Savoy inscribed PRESTANTIOR ANIMVS, the
spirit is superior, illustrates the eagles solar test and imparts a dual action
to the bird (Fig. 6). The explanatory text, following Pliny, cites the eagle
story without imperial allusion; the emblem is said to refer to the superiority of Philibertuss spirit, which aspires to the sun but relinquishes its
upward path and descends earthward, owing to the bodys weaknesses.17
In amalgamating these two prototypes, Zucchi and Bernini introduced
a number of critical changes. The new inscription (utraque potens) combined the duality of the first motto (utrunque) with the aggressiveness of
15
Symbola Divina & Humana Pontificum Imperatorum regum, 3 vols., Prague, 16013
(repr. Graz, 1972); on this work, cf. M. Praz, Studies in Seventeenth-Century Imagery, 2 vols.,
Rome, 19641974, I, 518 f.; R. W. Evans, Rudolf II and His World. A Study in Intellectual
History 15761612, Oxford, 1973, 128 f., 170 ff.
16
Symbola, I, 56, No. XXXVII, I; p. 57: Aquila biceps, in rupe sedens, Imperatorem in
fastigio exhibet; & dm altero capite Solem suspicit, altero serpentes circa rupem reptantes
despicit; bona spe implet, divini auxilii, contra humanam cm vim, tm dolum. Atqve haec
duo sunt, quae contra duo capita erigat Imperator, necesse est. Quae illa capita? Potentia &
Prudentia, mente in Deo non sole, at solo fixa.
17
Symbola, III, 25, center left; p. 26: Quia proprium aquilae est Solem posse innoxie
inspicere, propterea pullos implumes subinde cogit (ut inquit Plinius) Solis radios intueri, &
si conniuentes, animaduertit, praecipitat nido, velut adulterinos, & degeneres. Intuetur hic
quidem Solem aquila: verum iter sursum institutum relinquit, ac deorsum tendit, non quod
Solis radios non ferat visus, sed quod corporis vires, ut Sol petat, non sufficiant. Haec eleganter Heros iste Symbolo suo accommodauit; Ostendere enim voluit, se omnibus animi, &
corporis viribus, ad res magnas, & sublimes tendere: verum ad propositam metam &
scopum peruenire non posse, corporis non animi defectu, quem praestantiorem & indefessum animaduertit. Is etsi absque corpore nihil praestare, ac corpus ad nutum regere non possit, tamen subinde eius vires auget.
Omnia deficiunt, animus tamen omnia vincit,

Ille etiam vires corpus habere facit.
Non tamen vires illae animi appetitui, qui infinitus est, ac satiari non potest, comparari
possunt. Consulatur itaque se, quod animus promptus fuerit, etsi corpus imbecille. (The
author of the commentaries in Volume III was Anselm de Boodt.) Cf. Pliny, Natural History,
ed. H. Rackham, et al., 10 vols., Cambridge, Mass., and London, 19381962, III, 298 ff.
521
the second (prestantior), so that the eagle becomes doubly powerful, as it

were. Adding the imperial lightning bolt as warranted by Claudians
account of the solar trial, while removing one of the Hapsburg eagles heads,
imbues the device with universal rather than purely dynastic significance.
The movement and position of the bird are altered so as to invert the sense
of its action; it alludes not to the rise of ambition and the fall of achievement, but to the heavenward route of the Archdukes Glory, which must
advance beyond the paths of the year and the sun.18 Rays now completely
fill the background, as had occurred heretofore in emblems depicting the
sun alone in the sky (Fig. 7).19 Finally, the earth is now shown as a sphere,
a form employed commonly in astronomical and astrological devices (Figs.
8, 9),20 lifting the whole scene into outer space. In sum, Bernini presents the
conceit not as a landscape view, nor as an abstract diagram, nor yet as a
complex allegory. Rather, he portrays what can only be described as a real
cosmic event involving a magnificent interplanetary eagle and two celestial
bodies in dynamic relationship to one another. Bernini combines the
quality of personal and moral metaphor with the appearance of objective
reality.
It can scarcely be coincidental that a significant step in this direction had
been taken twenty years earlier in a monumental composition with which
Bernini was intimately familiar, involving the sun, an eagle, and a spherical
earth, in a similarly cosmic design. In Andrea Sacchis vault fresco in the
Palazzo Barberini (Fig. 10), the figure of Divine Wisdom, the sun (a device
of Urban VIII) emblazoned on her breast, sits enthroned in the center of
the composition while the earth appears below and to the right. Personified
attributes of Divine Wisdom populate the sky, accompanied by starry constellations with their corresponding emblems. The design focuses mainly on
the sun and earth, and their eccentric relationship has been interpreted as
an allusion to the heliocentric system.21 Indeed, the significance of the
18
. . . Gloriam . . . ita ultra anni, Solisque vias, prouchendam, votis & admiratione
prosequor (Zucchi, Optica, dedication).
19
Medal of Ferdinando Gonzaga (d. 1626), British Museum; cf. A. Magnaguti, Ex
Nummis Historia. IX. Le medaglie dei Gonzaga, Rome, 1965.
20
Fig. 6, medal of Carlo Spinelli, 1564, British Museum; cf. A. Armand, Les mdailleurs
italiens des quinzime et seizime sicles, 3 vols., Paris, 188387, III, 257, G. Fig. 7, medal of
Carlo Gonzaga, 1628, British Museum; cf. Magnaguti (as in n. 17), 109, No. 85.
21
On this point, see A. S. Harris, Andrea Sacchi, Princeton, 1977, 12; G. S. Lechner,
Tommaso Campanella and Andrea Sacchis Fresco of Divina Sapienza in the Palazzo
Barberini, Art Bulletin, LVIII, 1976, 107 ff.; A. S. Harris, Letter to the Editor, ibid., LIX,
522
juxtaposition seems emphasized by the conspicuous appearance between

Divine Wisdom and the earth of the attribute Perspicacity with the Eagle
constellation (Aquila), an emblem that is appropriate not only for the birds
acute vision but also for its purported ability to gaze upon the sun with
impunity (Fig. 11).22 The intermediate position of the personification and
her eagle, as well as their intense stares, indicate that Divine Wisdoms perspicacity consists in perceiving the true relationship between the earth and
its solar partner. This relationship strikingly anticipates the one shown in
Berninis engraving, as does the action of the bird facing the earth with
wings spread and looking back over its shoulder to the sun. It should be
emphasized that Sacchis fresco was executed in 16291631, at the height
of the Galilean controversy, in which Urban VIII himself participated. The
pope had actually sought to resolve the conflict, not by challenging Galileos
observations, but by allowing that God in his mysterious wisdom might
choose to create phenomena by means inscrutable to man and different
from the apparent causes.23
Zucchi has been classified with the opponents of Galileo,24 although he
takes no stand in the Optica Philosophia. There is no direct evidence of
Berninis opinion on the heliocentric versus the geocentric system, if he had
one. In the engraving, he follows Sacchi in depicting the earth as a sphere;
but he returns it to the position it had occupied in the earlier emblem tradition, on the central axis of the composition.
Perhaps the purpose was to support the conservative Jesuit view, or,
indeed, mysteriously to reconcile the controversy that had inspired the illustrators of such scientific texts for more than a quarter century.25 In any case,
Berninis ultimate viewpoint seems implicit in the extraordinary and characteristic achievement of his design which suggests that virtues heavenward flight leads out of our time and space altogether, to a loftier realm
beyond.
1977, 306 ff.; Lechner, Reply, ibid., 309, and especially an article by D. Gallavotti
Cavallero, Il programma iconografico per la Divina Sapienza nel Palazzo Barberini: una proposta, in Studi in onore di Giulio Carlo Argan (Rome, 1984), 26990.
22
On the attribute, see Lechner, Tommaso Campanella, 99.
23
Gallavotti Cavallero (as in n. 19) gives an account of the popes argument.
24
Cf. Mathematical, Historical, Philosophical and Miscellaneous Portion of the Celebrated
Library of Mr. Guglielmo Libri, Pt. 1, London, 1861, No. 3235.
25
Baldini (Una lettera, as in n. 5) emphasizes that the Jesuit position was by no means
as monolithic as commonly assumed; there was considerable debate within the order, and
various attempts to come to terms with Kepler and Galileo.
523
The complex genesis of this modest and apparently simple work recalls
Baldinuccis statement quoted above, In his works, whether large or small,
Bernini did his utmost that there should shine forth that beauty of concept
which the work itself made possible. . . . Moreover, the illustration must
have been the fruit of a singularly close piece of cooperative research and
imaginative cross-fertilization between author and designer. The intimate
rapport that Bernini described feeling with Zucchi the orator seems to have
found expression here as well.
LavinXVI.Revised:Lavin2Chap1213/8/0706:57Page2
XVI
Berninis Image of the Sun King

Puis, se tournant vers ceux s
ben vero, a-t-il dit,
qui faisaient cercle autour
che le fabriche sono
du Roi, il a ajout: Quon
i ritratti dellanimo
ne me parle de rien que soit
dei principi.
petit.
Paul Frart de Chantelou, Journal du voyage du Cavalier Bernin
en France, June 4 and October 8, 1665.
T is well known that Bernini made three major works for Louis XIV:
the design for rebuilding the Louvre, which brought him to Paris in
the summer of 1665 (Figs. 1, 4); the life-size portrait bust of the king executed while he was in Paris (Figs. 2, 5); and the monumental equestrian
statue executed after his return to Rome (Figs. 3, 6). Each of these works
has been studied separately, but they have hardly been considered
together or appreciated for what they really are, equivalent expressions in
different media of the concept held by one man of genius who was an
The main argument of this paper was first presented at a symposium entitled The
Ascendency of French Culture During the Reign of the Sun King sponsored by the Folger
Shakespeare Library in March 1985; an abbreviated version appeared in French (Lavin,
1987). Some of the material is incorporated in an essay devoted to the relationship of
Berninis ruler portraits to the anti-Machiavellian tradition of political theory and the idea
of the prince-hero (Lavin, 1991). These studies and the preceding chapter relate to a series
of attempts I have made to describe the nature, meaning and development of illusionism in
the Italian sculptured bust since the Renaissance (Lavin, 1970, 1975; see further Lavin,
1968, 1970; with the collaboration of M. Aronberg Lavin, 1970, 1972).
BERNINIS IMAGE OF THE SUN KING
525
artist of another who was a monarch.1 I want to emphasize at the outset

that although I shall focus mainly on the visual ideas through which this
basic concept was expressed, it was not purely abstract or theoretical. On
the contrary, the detailed diary of Berninis stay in Paris kept by his
escort, Paul Frart de Chantelou, bears witness to the warm personal
relationship established between the artist and the king, based on mutual
respect and admiration.2
The reasons for the lack of a unitarian vision of the three works are complex. Each project had its own dramatic and ultimately abortive history. The
design for the Louvre became a scapegoat in the rising tide of French cultural nationalism, and the building never rose above the foundations. The
bust, which never received the pedestal Bernini intended for it, was installed
at Versailles rather than the Louvre. The equestrian monument met with
violent disapproval including the kings when it reached Paris long
after Berninis death; it too was sent to Versailles, where it was finally
installed in the garden, having been converted from a portrait into an illustration of a recondite episode from Roman history. Above all, I suspect that
the different media have obscured the common ground of the three
works. Within the traditional conventions of art it is practically inconceivable that architectural and figural works might convey the same ideas in the
same way not just indirectly through abstract symbolism but directly
through mimetic representation. I believe that this was precisely what
Bernini had in mind. This intention explains the paradoxical metaphor he
expressed during his visit to Paris: buildings are the portraits of the soul of
Some of the thoughts and observations offered here were adumbrated in Fagiolo
dellArco, 1967, 90 f., and in the valuable studies by Del Pesco, Gli antichi di and Il
Louvre, both 1984. I have also profited greatly from the recent monographs by Berger,
Versailles and In the Garden, both 1985. For a general account of Berninis visit, see Gould,
1982. An excellent summary on the Louvre will be found in Braham and Smith, 1973,
12049, 25564; Daufresne, 1987, provides a useful compendium of the many projects for
the palace. On the bust of the king and its antecedents, see Wittkower, 1951; I. Lavin,
1972, 17781, and 1973, 434 ff. On the equestrian monument, see Wittkower, 1961,
497531, and, with supplementary material on the statues reception in France, Berger,
In the Garden, 1985, 5063, 6974; also Weber, 1985, 288 ff. The history of the work is
summarized in Hoog, 1989.
Mai, 1975, considers the bust and the equestrian together in the general context of Louis
XIV portraiture.
2
Chantelou, 1885; an English translation by M. Corbett, not always reliable but with
excellent annotations by G. Bauer, is now available (Chantelou, 1985).
1
526
kings;3 and it permits us to see his works for Louis XIV as reflections of a
single, coherent image that was among his most original creations.
The King, the Sun, and the Earth
The primary component of Berninis image of the king was the preeminent metaphor of Louiss reign, the sun in conformity with the millennial tradition of the oriens augusti, the rising of the august one, identifying the ruler with the sun.4 The richness, frequency, and programmatic
nature of the theme are illustrated in an engraving published in Claude
Franois Menestriers History of the King of 1689 (Fig. 7); the emblems linking Louis with the sun in the period from his birth to his majority in 1651
are gathered in a design that itself forms a composite solar emblem.5 In 1662
Louis adopted as his official device the sun as a face seen high above a spherical earth, with the famous motto Nec pluribus impar not unequal to several (worlds), that is, capable of illuminating several others (Fig. 8).6
Bernini had had ample experience with such solar imagery long before
his visit to Paris. The sun had also been an emblem of the Barberini pope,
Urban VIII, one of Berninis greatest patrons, and Bernini was intimately
familiar with an important document of this association, a frescoed vault in
the Barberini palace in Rome, executed by Andrea Sacchi around 1630
(Fig. 9).7 Divine Wisdom, with an emblem of the sun at her breast, appears
3
The translation given in Chantelou, 1985, 274 . . . buildings are the mirror of
princes obscures the very soul of Berninis metaphor!
4
See Kantorowicz, 1963, esp. 16776 on Louis XIV.
5
I have used the edition Menestrier, 1693, plate preceding p. 5; Kantorowicz, 1963,
175. A medal issued at Louiss birth in 1638 shows the chariot of the infant Apollo, with the
motto Ortus Solis Gallici (Menestrier, 1693, opp. p. 4; cf. Kantorowicz, 1963, 168, 170,
Fig. 45).
6
Cf. Kantorowicz, 1963, 162; Menestrier, 1693, Pl. 6, no. XXVI; Jones, 198288, II,
222, no.237.
7
Harris, Andrea Sacchi, 1977, 913, 5759; Scott, 1991, esp. 38 ff. I have discussed the
relevance of Sacchis fresco to an emblematic conceit, also involving the sun and earth, which
Bernini designed as the frontispiece of a book on optics, in I. Lavin, 1985.
Bernini must have already associated the Barberini solar imagery with that of Louis XIV
virtually from the kings birth in 1638; at least by 1640, the artist promised to reveal to
Mazarin the secret of a new method he had devised of portraying the rising sun on stage.
The episode is mentioned by Baldinucci, 1948, 151; Domenico Bernini, 1713, 56 f.; and
Chantelou, 1885, 116; on the date see Bauer in Chantelou, 1985, 143 n. 170; Brauer and
Wittkower, 1931, 33 n 7.
1. Bernini, third project for the Louvre, east facade (from Blondel, 175256, vol. 4, pl. 8).
527
528
2. Bernini, bust of Louis XIV. Muse National du Chteau de Versailles

(photo: Alinari 25588).
3. Bernini, equestrian monument of Louis XIV, altered by Girardon to portray

Marcus Curtius. Versailles (photo: Documentation photographique
de la Runion des muses nationaux 58 EN 1681).
529
530
531
532
enthroned in the heavens above the sphere of the earth. Bernini himself had
exploited the image in the allegorical sculpture of Time discovering Truth,
which he began toward the end of the 1640s in response to slanderous
attacks then being made on his reputation (Fig. 10).8 Truth is a splendid
nude whom a figure of Father Time, flying above, was to discover, literally
as well as figuratively, by lifting a swath of drapery. The figure of Time was
never executed, but the whole conceit drew on the traditional theme of
Time rescuing his daughter, who had been secreted by her great enemy
Envy in a dark cavern. Time was shown raising up Truth from the earth,
represented as a craggy peak below (Fig. 11). This tradition is alluded to by
the rocky base on which Berninis Truth sits, with one foot resting upon the
globe and an emblem of the sun in her hand. The joy of the occasion is
illustrated by the radiant smile on Truths face, the physiognomical equivalent of the suns own beneficent splendor.
The Palace Portrait
Roman antiquity offered three notable instances of solar imagery in
palaces. The imperial palace par excellence, built initially by Augustus on the
Palatine hill, included a Temple of Apollo crowned by a resplendent gilded
sculpture of the Chariot of the Sun (cf. Figs. 32, 33). Solar imagery was
associated with the building itself in the revolving circular dining hall of
Neros Domus Aurea and in the heavenly, high-columned dwelling of
Apollo described in Ovids Metamorphoses. Following these sources, Louis
Le Vau and Charles Le Brun had introduced the metaphor at
Vaux-le-Vicomte, the great residence of Louiss finance minister Fouquet, in
the oval salon and in the design for its vault decoration (Fig. 12). Bernini
admired Le Bruns composition when it was shown to him in Paris except
that, the design being oval, if the palace of the sun represented in it had the
same form, or indeed were round, it might have been better suited to the
palace and to the sun itself.9
Cf. Lavin, Bernini, 1980, 7074.
The importance of this drawing and the solar symbolism in the French projects for the
Louvre were emphasized by Berger (1970) and developed by Del Pesco (Il Louvre, 1984,
13772); also Berger, forthcoming.
Cf. Chantelou, 1885, 224, entry for October 11: Come cest une ovale, il a dit que si le
palais du soleil, qui y est represent, avait t de mme forme ou bien rond, peut-tre aurait-il
mieux convenu au lieu et au soleil mme.
8
9
533
The allusion had, in turn, been introduced into designs for the new
Louvre proposed by Louis Le Vau and his brother Franois shortly before
Bernini came to Paris. Louis included an oval salon as the centerpiece of the
east wing (Fig. 13), and Franois included a relief showing Apollo in his
chariot, as well as the Nec pluribus impar motto, in the decorations of the
central pavilion (Fig. 14). Bernini must have been aware of Louis Le Vaus
Louvre project, which was sent to Rome as an example for several Italian
architects who were to comment and submit designs of their own. The two
projects Bernini sent to Paris before his visit develop the oval motif into
powerful curves that dominate the designs (Figs. 15, 16); significantly, he
emphasized the Sun-Apollo allusion in the architectural form of the projects, while evidently excluding any such imagery from the decorations of
the faades.10
Berninis distinctive approach to the problem began to emerge in a series
of dramatic developments at the outset of his visit. From his first inspection
of the Louvre, on June 3, 1665, the day following his arrival in Paris, he
concluded that what had already been built a considerable portion of the
palace was inadequate.11 At their first interview, on June 4, Bernini anticipated some of the allusions he would incorporate in his own designs,
telling Louis that he had seen the palaces of the emperors and popes and
those of sovereign princes located on the route from Rome to Paris, but the
king of France, today, needed something greater and more magnificent than
10
Colbert actually complained about the sparseness of ornament in the second project,
especially the absence of any statua o cifra in memoria del R above the portal (letter to
Bernini from the papal nuncio in Paris, March 23, 1665, in Mirot, 1904, 191n.; cited by
Del Pesco, Il Louvre, 1984, 140); Bernini, in turn, had criticized the minor ornaments in the
faades of Louis Le Vaus project as being pi proprii per un cabinetto, che per le facciate di
un gran palazzo (letter of March 27, Mirot, 1904, 192n.).
11
Berninis initial reaction is reported in several letters written by Italian members of the
court: Fu per da lui [i.e. Bernini] mercord sera doppo che hebbe visto il Louvre, e per
quel che mi disse pensa che quel che fatto possa servire poco (letter of the papal nuncio,
June 5, 1665, in Schiavo, 1956, 32); Si dice che le prime proposizioni furono di battere
tutto a terra, il che messe in confusione questi francesi (letter of Alberto Caprara to the
duke of Modena, June 19, in Fraschetti, 1900, 342 n. 1); . . . havendo detto dal primo
giorno, che bisognava abbattere tutto il Louvre se si havesse voluto fare qualche cosa di
buono . . . Hora s ridotto a dire, che far il dissegno per la gran facciata del Louvre in modo,
che si attaccar assai bene con la fabbrica vecchia... M non si parla pi di levare il primo
piano, che e quello che havrebbe obligato ad abbattere tutto il Louvre . . . (letter of Carlo
Vigarani to the duke of Modena, June 19, in Fraschetti, 1900, 343 n. 1).
534
all that.12 He proposed to demolish the whole building and start over, a
drastic solution to which the king acceded only reluctantly. During the next
five days, however, Bernini changed his mind. On June 9 he proposed to
keep the existing structure and employ the ground floor as the base for the
colossal order he envisaged for his own project. In part, this change of heart
was a concession to practical necessity and fiscal responsibility;13 but surely
it was also motivated by a new solution, one that would assimilate the flat
faade of the traditional French chteau, resting on the foundation in a
moat to the image portrayed by Louiss solar emblem.14
The project Bernini offered the king on June 20 (Figs. 1, 4) represented
the royal device in a profound and utterly novel way not in geometrical
design or decorative sculptures but in the very fabric of the structure. The
elevation has three main levels: the colossal order that comprises the two
upper stories, the ground story with fine horizontal courses of drafted stone
masonry, and a massive, irregular foundation level that would have been visible in an open moat. The frequent references to it in Chantelous diary
show how important this foundation was to Bernini.15 He first presented his
project to Louis in drawings that showed two alternative ways of treating
the lowest level, one with ordinary rustication, the other with a rock-like
formation that he described as an entirely new idea. When the king chose
12
Jai vu, Sire, a-t-il dit S. M., les palais des empereurs et des papes, ceux des princes
souverains qui se sont trouvs sur la route de Rome Paris, mais il faut faire pour un roi de
France, un roi daujourdhui, de plus grandes et magnifiques choses que tout cela. The passage is followed by that quoted in the first epigraph to this essay (p. 524 above), to which
the King replied, il avait quelque affectation de conserver ce quavaient fait ses prdcesseurs,
mais que si pourtant lon ne pouvait rien faire de grand sans abattre leur ouvrage, quil le lui
abandonnait; que pour largent il ne lpargnerait pas (Chantelou, 1885, 15, June 4).
13
Bernini acknowledged the practical and financial considerations in a memo he read to
the king, adding, comme ltage du plan terrain du Louvre na pas assez dexhaussement, il
ne le fait servir dans sa faade que comme si ctait le pidestal de lordre corinthien quil met
au-dessus (Chantelou, 1885, 27 f., June 9).
14
The solution perfectly illustrates Berninis view that the architects chief merit lay not
in making beautiful or commodious buildings but in adapting to necessity and using defects
in such a way that if they did not exist they would have to be made: ...diceva non essere il
sommo pregio dellartefice il far bellissimi e comodi edifici, ma il sapere inventar maniere per
servirsi del poco, del cattivo e male adattato al bisogno per far cose belle e far s, che sia utile
quel che fu difetto e che, se non fusse, bisognerebbe farlo (Baldinucci, 1948, 146,
cf. Bernini, 1713, 32).
15
References to the rustication occur in Chantelous diary on June 20; September 22, 25,
26, 29, 30; October 6 (Chantelou, 1885, 36, 176, 179, 182, 189, 192, 203).
535
the latter, even though it would be more difficult to execute, Bernini was
delighted and remarked that few people, even among professionals, had
such good judgment.16 He insisted on providing detailed designs himself,
on executing a model so that the workmen might see what he meant, and
on supervising the work on the foundations to make sure that the workmen
would do it properly. The reason for his care was that in carrying out the
rustication Bernini intended for the Louvre, the workmen would be functioning more as sculptors than as ordinary stonemasons.
Rustication, which had a long history, was discussed and its varieties
illustrated in the mid-sixteenth century by Serlio, in his treatise on architecture (Fig. 17).17 Traditionally, although the stones were given a more or
less rough surface, they were treated equally, and each stone or course of
stones was clearly separated from the next so that a more or less regular pattern resulted. This kind of rustication could become very rough indeed,
especially when it was used to evoke primitive or decaying structures, as in
Wendel Dietterlins book of architectural fantasies (1598); but the individual units remained separate and distinct (Fig. 18). Berninis natural rustica16
. . . un cueil ou espce de rocher, sur lequel il a fait lassiette du Louvre, lequel il a
couvert dun papier o tait dessin un rustique, fait pour avoir choisir, cause que cet
cueil tait de difficile excution, le Roi ayant considr lun et lautre, a dit que cet cueil
lui plaisait bien plus, et quil voulait quil ft excut de la sorte. Le Cavalier lui a dit quil
lavait chang, simaginant que, comme cest une pense toute nouvelle, que peut-tre elle ne
plairait pas, outre quil faudrait que cet cueil, pour russir dans son intention, ft excut
de sa main. Le Roi a rept que cela lui plaisait extrmement. Sur quoi le Cavalier lui a dit
quil a la plus grande joie du monde de voir combien S. M. a le got fin et dlicat, y ayant
peu de gens, mme de la profession, que eussent pu en juger si bien (Chantelou, 1885, 36,
June 20).
17
On the history of rustication, see most recently Ackerman, 1983, 27 ff.; Fagiolo, ed.,
1979. Berninis use of rustication has been treated most extensively by Borsi (1967, 2943),
but the nature and significance of his contribution has not been clearly defined.
As far as I can see, the first to note the character and intimate the significance of Berninis
rustication was Quatremre de Quincy in his Encyclopdie article on Opposition: Ainsi, des
blocs laisss bruts, des pierres de taille rustiques, donneront aux soubassemens dun monument une apparence de massivit dont lopposition fera paratre plus lgantes les parties et
les ordonnances suprieures. Lemploi de ce genre dopposition entre les matriaux a
quelquefois t port plus loins. Il y a des exemples de plus dun difice, o larchitecture a
fait entrer dans son appareil, des pierres tellement tailles et faonnes en forme de rochers,
que leur opposition avec le reste de la construction semble avoir eu pour but, de donner
lide dun monument pratiqu et comme fond sur des masses de rocs naturels. Tel est
Rome (peut-tre dans un sens allgorique) le palais de justice Monte-Citorio (17881825,
III, 36). The reference was brought to my attention by Sylvia Lavin.
536
7. Sun emblems of Louis XIV before 1651 engraving (from Menestrier, 1693, 4).
8. Medal of Louis XIV, 1663.

American Numismatic
Society, New York.
9. Andrea Sacchi, allegory of

Divine Wisdom. Palazzo
Barberini, Rome
(photo: Istituto Centrale per il
Catalogo e la Documentazione
E72392).
537
538
10. Bernini, Truth. Galleria Borghese, Rome (photo: Alinari 27070).
11. Time rescuing Truth

(Willaert, 1536,
from Saxl, 1936, fig. 2).
12. Charles Le Brun, The Palace

of the Sun, drawing. Muse du
Louvre, Paris
(photo: Documentation
photographique de la Runion
des muses nationaux
68 DN 3160).
539
540
13. Louis Le Vau, project for the Louvre, drawing. Muse du Louvre, Paris
(photo: Documentation photographique de la Runion des muses nationaux,
Receuil du Louvre I, fol. 5).
14. Franois Le Vau, project for the Louvre, engraving.

Bibliothque Nationale, Paris.
541
542
15. Bernini, first project for the Louvre, drawing. Muse du Louvre, Paris
(photo: Documentation photographique de la Runion des
muses nationaux, Receuil du Louvre, vol. 1, fol. 4).
16. Bernini, second project for the Louvre, drawing.

Nationalmuseum, Stockholm.
17. Sebastiano Serlio, varieties of rusticated masonry

(from Serlio, 1562, opp. p. 17).
543
544
tion (this term seems most effectively to distinguish it from the traditional
artificial rustication) had its roots in artificially created natural settings
garden fountains (Fig. 19) and grottoes, for example, which were often conceived as artful accidents in an artificial world 18 and in such temporary
decorations as festival floats (Fig. 20) or theatrical stage sets, especially those
depicting the underworld (Fig. 21). Steps were even taken in the sixteenth
century to introduce irregular rustication into the permanent urban environment, as in the house of the artist Federico Zuccari in Florence (1579)
where rough-cut stones, carefully arranged, decorate the faade (Fig. 22).19
The stones remain separate and distinguishable, however, fragments from
another world introduced not as structural elements but as precious fragments like those from antique sculptures that were displayed symmetrically
on the walls of contemporary villas and palaces (Fig. 23).
By and large rustication since the Renaissance had been understood in
three ways. From the fourteenth century social value had been attached to
the technique because it involved more labor, and therefore expense, than
dressed stone.20 It had also acquired an expressive meaning when Alberti
spoke of its capacity to inspire awe and fear when used in city walls, for
example.21 Finally, rustication had metaphorical significance as an allusion
See the chapter on these types in Wiles, 1933, 73 ff. For the fountain illustrated in
Figure 195, see Zangheri, 1979, 157 f., and 1985, 38 ff.; Vezzosi, ed., 1986, 138 ff.
19
See now Salomone, in Fagiolo, ed., 1979.
20
An indicative case in point is the report concerning Filippo Strozzis feigned modesty
in building his palace in Florence: Oltre a moltaltre spese saggiunse anco quella de bozzi
di fuori. Filippo quanto pi si vedeva incitare, tanto maggiormente sembianza faceva di iritarsi, e per niente diceva di voler fare i bozzi, per non esser cosa civile e di troppa spesa
(Gaye, 183940, I, 355; cited by Roth, 1917, 13, 97 n. 22; Sinding-Larsen, 1975, 195 n. 5.
Many passages concerning rustication are assembled in an article by Morolli, in Fagiolo,
ed., 1979.
21
There are some very ancient castles still to be seen . . . built of huge unwrought stone;
which sort of work pleases me extremely, because it gives the building a rugged air of antique
severity, which is a very great ornament to a town. I would have the walls of a city built in
such a manner, that the enemy at the bare sight of them may be struck with terror, and be
sent away with a distrust of his own forces (Alberti, 1965, Bk. VII, ch. 2, p. 135); Visuntur
et vetusta oppida . . . lapide astructa praegrandi incerto et vasto, quod mihi quidem opus
vehementer probatur: quandam enim prae se fert rigiditatem severissimae vetustatis, quae
urbibus ornamento est. Ac velim quidem eiusmodi esse urbis murum, ut eo spectato horreat
hostis et mox diffidens abscedat (Alberti, 1966, 539).
18
545
to the work of nature, and this was its meaning in sixteenth century gardens
and other nonarchitectural contexts.22
Bernini, in effect, merged this representational tradition with that of
rustication as a proper architectural mode. In doing so he brought to a
mutually dependent fruition the three associative aspects of rustication the nobility of a magnificently carved, rather than merely constructed, foundation; the expression of awesome unassailability to all but
the most perservering and virtuous; and the actual depiction of a natural
form, the Mountain of Virtue, that served a structural as well as a
metaphorical purpose. Significantly, Bernini did not refer to his brainchild
by the technical term rustication, but instead called it a scogliera, or rocky
mass.
Bernini had long since taken the giant step of creating coherent irregular rock formations and using such wild, natural art works as major monuments in the heart of the city. In the Four Rivers fountain, the centerpiece
of the refurbished Piazza Navona, where Innocent X (164455) built his
family palace, an artificial mountain island supports an obelisk
(Fig. 24). Here, too, drawings show how carefully Bernini planned the accidental forms, and the sources emphasize his own participation in the actual
carving (Fig. 25).23 Because the obelisk was regarded as one of antiquitys
foremost solar symbols, the fountain itself has the same emblematic sense
that concerns us here.
A few years later Bernini introduced this idea of a rock-like foundation
into a properly architectural context in the faade of the palace, known
from its location as the Palazzo di Montecitorio, which he designed for the
same popes niece and her husband; here he used natural rustication on the
22
On the first of these points see, for example, Serlios remarks concerning the mixture
of nature and artifice, quoted by Ackerman, 1983, 28: It would be no error if within one
manner one were to make a mixture representing in this way partly the work of nature and
partly the work of artifice: thus columns bound down by rustic stones and also the architrave and frieze interrupted by voussoirs reveal the work of nature, while capitals and parts
of the columns and also the cornice and pediment represent the work of the hand; and this
mixture, according to my judgement, greatly pleases the eye and represents in itself great
strength.
On the second point, see Ackerman, 1983, 34.
23
Baldinucci, 1948, 140; Bernini, 1713, 89; for a detailed analysis of these studies see
Courtright, in Lavin et al., 1981, 10819.
546
basement story, beneath a colossal order of pilasters (Figs. 26, 27, and 28).24
Bernini may have adopted the natural form in the rustication of the new
palace for the popes niece to echo the motif of the Piazza Navona fountain. There may have been other reasons as well. The base of the Piazza
Navona fountain portrayed a mountain, after all, and the new palace was
situated on a prominence, the Mons Citatorius, that had been an important
center of urban life in antiquity.25 The idea of the Louvre as a palace
metaphorically on a mountain top may have germinated here. In the
Roman palace the rustication is confined to the strips beneath the outermost pairs of the order of pilasters. These powerful animated bases thus
appear as equivalents in living rock of the atlantean figures that support
the central balcony from which the pope would have greeted the populace
(Fig. 29).
Although there is no documentary evidence that Bernini planned a
piazza before the new Montecitorio palace, the monumental entrance and
balcony would scarcely have made sense without one. Perhaps because of
such a plan he first had the idea, to which we shall return, of moving the
column of Trajan to form a pair with that of Marcus Aurelius.26 The place
in front of the Montecitorio palace would have been the obvious choice for
the new location, especially because nearby portions of a third column were
preserved, that of Antoninus Pius. In fact, the name of the area was thought
to have derived from the colonna citatoria, so called because it was supposedly used to disseminate public decrees.27 In studying the ancient columns,
Bernini would have become aware not only of their Christianization to
be discussed presently but also of the unrestored condition of the
For a brief summary and recent bibliography, see Borsi, 1980, 315. Berninis original
project, identified by the arms of Innocent X over the portal, is recorded in a painting in the
Camera dei Deputati, Rome (Figs. 202, 203), often attributed to Berninis assistant, Mattia
de Rossi (cf. Borsi et al., 1972, Fig. 16).
The palace was left half finished after 1654, following a rupture between the pope and
his nieces husband Niccolo Ludovisi; it was finally completed in the early eighteenth century. Only the rusticated strip to the right of the central block was fully finished, along with
the rusticated window sills (another striking innovation in the design, which Bernini did not
repeat for the Louvre); see now Terracina and Vittorini, 1983.
25
Jordan, 18711907, I, pt. 3, 603; Gnoli, 1939, 175 f.
26
The possibility that this project (for which see further below, pp. 178 and n. 84) originated with Berninis plans for the Palazzo Montecitorio was evidently first suggested by
Capasso in 1966; cited by Fagiolo dellArco, 1967, 236 Fig. 47, scheda 201; followed by
Krautheimer, 1983, 207.
27
Jordan, 18711907, I, pt. 3, 603; cf. Nardini, 1666, 349.
24
547
Aurelian column, which had long been confused with the column of
Antoninus. The original facing of the base had been hacked away, leaving
only the rough-hewn substructure, the condition recorded in many early
depictions. Berninis pilasters on rusticated strips were perhaps intended to
evoke the destroyed column of Montecitorio by echoing the Aurelian column in its ruinous state, the memory of which was still very much alive.
Indeed, the relationship was evidently appreciated by one artist who pointedly juxtaposed the unrestored column with the corner of Berninis unfinished palace in an engraved view of the Piazza Colonna published in 1679
(Fig. 30).28 If a reference to the decrepit triumphal column is thus incorporated into the faade of the building, it may serve, along with the supporting atlantes, to suggest the subservience of the power of antiquity to the
New Dispensation represented by the pope.
The pair of colossal figures flanking the doorway was another motif that
Bernini transferred from the Palazzo di Montecitorio to the Louvre. In
Rome they were subjugated to an ecclesiastical context, whereas in the secular domain at Paris they have become great guardian figures of Hercules
carrying clubs (cf. Fig. 4). Hercules had long been a favorite antetype of the
French kings, and sculptured depictions of Hercules and his Labors accompany the Apollo imagery that decorates the east faade of the Louvre in the
project of Franois Le Vau (see Fig. 14). Early in the century, in the antiquarian Giacomo Lauros fanciful recreation of the faade of the Golden
House of Nero, situated on the Mons Esquilinus, a pair of freestanding statues of Hercules with clubs had been placed before the central section
(Fig. 31).29 In Berninis Louvre, the figures flank the portal, and they stand
on rocky bases (on these supports, see p. 603 below); like the dressed
masonry behind them, the figures mediate between the rusticated foundation below and the actual dwelling of the king above. In a letter written
from Paris, Berninis assistant describes the figures as guardians of the
28
The base of the column of Antoninus Pius, now in the Vatican, and a portion of the
shaft were excavated early in the eighteenth century, toward the end of which the present
installation with the obelisk of Augustus was also created (DOnofrio, 1965, 238 ff.,
280 ff.). Early depictions of the Aurelian column are listed and some reproduced in Caprini
et al., 1955, 42; Pietrangeli, 1955, 19 ff.
The engraving by Johann Meyer the Younger appears in Sandrart, 166579, II,
Pl. XXII. Reproduced, without reference to Sandrart and dated in the eighteenth century, in
Angeli, 1926, frontispiece.
29
Lauro, 161241, Pl. 101, cited by Del Pesco, Il Louvre, 1984, 145 ff., and idem, Una
fonte, 1984, 423 f.
548
18. Wendel Dietterlin, fantastic portal (from Dietterlin, 1598, pl. 24).
19. Fountain of Mount Parnassus, destroyed in the eighteenth century;

formerly Villa Pratolino, Florence (from Caus, 1616).
549
550
20. Giulio Parigi, Mount Parnassus (from Salvadori, 1616).

21. Scene of the underworld (from [G. Rospigliosi], 1634, pl. 2).
22. Federico Zuccari, the

artists house. Florence
23. Johannes Baur, view of the Villa Borghese.

Galleria Borghese, Rome (photo: Anderson 20880).
551
552
24. Bernini, Fountain of the Four Rivers. Rome (photo: Anderson 300).
25. Bernini, studies for the

Fountain of the Four Rivers,
drawing. Museum der
bildenden Knste, Leipzig.
26. Bernini, Palazzo di

Montecitorio. Rome
(photo: Anderson 447).
27. Detail of Fig. 26

(photo: Jack Freiberg).
553
554
28. Anonymous, Berninis project for the Palazzo di Montecitorio. Camera dei Deputati,
Rome (photo: Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione E41848).
30. Johann Meyer the Younger, view of Piazza Colonna

(from Sandrart, vol. 2, 166579, pl. XXII).
555
556
31. Giacomo Lauro, Neros Domus Aurea (from Lauro, 161241, pl. 101).
32. Onofrio Panvinio, Palatine palace and Circus Maximus (from Panvinio, 1642, 49).
557
33. Giacomo Lauro, Palatine palace and Circus Maximus (from Lauro, 1612-41, pl. 98).
34. Etienne Duprac, Palatine palace and Circus Maximus (from Duprac, 1621, pl. 9).
558
palace, signifying fortitude and labor. He quotes Bernini as explaining that

Hercules by means of his fortitude and labor is a portrait of virtue, which
resides on the mountain of labor, that is, the rocky mass; and he says that
whoever wishes to reside in this palace must pass through virtue and
labor. This thought and allegory greatly pleased His Majesty, to whom it
seemed to have grandeur and sententiousness.30
Berninis statement provides the key to the unity of form and meaning
in the project, which incorporated two essential elements of the architectural heritage of antiquity, one affecting the design, the other the significance of the building. The Louvre proposals echo such features as the multistoried faade of open arcades, the curved atrium, and the rusticated base
that appear in certain ideal reconstructions of the palace of the Roman
emperors on the Palatine, notably those by Onofrio Panvinio and Giacomo
Lauro (Figs. 32, 33).31 Bernini must also have been struck by the images
that showed the palace in its contemporary ruinous state atop the rocky
promontory (Fig. 34).32 This association, in turn, may have encouraged
Bernini to extend his rocky base to the whole building, so as to underscore
the Louvres role as a modern reincarnation of the ancient imperial palace,
the embodiment of the very name for a royal dwelling, derived from the
Mons Palatinus.
Furthermore, Berninis explanation of his project as expressing a
moral-architectural progression articulated a concept implicit in another
illustrious Roman structure, the double temple of Honor and Virtue so
arranged that one had to pass through the one to reach the other. Bernini
was certainly familiar with the reconstruction by Giacomo Lauro (see p.
604 f. and Fig. 64 below), whose comments on the monument he seems to
have drawn on for the underlying ethical tone as well as several themes
echoed in his own ideas for the Louvre. Lauro quotes St. Augustine to the
30
. . . sopra detto scoglio dalle parte della porta principale invece dadornamento di doi
colonne, vi ha fatto due grandi Ercoli, che fingono guardare il palazzo, alle quali il
sig. caval. gli da un segnificato e dice Ercole il retratto della vert per mezzo della sua
fortezza e fatica, quale risiede su il monte della fatica che lo scoglio . . . e dice chi vuole
risiedere in questa regia, bisognia che passi per mezzo della vert e della fatica. Qualpensiero
e alegoria piacque grandamente a S. M., parendogli che havesse del grande e del sentesioso
(Mirot, 1904, 218n., Mattia de Rossi, June 26).
31
Millon, 1987, 485 ff., has recently discussed the relationship between Berninis designs
for the Louvre and the early reconstructions of the palace of the Caesars on the Palatine.
Professor Millon very kindly shared with me the Palatine material he collected.
32
On the history of this view of the Palatine, see Zerner, 1965.
559
effect that in the ingenious disposition of the temple the ancient Romans
taught that no one should be honored, or desire honors, who has not
entered and long dwelt with profit in the virtues. . . . Princes should take
this occasion to construct in their spirits similar temples of honor and
virtue...exactly as did a number of ancient emperors . . . who never would
accept the title of Maximus if they had not first earned it through virtue,
as did Trajan and Marcus Aurelius, whose virtuous actions have been preserved unharmed against the violence of time, war, and public calamities, as
one may understand from the most beautiful columns constructed in their
honor (on the columns see pp. 602 ff. below).33 Bernini must also have
drawn on the one important precedent for relating this idea of a moral progression in architecture to that of a physical progression to the top of a
rocky peak: a fresco made about 1600 by Federico Zuccari to decorate his
own home in Rome (Fig. 35), in which the two temples, linked in turn to
the temple of Fame, are perched on a high promontory reached by a
tortuous path.34
In sum, Bernini developed a whole new mode of architectural expression
at the Louvre to convey Louis XIVs adaptation of the traditional oriens
augusti theme to himself as the Sun King. Berninis project created a summa
of the major ancient Roman solar palaces, merging them with a quasi-religious notion of ethical achievement expressed through architecture. These
33
. . . li Romani antichi con questo insegnauano, che nissuno doueua essere honorato,
desiderare honori, che non fosse entrato, e lungamente con profitto dimorato nelle virt.
. . Da che dourebbono gli Principi pigliare occasione di fabricare nellanimi loro simili tempij dHonore, e Virt [see the dictum by Bernini that serves as the epigraph for this chapter]
. . . n giamai volsero accettare il titolo di Massimo, se prima per virt non lo meritauano .
. . come . . . fecero Traiano, & Antonino, li quali perche appoggiarono le attioni loro alla
virt, le hanno conseruate, & illese contro la violenza del tempo, guerre, & calamit publiche, come si pu comprendere dalle due bellissime Colonne che a honor di essi furono fabricate, & hoggi nella bellezza, & integrit antica si conseruano (Pl. 30v; the full Latin text
was quoted by Del Pesco, Una fonte, 1984, 434 f. n. 25).
34
Krte, 1935, 22 f., Pl. 11. Two drawings for the fresco are preserved, one in the
Morgan Library, where the buildings are labeled, the other in Berlin (cf. Winner, 1962,
168 ff., Fig. 14; Heikamp, 1967, 28 f., Fig. 22b; Hermann Fiore, 1979, 5153; Mundy,
1989, 23739). The Temple of Fame had particular metaphorical significance in artistic circles; it was also used by Van Mander (1973, 381 f.).
There was a tradition of temporary festival decorations in Turin that may have been relevant to Berninis idea: a hilly faade (in reference to the Piemonte) was erected in front of
the Palazzo Ducale, topped by a pavillion or temple and, in 1650, with an elaborate
Herculean allegory (Pollak, 1991, 63, 137 f.); for other connections with Turin see n. 68 and
p. 593 f. below.
560
traditions, in turn, he associated with the equally venerable metaphor of the

ruler as Hercules reaching the summit of the Mountain of Virtue. The
visual, structural and metaphorical basis for these relationships was
Berninis beloved scogliera, the invention of which, I am convinced, was the
underlying motivation for his sudden willingness to abandon his earlier
plans. This revolutionary form enabled him to envisage in his design for the
Louvre the power of virtue and order to triumph over brute chaos.
The Bust Portrait
The bust of the king (Figs. 2, 5) is a living metaphor that embodies two
major themes, the royal medallic device and the imagery of Alexander the
Great. In a sense, the merger simply vested in Louis XIV the ancient conflation of Helios and Alexander that had been the mainspring of the Sun
King tradition itself.35 These references help to explain some of the works
conspicuous differences from its nearest ancestor, Berninis portrait of
Francesco I dEste, duke of Modena, of the early 1650s (Fig. 36). Louiss
great wig engulfs his head with twisting lambent curls that are deeply
undercut by corruscating drillwork; they recall Alexanders leonine mane
and, in an uncanny way, suggest the flaming locks of the sun god, Helios
(Fig. 37). The kings forehead rises from heavily padded brows, and the vigorous sideward turn of the head and glance has a distinct upward cast suggestive not of arrogance but of a far-sighted, ardent and noble hauteur that
is reminiscent of the ancient portrait type of the divinely inspired ruler.
Bernini commented on these details, observing that the head of the king
has something of that of Alexander, particularly the forehead and the air of
the face.36 In other words, Bernini saw the features of Alexander in those of
the king, and he reported more than once that people saw this resemblance
in the bust itself: visitors, he said, were reminded of the medals and the
beautiful heads of Alexander.37 An antiquarian and collector of medals,
On Alexander, Helios, the divinely inspired ruler and the idea of apotheosis in ancient
portraiture, see LOrange, 1982, 3436.
36
Le Cavalier a dit . . . que la tte du Roi avait de celle dAlexandre, particulirement le
front et lair du visage (Chantelou, 1885, 99, August 15).
37
. . . il ma dit . . . quil venait de sortir un vque, qui lui avait dit que son buste ressemblait aux mdailles dAlexandre, et que de lui donner pour pidestal un monde, il lui en ressemblait encore davantage (Chantelou, 1885, 178). Il a ajout que plusieurs avaient trouv
que le buste avait de ces belles ttes dAlexandre (Chantelou, 1885, 187, September 27).
35
561
Pierre Seguin, also noted the strong Alexandrine air of the bust, which
turned to the side as one sees in the medals.38 Since the numismatic portraits of Alexander that can be identified with certainty are all in profile, the
latter reference was probably to Greek coins of Helios with a three-quarter
face or to a rare Roman type in which the head is turned up and to the side,
and the neck and part of the chest are included to convey the torsion
(Fig. 37).39 The beautiful heads must be the noted sculptures in Florence
(Fig. 38) and Rome (Fig. 39) then universally identified as Alexander.40 The
Roman version was associated with the group popularly known as the
Pasquino; Bernini admired this pathetically mutilated work, which was
thought to portray the death of Alexander, more than any other ancient
sculpture.41 Both the head and the movement of the figure one shoulder
forward in the direction of the glance, the arm wrapped round the body in
a powerful contrapposto recall Alexander as he had been portrayed in a
painting by Giulio Romano (Fig. 40). Giulio himself had adopted the pose
of the Greek hero from that of Julius Caesar in Titians series of the Twelve
Roman Emperors (Fig. 41).42 In Berninis sculpture the implied reversal of
the lower right arm checks the forward thrust suggested by the movement
of the upper torso and the drapery, a notable difference from the dEste bust
38
. . . le buste a beaucoup de lair dAlexandre et tournait de ct comme lon voit aux
mdailles dAlexandre (ibid., 183, September 26).
39
On the relationship to ancient Alexander portraiture, see Lavin, 1972, 181 n. 71. On
the coin of Vespasian reproduced here, see Vermeule, 1986, 11; I am indebted to
Dr. Vermeule for kind assistance in the numismatics of Alexander. M. J. Price brought to my
attention a coin of Alexander of Pherae in which a three-quarter head of Hecate appears on
the obverse (Gardner and Poole, 1883, 47 no. 14, Pl. X Fig. II). The relationship to
Alexander and allegorical portraiture generally was formulated perfectly by Wittkower
(1951, 18): . . . Bernini rejected the popular type of allegorical portraiture then in favour at
the court of Louis XIV which depicted le Roi Soleil in the guise of Apollo, of Alexander, or
of a Roman Emperor. Berninis allusion to Alexander was expressed by physical and psychological affinities, not by external attributes. Allegory was confined to the base, which also
reinforced the allusion to Alexander; see 573 f. below).
40
On the work shown in Fig. 38, see Haskell and Penny, 1981, 13436; on that in Fig.
39, see Helbig, 196372, II, 229 f. (the head has holes that served to hold metal rays).
41
Haskell and Penny, 1981, 29196; on Bernini and the Pasquino, see Lavin, 1990,
31 ff.
42
Cf. I. Lavin, 1972, 180 n. 67; on the treatment of the arms generally, 177 ff. Vergara,
1983, 285, has also seen Berninis reference to this model, perhaps through the intermediary of one of Van Dycks series of portrait prints, the Iconography; in adopting the pose Van
Dyck similarly raised the head and glance to suggest some distant and lofty goal or vision.
562
35. Federico Zuccari, The Mountain of Virtue, Honor, and Fame.

Palazzo Zuccari, Rome (photo: Biblioteca Hertziana D12019).
36. Bernini, bust of Francesco I dEste.

Galleria Estense, Modena (photo: Alinari 15669).
563
564
37. Helios, denarius of Vespasian.

British Museum, London.
38. The Dying Alexander.

Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence
(photo: Brogi 3223).
39. Colossal head of Alexander-Helios.

Museo Capitolino, Rome (photo: Alinari 5972).
565
566
40. Giulio Romano, Alexander the Great.

Muse dArt et dHistoire, Geneva.
41. Aegidius Sadeler, Titians Julius Caesar, engraving.
567
568
42. Bernini, Cenotaph of Suor Maria Raggi. Santa Maria sopra Minerva, Rome
(photo: Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo et la Documentazione, Rome E54086).
43. Berninis bust of Francesco I dEste (from Gamberti, 1659, frontispiece).
569
570
44. Roman portrait bust.

Colchester and Essex Museum,
Colchester.
45. The Colonna Claudius

(from Montfaucon, 1719,
vol. 5, pl. XXIX).
46. Charles Le Brun, portire of Mars, tapestry. Muse du Louvre, Paris

(photo: Documentation photographique de la Runion des muses
nationaux 83 EN 5233).
571
572
whose significance will emerge when we consider the equestrian portrait of

Louis.
The extraordinary drapery and Berninis special concern that it seem to
be flowing freely in the wind may also be understood in the context of exultation and exaltation all antica.43 The use of drapery to carry a portrait
bust was derived from an ancient funereal tradition in which a portrait of
the deceased was placed against a cloth of honor. Bernini adapted this
device for certain memorials of the 1630s and 1640s, transforming the
hanging cloth into a billowing swath of drapery (Fig. 42).44 The drapery of
Francesco dEste actually flutters upward and wraps around the torso,
Christo-like, so as to suggest the lower silhouette of a portrait bust wafted
into the empyrean. Bernini surely devised this mixture of objectivity and
metaphor to give form to a train of political thought, particularly strong
among the Jesuits, in which the ideal ruler was conceived as a hero, both
human and divine. The concept of the monarch as a demigod-like princehero had been formulated with respect to Francesco I himself, shortly after
his death in 1658, in a commemorative volume by a leading Jesuit of
Modena, Domenico Gamberti, that actually celebrates Berninis portrait of
the duke (Fig. 43).45 The sculpture thus represents what it is, an honorific
43
Il ma ajout quil stait tudi faire, che non paresse che questo svolazzo fosse sopra un
chiodo . . . (Chantelou, 1885, 166, September 19).
44
See I. Lavin, 1972, 180 n. 68; on the treatment of the drapery generally, 177 ff.
45
Gamberti, 1659, frontispiece. The book (for which see Southorn, 1988, 38 f.) is a
description, profusely illustrated, of the decorations erected for Francescos funeral in
1658. The dedication is an elaborate metaphor on Berninis portrait, which in the engraving
has at the base papal and Constantinian insignia that announce the idea of the ideal Christian
ruler. Since, as is noted in the title of the book, Francesco was commander of the French
troops in Italy, Bernini may have had special reason to recall the work in connection with the
bust of the king. The importance of the Modena connection for Louis XIV and Bernini has
been emphasized by Burke, 1992, 187 f. See also p. 603 below. The expanding shape of the
pedestal would have helped keep spectators at a distance, something we know he considered
in designing the Louis XIV base (Chantelou, 1885, 150, entry for September 10).
On the notion of the heroic monarch, see De Mattei, 198284, II, 21 ff. De Mattei cites
the following definition by Gamberti, which is interesting in our context not only for the
concept itself but also for the sculpture metaphor and the contrast made between crude base
and heavenly head: Oltre il primo nome di Principe, vho aggiunto il secondo di Eroe, la cui
definizione si pu trarre al nostro proposito col di Luciano: Heros est qui neque homo est,
neque Deus, et simul utrumque est [Lucian, Dial. 3]. lEroe quasi dissi una terza natura, ed
una statua di elettro, fabricata con loro della Divinit e collargento delle pi squisite prerogative dellessere umano: bens sostenuta in pi da una base di sozzo fango, ma per
573
monument of heroic apotheosis. In the bust of Louis, Bernini carried this

conundrum a significant step further. Louiss drapery gives no hint of the
lower edge of the torso, so that the figure appears to be what the sculpture
represents, a living human being. Moreover, the cloth blows freely to the
side, and Louiss cloak becomes a kind of magic carpet, the sartorial equivalent of the cloud formations above which the emblematic sun appears to
float.
The kings device and the imagery of Alexander also coincided in the
treatment of the pedestal, a final point of difference from the dEste portrait. Chantelou records that Bernini intended to place the bust of the king
on a terrestrial globe of gilded and enameled copper bearing the ingenious
inscription Picciola basa, small base; the globe rested on a copper drapery
emblazoned with trophies and virtues (these last were essential attributes in
Berninis conception of the ideal ruler, as we shall see); and the whole was
set on a platform. It was a common device to portray a monarch perched
on an earthly sphere; a specifically French typology had been established by
images in which Henry IV was shown thus, both as a standing figure and
as an equestrian mounted on a rearing Pegasus.46 There was also an ancient
tradition of portrait busts mounted on a (celestial) globe to suggest apotheosis (Fig. 44). A bust-monument of the emperor Claudius included a
pedestal with a globe and military spoils that in the mid-seventeenth century had been placed on a sculptured platform (Fig. 45). Bernini may have
been inspired to apply these ideas to Louis by another invention of Le
Bruns, perhaps again for Fouquet. I refer to a tapestry door covering, or
portire, in which the crowned face of the sun shines above the arms of
France and Navarre; below, a terrestrial globe rests on a panoply of military
spoils (Fig. 46).47 It is indeed as though Le Bruns magnificent and emblem-
circondata sul capo con una reale fascia dal Cielo (Gamberti, 1659, 102).
For more on the theory of the prince-hero and the related anti-Machiavellian tradition
of political ideology, see pp. 628 ff. below.
46
The images of Henry IV were made for triumphal entries: Vivanti, 1967, 188,
Pl. 22ab; cf. Bardon, 1974, 65, 141, Pl. XXXIV B.
On the ancient prototypes for Berninis pedestal, see I. Lavin, 1972, 180 f.; D.
Rosenthal, 1976, cites the depiction of Monarchia Mondana in Cesare Ripas Iconologia,
where the ruler is shown seated on the globe. For the emperor enthroned on the globe in
antiquity, see MacCormack, 1981, 12729.
47
The Sun King, 1984, 182, no. 3; Les Gobelins, 1966, 11, no. 1; Charles Le Brun, 1963,
239 no. 98; Montagu, 1962; Fenaille, 190323, I, 915; Jouin, 1889, 553 f.
574
atic armorial display had suddenly come to life.48 The motivating force was
evidently Plutarchs familiar description of Lysippuss portrait of Alexander,
which combined the upward and sideward glance with a reference to the
earth below: When Lysippus first modelled a portrait of Alexander with his
face turned upward toward the sky, just as Alexander himself was accustomed to gaze, turning his neck gently to one side, someone inscribed, not
inappropriately, the following epigram: The bronze statue seems to proclaim, looking at Zeus: I place the earth under my sway; you O Zeus keep
Olympos.49 These references were quite evident to contemporaries. When
Bernini described his idea for the base, Chantelou drew the analogy with
the kings device.50 Another witness, no doubt aware of the passage in
Plutarch, perceived the link between the royal emblem and the ancient
monarch, remarking, as Bernini himself reported, that the addition of the
world as a base enhanced the resemblance to Alexander.51
The multiple allusions to the royal device and to the Helios-Alexander
tradition fill the bust with meaning; they contribute as well to its expressive
intensity and to the sense of supernatural aloofness it conveys.
The Equestrian Portrait
The bust of Louis is itself without any allegorical paraphernalia: the
king is shown wearing his own not classical armor, and his own
Venetian lace collar, in a vivid likeness with lips poised at the moment
Bernini described as just before or after speaking; one observer thought
Louis looked as if he were about to issue a command.52 All this was
Bernini visited the Gobelin tapestry factory and greatly praised Le Bruns designs on
September 6 Il a fort lou les dessins et tableaux de M. Le Brun et la fertilit de son
invention (Chantelou, 1885, 140) four days before he designed the pedestal for the bust
(see n. 50 below).
49
Pollitt, 1965, 145.
50
Je lui ait dit que sa pense se rapporte encore heureusement la devise du Roi, dont
le corps est un soleil avec le mot: Nec pluribus impar (Chantelou, 1885, 150, September 10);
cf. also Del Pesco, Il Louvre, 1984, 153 n. 16).
51
See n. 37 above.
52
For all these points, see Wittkower, 1951, 16, 17, 18.
The passage in Chantelou concerning the subtle expression of the mouth is worth quoting: Le Cavalier, continuant de travailler la bouche, a dit que, pour russir dans un portrait, il faut prendre un acte et tcher le bien reprsenter; que le plus beau temps quon
puisse choisir pour la bouche est quand on vient de parler ou quon va prendre la parole; quil
cherche attraper ce moment (Chantelou, 1885, 133, September 4).
48
575
changed in the equestrian monument, where the king was shown in

antique guise, his features, as we know from the sources, utterly transfigured into those of a radiant, smiling youth (Figs. 3, 6). Functionally,
Berninis project took up an old tradition which had been followed by
Francois Mansart, Pierre Cottard, and Charles Perrault in their projects
for the Louvre of equestrian statues of French kings in their residences;53 Berninis was evidently the first such monument in France with
a rearing horseman, and freestanding rather than attached to the building.
The precedent in both these respects was Pietro Taccas sculpture of Philip
IV in the garden of the Buen Retiro at Madrid (1642), the first monumental rearing equestrian in bronze since antiquity (Fig. 47);54 the apparent emulation reflects the notorious French rivalry with Spain, further
repercussions of which will emerge presently.
In form, Berninis work was intentionally related to but also, as he himself reported, completely different from his earlier equestrian monument of
the emperor Constantine in Rome (Fig. 48). Both horses rear in strikingly
similar poses, and the riders mount, miraculously, without reins or stirrups. But whereas the glance and gestures of Constantine are raised to convey his spiritual bedazzlement at the vision of the Holy Cross above, those
of Louis are earthbound and convey his mundane power in what Bernini
called an act of majesty and command.55 The phrase should not be taken
as referring to a military directive, as in Donatellos Gattamelata an
interpretation Bernini abjured (see below). Instead, he adapted the gesture
of Verrocchios Colleoni or Francesco Mochis Alessandro Farnese in Piacenza
(Fig. 49) to suggest that this ruler leads by sheer force of being.56 And
whereas Constantine springs from an abstract architectural base, Bernini
gave Louis a new form of support reminiscent of the substructure of the
Piazza Navona fountain and echoing that of the Louvre itself (Fig. 50). The
base portrayed a craggy peak and the image as a whole recalled that of
53
On the French tradition, see M. Martin, 1986; Prinz and Kecks, 1985, 25261;
Scheller, 1985, 52 ff. The Louvre projects with equestrian statues mounted on the faade are
conveniently reproduced in Del Pesco, Il Louvre, 1984, Figs. 56, 57, 61.
54
See J. Brown and Elliott, 1980, 111 ff.; Torriti, 1984, 50 ff. But see also n. 72 below
55
See p. 594 and n. 73 below. On the Constantine and on its relation to the Louis XIV
monument see now respectively Marder, 1992, and Fumaroli, 1994.
56
On these gestures, see Lavin, Duquesnoys Nano di Crqui, 1970, pp. 145 f., n. 78.
576
47. L. Meunier, entrance to Buen Retiro, Madrid, engraving.

49. Francesco Mochi, equestrian monument of Alessandro Farnese.

Piazza dei Cavalli, Piacenza (photo: Manzotti, Piacenza).
48. Bernini, equestrian monument of Constantine.

St. Peters, Vatican Palace, Rome (photo: Anderson 191).
577
578
50. Bernini, study for the equestrian monument of Louis XIV, drawing.
Museo Civico, Bassano.
51. Anonymous, Louis XIV as

Jupiter. Muse National du
Chteau de Versailles
des muses nationaux MV 8073).
52. Achille Bocchi, Felicitas

prudentiae et diligentiae est (from
Bocchi, 1555, p. CLXXVIII).
579
580
53. Farnese Bull. Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples

54. Giovanni Bologna, Hercules overcoming a Centaur.

Loggia dei Lanzi, Florence (photo: Soprintendenza per i Beni Artistici
e Storici, Florence 117231).
581
582
Pegasus atop Mount Parnassus (see Fig. 19).57 In the final version a swirl of
windblown flags symbolized the conquest of the summit; like the drapery
of Louiss bust, the unfurling banners seemed to bear the portrait aloft
(see Figs. 56, 57).58
When the work was recut to represent Marcus Curtius hurling himself
into the fiery abyss, two major changes were made. The flowing hair at the
back of the head became the casque of a crested helmet, and the flags were
transformed into a mass of flames. I do not believe the expression was radically altered, since one of its most distinctive features, its benign smile,
must have seemed appropriate to the new subject; the theme of heroic
self-sacrifice preserved, as we shall see, an essential element of the meaning
Bernini intended for the work.59 The smile echoed the resplendent visage of
Berninis own image of Truth. The smiling sun was a traditional metaphor,
of course, and Bernini was not the first to portray Louis this way; the image
of radiant youthful benignity had appeared a few years earlier, for example,
in a portrait of the king as Jupiter, victorious after the rebellions of the
Fronde (Fig. 51).60 Also relevant, perhaps, was the description of an equestrian figure of the emperor Domitian by the poet Statius, who expresses the
57
The analogies with the Piazza Navona fountain and the Louvre rustication were also
observed by Bauer, in Chantelou, 1985, 37 f., n. 115. Wittkower (1961, 508 ff.) discussed
the relationship with the Pegasus-Mount Parnassus theme, which was often conflated with
that of Hercules at the Crossroads.
58
Wittkower (1961, 5025) argues convincingly that the smile and the victory flags were
introduced late in the execution of the work, following Louiss victorious campaign in
Holland in the spring of 1672.
59
The only records of the original face, two medals by Antonio Travani of about 1680
(cf. Figs. 56, 57), seem to me quite compatible with the face as we have it now (the replaced
nose notwithstanding). Nor do I consider contradictory to this idealization Elpidio
Benedettis statement in September 1672 that the face closely resembled that in other portraits of the king that had been sent to Rome (see Wittkower, 1961, 504 n. 21, 525,
no. 47). On the youthfulness of the face, see also Berger, In the Garden, 1985, 107 n. 11.
I might add that there is no real evidence that the smile itself was found offensive. The
specific objection raised by a Frenchman, to which Berninis reply is quoted in the text, was
that the smile was inappropriate to the military bearing of man and horse. Domenico
Bernini reports the episode as a misunderstanding of Berninis intention, based on a conventional view of the king and army commanders (the passage is quoted in full in n. 63
below). There was, incidentally, a venerable equestrian monument with a smiling rider,
Cangrande della Scala at Verona (Panofsky, 1964, 84, Figs. 385, 387).
60
Cf. The Sun King, 191 no. 20; Berger, In the Garden, 1985, 10, Fig. 7.
583
joy of contemplating a face in which are mixed the signs of war and peace.61
To convey Berninis thought, however, I can do no better than to quote his
own words:
I have not represented King Louis in the act of commanding his
armies. This, after all, would be appropriate for any prince. But I
wanted to represent him in the state he alone has been able to attain
through his glorious enterprises. And since the poets imagine that
Glory resides on the top of a very high and steep mountain whose
summit only a few climb,62 reason demands that those who nevertheless happily arrive there after enduring privations [superati disaggi],
joyfully breathe the air of sweetest Glory, which having cost terrible
labors [disastrosi travagli] is the more dear, the more lamentable the
strain [rincrescevole . . . stento] of the ascent has been. And as King
Louis with the long course of his many famous victories has already
conquered the steep rise of the mountain, I have shown him as a
rider on its summit, in full possession of that Glory, which, at the
cost of blood [costo di sangue], his name has acquired. Since a jovial
face and a gracious smile are proper to him who is contented, I have
represented the monarch in this way.63
61
Iuvat ora tueri mixta notis belli placidamque gerentia pacem (Silvae, I, 1, 1516;
Statius, 1928, I, 6).
62
The locus classicus of the theme is in Hesiods Works and Days, lines 28991: . . .
between us and Goodness the gods have placed the sweat of our brows: long and steep is the
path that leads to her, and it is rough at first; but when a man has reached the top, then she
is easy to reach, though before that she was hard (Hesiod, 1950, 24 f.). Berninis notion of
Glory at the apex of the mountain as the reward of virtue depends on a tradition stemming
from Petrarch (cf. Wittkower, 1961, 507 f.). See also 606 f., 618 f., 621 f. below.
63
The translation, with some alterations, is from Wittkower, 1961, 503. I quote the
whole passage, which concerns an ingegnoso cavalier Francese, che assuefatto alla vista del
suo R in atto Maestoso, e da Condottiere di Eserciti, non lodava, che qu allora collarmatura purindosso, e sopra un Cavallo medesimamente guerriero, si dimostrasse nel volto
giulivo, e piacevole, che pi disposto pareva a dispensar grazie, che ad atterririnimici, e soggiogar Provincie. Poiche spieggli a lungo la sua intenzione, quale, benche espressa adequatamente ancora nellOpera, tuttavia non arriv a comprendere il riguardante. Dissegli
dunque, Non haveregli figurato il R Luigi in atto di commandare a gli Eserciti, cosa, che finalmente propria di ogni Principe, m haverlo voluto collocare in uno stato, al quale non altri, che
esso era potuto giungere, e ci per mezzo delle sue gloriose operazioni. E come che fingono i Poeti
risieder la gloria sopra unaltissimo, ed erto Monte, nella cui sommit rari son quelli, che facilmente vi poggiano, ragion vuole, che quei, che pur felicemente vi arrivano doppo i superati dis-
584
The equestrian Louis XIV went through several stages of development

and incorporated many ideas and traditions, of which I want to consider
only a few. An important, though heretofore unnoticed, idea is reflected in
an emblem book published by a learned Bolognese antiquarian and historian, Achille Bocchi, in 1555 (Fig. 52). One of Bocchis devices shows a
horseman, Diligence, striving up a high peak to receive from Felicity a
crown ornamented with fleurs-de-lys. The caption reads, Happiness is the
ultimate reward of prudence and diligence.64 Once again Bernini merges
the image of the rustic mountain of glory scaled by the assiduous labors of
virtue with that of the radiant and beneficent sun shining brightly above the
earth.
What might be called the physical character of the monument its size
and technique is an essential part of its meaning. As far as I can determine Berninis Louis XIV is the first monumental, free-standing, rearing
equestrian statue executed in stone since antiquity. It was, moreover, carved
from a single block, larger than the Constantine, the largest ever seen in
Rome, the largest ever struck by chisel, according to the early biographers.65 The whole enterprise, especially considering the mountainous base,
aggi, giocondamente respirino allaura di quella soavissma gloria, che per essergli costata disastrosi
travagli, gli tanto pi cara, quanto pi rincrescevole gli f lo stento della salita. E perche il R
Luigi con il lungo corso di tante illustri vittorie haveva gi superato lerto di quel Monte, egli
sopra quel Cavallo lo collocava nel colmo di esso, pieno possessore di quella gloria, che a costo di
sangue haveva acquistato il suo nome. Onde perche qualit propria di chi gode la giovialit del
volto, & unavvenente riso della bocca, quindi , che tale appunto haveva rappresentato quel
Monarca. Oltracche, benche questo suo pensiere si potesse ben ravvisare nel Tutto di quel gran
Colosso, tuttavia molto pi manifesto apparirebbe, quando collocar si dovesse nel luogo destinato. Poiche col doveasi scolpir in altro Marmo una Rupe proporzionata erta, e scoscese, sopra
cui haverebbe in bel modo a posare il Cavallo con quel disegno, chei fatto ne haverebbe (Bernini,
1713, 149 ff.).
64
Bocchi, 1555, CLXXVIII f., Symb. LXXXV; titled Felicitas prudentiae et diligentiae
ultima est (cf. Massari, 1983, II, 108, 210). The relevance of Bocchis emblem is confirmed
by the fact that it was imitated in two engravings illustrating an encomium of Louis published in 1682 by Elpidio Benedetti, Colberts agent in Rome, who was closely acquainted
with Berninis ideas (cf. Wittkower, 1961, 510 f., Figs. 28, 29).
65
. . . un gran sasso dun sol pezzo, che si dice essere il maggiore, che fino a d nostri sia
stato percosso da scalpello . . . (Baldinucci, 1948, 126); . . . figura a Cavallo in Grandezza
superiore alla gi fatta dellImperador Costantino; . . . un Masso smisurato di marmo, superiore in grandezza a quanti giammai ne vidde la Citt di Roma (Bernini, 1713, 146,
148). Jamais lAntique na mis en oeuvre un bloc de marbre si grand. Le pidestail, le cheval
& la figure bien plus haute que nature, sont dune seule pice, le toute isol (Cureau de la
Chambre, [1685], 22); on this publication, see Lavin, 1973, 429. Domenico Bernini
585
reminded one contemporary of the architect Dinocrates who, in the guise

of Hercules, proposed to carve a statue of Alexander the Great from Mount
Athos.66 The operative factor here was the ancient mystique, emulated by
(1713, 107) reports that the Constantine was carved from a block of 30 carretate, or 30 x
362.43 cm.3 = 10.87 m.3 (cf. Zupke, 1981, 85; Klapisch-Zuber, 1969, 72 f.). The equestrian
Louis XIV measures cm. 366h x 364l x 150w = 19.98 m.3. These claims evidently discounted
the ancient tradition that the much larger Farnese Bull was made ex uno lapide (see below).
The feat of carving a life-size free-standing equestrian statue from a single block was
extolled in the fourteenth century, with reference to the monument of Bernab Visconti in
Milan (Pope-Hennessy, 1972, 201).
66
Vitruvius, 193134, I, 72 f. Dzallier dArgenville, 1787, I, 22022, refers the
Alexander story to Berninis sculpture, citing Jean Barbier dAucour (164194). It should be
borne in mind that metaphorical mountains generally were then much in vogue in Rome,
mountains forming part of the family arms of Fabio Chigi, the reigning pope Alexander VII
(165567). The story was applied to the pope in a composition by Pietro da Cortona
(cf. Noehles, 1970, 16, 36, Fig. 27; Krte, 1937, 305 f.; Fagiolo, in Bernini in Vaticano,
1981, 159 f.; see also n. 75 below. Recent contributions on the Dinocrates theme are
Oechslin, 1982; Meyer, 1986.
The size of Berninis sculpture and the reference to Alexander and Mount Athos are the
main theme of a poem eulogizing the work written by the great Bolognese art critic and historian Carlo Cesare Malvasia, printed as a broadside in 1685. As far as I know, the text has
never been cited in the literature on the sculpture. I reprint it here, in extenso, from a copy
in the Princeton University library:
PER LA STATUA EQUESTRE
DEL RE CHRISTIANISSIMO
COLOSSO MARMOREO
DEL FIDIA DE NOSTRI TEMPI
IL SIG. CAVALIER BERNINI
ALL ILLUSTRISS. ET ECCELLENTISS. SIG. IL SIG.
MARCHESE DI LOVVOIS.
Questa di bel Destrier Mole fastosa
In sostener del RE lImago viua,
E la pi del Bernini opra famosa,
Cheterna lode al suo gran nome ascriua.
Con essa mai di gareggiar non osa
Greco scalpello, e non mai lima Argiua;
E vinta quellidea s ardimentosa,
Che far di vn monte vnAlessandro ardiua.
Pure al degno lauor niega, contrasta
La penuria del marmo il pregio intiero,
Quasi picciola sia mole si vasta;
Che il Colosso formar del RE GVERRIERO,
Maggior di vn Alessandro, oggi non basta
586
55. Andrea Rivalta, equestrian monument of Vittorio Amadeo I of Savoy.

Palazzo Reale, Turin (photo: Aschieri, Turin).
587
56. Antonio Travani, medal of Louis XIV.

Vatican Library, Rome.
57. Antonio Travani,

medal of Louis XIV.
588

medal of Louis XIV,
reverse of Fig. 56.
59. Georg Wilhelm Vestner,

medal of Charles VI, 1717.
American Numismatic Society,
New York.
60. Ancient (?) relief linking Apollo and Hercules.

Formerly Villa Mattei, Rome (from Kircher, 1650, 236).
589
590
61. Catafalque of Francesco I dEste

(from Gamberti, 1659, opp. p. 190).
62. Piazza Navona, the ancient circus of Domitian, Rome

(photo: Fototeca Unione 6469 FG).
591
592
sculptors since the Renaissance, of large-scale monolithic sculpture as testimony to the prowess of both the artist and the subject.67
Berninis concept for the marble group had several notable precedents in
purely secular contexts, in Rome, and in Florence and Turin, where the
artist was received at court in grand style as he traveled to Paris.68 First and
foremost was the so-called Farnese Bull, representing the Fable of Dirce,
now in the Archeological Museum in Naples (Fig. 53).69 In Berninis time it
was to be seen in Michelangelos Palazzo Farnese in Rome, having been discovered in the Baths of Caracalla in 1545 and identified as a Labor of
Hercules, the heroic ancestor of the Farnese family. One of the most prominent of all ancient sculptures known in the Renaissance, a few months
before Berninis visit to Paris, Louis had sought more than once to acquire
the piece for himself. The significance of the sculpture was partly a matter
of scale and technique a huge mountain of marble, as it was called, with
multiple figures carved, it was also said, from a single block; the work was
mentioned for precisely these reasons in a discussion of important antiquities during Berninis stay at the French court. Furthermore, from Berninis
point of view, at least, the epithet mountain of marble could be taken literally, offering classical precedent for the unorthodox pedestal he envisioned for his own group. Finally, the great work had been the motivation
for an ambitious project of Michelangelo, described by Vasari, for the
Farnese palace then under construction. Michelangelo would have made
the sculpture the focal point of a vista extending from the square in front of
DAto e di Olimpo il doppio giogo altiero.
Humiliss., e Deuotiss. Seruitore
Carlo Cesare Malvasia.
IN ROMA, Nella Stamperia della Reuerenda Camera Apostolica.
M.DC.LXXXV.
CON LICENZA DESUPERIORI.
(The broadside is part of a collection mentioned by Lindgren and Schmidt, 1980, 187.)
67
Lavin, 197778, 20 ff.; Mockler, 1967, 23 f.
68
On his way north Bernini stopped in Florence for three days and in Turin for two. His
regal treatment by Ferdinando II of Tuscany and Carlo Emanuele of Savoy is described by
Baldinucci, 1948, 117 f., and Bernini, 1713, 125. Bernini also stopped in Turin on his way
back to Rome (cf. Mirot, 1904, 260 n. 2); a product of this visit was his role in an imaginary dialogue describing the ducal hunting lodge published by Di Castellamonte, 1674, see
Madama Reale prologue; further, Claretta, 1885, 517 ff.; Cavallari-Murat, 1984, 347 ff.
69
For the facts presented here see Haskell and Penny, 1981, 16567, with references, and
the important results of the recent restoration of the group in Il Toro, 1991. The Farnese Bull
measures cm. 370h x 295l x 293w = 31.98 m.3.
593
the Farnese palace, through the building itself to the courtyard in the rear,
where the group would have been installed as a fountain, and beyond along
a new bridge across the Tiber to a Farnese garden and casino on the other
side of the river. The challenge of the heroic sculptural feat of the ancients,
the bold idea of a naturalistically carved base that served to raise the figure
to the summit of the earth, and the prospect of integrating the sculpture
along a grandiose urban, architectural and landscape axis all these features associated with the Farnese Bull were emulated in Berninis plan to
locate his monolithic, multifigured, mountain-top monument in the space
between the rear faade of the Louvre and the Tuileries palace.
No less essential to Berninis thought was an equestrian monument of
sorts that had also been carved from a single, if considerably smaller, block:
Giovanni Bolognas Hercules overcoming a Centaur, dated 1600, in the
Loggia dei Lanzi in Florence (Fig. 54).70 The group was intended to glorify
Ferdinando I and the Medici dynasty of Tuscany, which more than any
other set the direction for the European monarchic style that Louis XIV
would follow. The relevance of the work lay partly in its form and material
(especially the idea of using the rocky base to support the animals belly)
and partly in the way the Herculean theme was interpreted not simply
as a victory but as a labor, an obstacle overcome on the road to glory. This
message was spelled out on a commemorative medal, inscribed Sic itur ad
astra, thus one reaches the stars.71 Giambolognas sculpture itself, the
medal, and the inscription were all to be reflected in Berninis work.
In certain respects the nearest antecedent for Berninis idea was the
equestrian statue of Vittorio Amadeo I of Savoy, which had been installed
just a year before Berninis visit in a niche in the grand staircase of the
Palazzo Reale in Turin (Fig. 55).72 This mixed-media work by Andrea
Rivalta the horse is of marble, the rider and supporting figures of bronze
must have raised the prospect of a rearing equestrian portrait in stone as
70
I am indebted to Signoria Nicoletta Carmiel of Florence, who helped with the recent
restoration of the group, for obtaining its dimensions: cm 285h x 200l x 130w = 7.41 m3
(cf. n. 65 above); Avery, 1987, 117 f.
71
Avery and Radcliffe, eds., 197879, 222, no. 229; Avery, 1987, 117. On the motto,
from Virgil, Aeneid IX, 641, see Cheles, 1986, 63; Cieri Via, 1986, 55 n. 18; Tenzer, 1985,
240, 317 n. 124.
72
See most recently, Viale, ed., 1963, II, 25 f. Rivaltas horse was itself a substitute for an
unexecuted project of 1619 by Pietro Tacca that would have preceded the Philip IV in
Madrid as the first modern rearing equestrian monument in bronze (cf. Torriti, 1984, 31 ff.;
K. J. Watson, in Avery and Radcliffe, eds., 197879, 182 f.).
594
a royal monument, perhaps to reinforce visually Louiss political hegemony

over the north Italian duchy. Taken together, the Giambologna and Rivalta
sculptures foreshadowed Berninis conception of a monolithic freestanding
rearing equestrian portrait and the idea of a royal equestrian monument
with a Herculean theme.
In the religious, or quasi-religious sphere, the monument responded to
a specific request from Colbert that it be similar but not identical to
Berninis own portrayal of the first Christian emperor, situated at the junction between the narthex of St. Peters and the Scala Regia, the Royal
Stairway to the Vatican palace. The allusion was doubly significant in view
of the association the French must have made between the statue in Rome
and the many equestrian figures, often identified with Constantine and his
Frankish reincarnation Charlemagne, that decorate the entrance portals to
French medieval churches. The reference served to assimilate Louis to the
venerable tradition identifying the French monarchs as the defenders of the
faith and true successors to the Holy Roman Empire.73
The secular and Christian themes conveyed by Berninis sculpture were
epitomized in two medals struck in Rome about 1680, doubtless under the
aegis of the pope, reproducing the final design.74 One medal (Fig. 56),
which is monoface, bears the inscription Hac iter ad superos, this way to the
73
Colbert asked Bernini to faire la figure du Roi de la manire de celle de vostre
Constantin, en changeant neantmoins quelque chose dans lattitude de la figure et du cheval
en sorte que lon ne puisse pas dire que sen est une Coppie, et que dailleurs ce bloc de marbre a lestendue et les mesures necessaires pour cela . . . (letter of December 6, 1669, quoted
in part by Wittkower, 1961, 521, no. 23); Bernini responded, Questa statua sar del tutto
diversa a quella di Costantino, perche Costantino st in atto damirare la Croce che glapparve, e questa del R star in atto di maest, e di comando, n io mai havrei permesso, che
la statua del R fosse una copia di quella di Costantino (December 30, Wittkower, 1961,
521, no. 24, cf. p. 501).
On the equestrian figures of Constantine-Charlemagne, Seidel, 1976. Bernini had
planned a correspondence between the rulers in the piazza of St. Peters: a schematic note
shows them derived from the metamorphosis of Peter (Menichella, 1987, 15 f., Fig. 25;
Morello, 1992, 206, with attribution to Alexander VII). In a letter of 155060 Guglielmo
della Porta recalled a proposal under Clement VII (152334) for a pair of equestrian monuments of the emperor Charles V and the Re Christianissimo Francis I, defenders of the
faith, to be placed before the portico of St. Peters (Gramberg, 1964, 120; cf. Mockler, 1967,
172).
74
The medals, by Antonio Travani, were first published by Dworschak, 1934, 34 f.
595
gods.75 This was a preeminently Herculean sentiment, associated especially

with the theme of Hercules at the Crossroads; the hero chooses the difficult
path of righteousness over the easy road to pleasure, thereby expressing the
supreme Stoic virtue, conquest of the self.76 The other medal (Fig. 57) shows
the sculpture on the obverse, with two inscriptions. The legend Lud(ovicus)
magn(us) rex christianissimus describes Louis as the Great and as Most
Christian King both early epithets adopted by Louis in reference to the
secular and religious titles by which the French kings traced their authority
back through Charlemagne to Constantine the Great.77 The motto on the
flags, Et major titulis virtus, virtue is greater than titles, emphasizes the
moral, as distinct from the feudal, basis of Louiss claims to the titles, a crucial point to which we shall return presently. The reverse of the medal
(Fig. 58) has an allegorical composition in which Victory and Religion triumph over Heresy an obvious reference to the Huguenots with the
motto Victore rege victrix religio, victorious the king, victorious religion.
The same motto had been used by Stefano della Bella in an allegorical composition of
1661 showing the Chigi mountain emblem (cf. n. 66 above) as the Mountain of Virtue
whose tortuous path is recommended by the Wise Men of antiquity and the prudent
Hercules: Per salebrosus Montium anfractus certissimum esse Virtutis, ad Beatitudinem, ac
ad Superos iter, fuit commune Sapientiorum Iudicium, prudens Herculis ad posteros documentum (Donati, 1939; cf. Bernini in Vaticano, 1981, 162; Massar, 1971, 61 f., no. 69,
Pl. 25).
According to Cureau de la Chambre (1685, 23), the statue was to have been inscribed
with the motto Per Ardua: Il doit y avoir un Inscription Latine au bas, qui en deux mots
renferme tout ce quon peut dire sur un sujet si heroque. PER ARDUA. Le dpart de cette
Statue a donn lieu de supposer un Dialogue . . . This passage was added to the version of
the Eloge printed in the Journal des savans in 1681, for which see Wittkower, 1961, 529.
76
Virtus in astra tendit (Seneca, Hercules Oetaeus, line 1971). On the theme generally,
see Panofsky, 1930, 45 ff.; Hommel, 1949.
77
This medal is reproduced by Menestrier, 1693, Pl. 29, no. CLII, with the following
caption: La Ville de Rome a consacr ce Monument au zele DU ROY TRES CHRESTIEN
LOUIS LE GRAND, PLUS GRAND ENCORE PAR SA VERTU QUE PAR LE RANG
QUIL TIENT et la Victoire qui eleve la Couronne Royale au dessus de la Croix que tient
la Religion et qui a lheresie sous ses pieds, assure que PENDANT QUE LE ROY SERA
VICTORIEUX, LA RELIGION TRIOMPHERA.
On the French king as Rex Christianissimus, see De Pange, 1949. In connection with this
epithet, Fumaroli has emphasized the sacerdotal nature of Louiss conception of kingship (see
Fumaroli, 1986, 108 ff.). The tapestry series of the life of Constantine, begun by Louis XIII
and completed by Urban VIII had drawn a connection between the French king
Constantine and the pope (Dubon, 1964).
Louis adopted the title Magnus only in 1672 (see Jacquiot, 1967, 190 n. 1).
75
596
63, Domenico Fontana, catafalque of Pope Sixtus V

(from Catani, 1591, pl. 24).
64. Giacomo Lauro, Temple of

Honor and Virtue
(from Lauro, 161241, pl. 30).
65. Allegory of the Peace of the Pyrenees

(from Menestrier, 1660, opp. p. 54).
597
598
66. Workshop of Bernini (?), project for the stairway

to Trinit dei Monti, drawing.
MS Chigi P. VIII. 10, fols. 30v31, Vatican Library, Rome.
599
68. Mattia de Rossi, project for a monument containing Berninis equestrian Louis XIV,
drawing. Bibliothque Nationale, Paris.
600
69. Jean Warin,

foundation medal for the
Louvre. Bibliothque
Nationale, Paris.
70. Etienne Duprac, Michelangelos project for the Campidoglio, engraving.
71. Emblem of Gregory XIIIs Palazzo Quirinale

(from Fabricii, 1588, p. 308).
601
602
The pedestal of Berninis sculpture was to have borne the inscription Non
Plus Ultra, and it would have been flanked with two great columns alluding
both to the columns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius in Rome and to the
Pillars of Hercules (cf. Fig. 59).78 To my knowledge, these potent symbols,
real and mythical, of ancient imperial and Herculean triumph were here
linked for the first time.79 The idea of a portrait of the Sun King placed
between the Pillars of Hercules may have derived from an ancient devotional
. . . il lui tait venu dans la pense de faire dans cet espace deux colonnes comme la
Trajane et lAntonine et, entre les deux, un pidestal o serait la statue du Roi cheval avec
le mot de non plus ultra, allusion celle dHercule (Chantelou, 1885, 96, August 13). The
project is reflected in the medal of Charles VI of 1717 illustrated in Fig. 59 (Koch,
197576, 59; Volk, 1966, 61); here, however, the equestrian group, the pedestal, the
columns, and the motto are all returned to their traditional forms and reconverted to the
traditional theme of Hapsburg imperialism. For more of the legacy of Berninis idea, see n.
79 below.
Combinatory thinking as a means of superseding the great monuments of antiquity also
underlies Berninis alternative project for the area between the Louvre and the Tuileries a
double structure for spectacles and stage performances, joining the Colosseum to the
Theater of Marcellus (Chantelou, 1885, 96, August 13 perhaps reflected in a later project reproduced by Del Pesco, Il Louvre, 1984, Figs. 43; cf. pp. 42, 49 n. 22).
79
A certain precedent is provided by Roman sarcophagi in which the labors of Hercules
are placed between columns with spiral fluting (cf. Robert, 1969, part 1, 143 ff., Pls. XXIV
ff.) and in works like the Hercules fountain in the Villa Aldobrandini at Frascati, where water
descends around the pair of columns in spiral channels (DOnofrio, 1963, Figs. 78, 82, 86,
90; Fagiolo dellArco, 1964, 82 ff.; R. M. Steinberg, 1965). The columns of the Hapsburg
device, often shown entwined by spiraling banners, were identified by Rubens (J. R. Martin,
1972, Pl. 37) with the twisted columns in St. Peters in Rome, supposedly brought from the
Temple of Jerusalem by Constantine the Great; see also a painting of Augustus and the Sibyl
by Antoine Caron (Yates, 1975, 145, Fig. 21). Yet, none of these cases involved Berninis
clear and explicit conflation of the triumphal and Herculean columns.
Perhaps Bernini was himself alluding to the pair of columns erected by Solomon before
the Temple of Jerusalem (1 Kings VII, 1422; 2 Chron. 3:17); these were frequently associated with the twisted columns at St. Peters, an association that had played an important
role in Berninis designs for the crossing of St. Peters. (Lavin, Bernini, 1968, 14 ff., 34; the
paired columns of Perraults Louvre faade have been linked to the Temple of Solomon by
Corboz, 1984). If so, Bernini would have been the first to extend the association to the
imperial spiral columns, an idea that was then taken up by Fischer von Erlach in the
St. Charles Church, Vienna, built for Charles VI: the pair of columns flanking the faade is
identified in one source as Constancy and Fortitude, in reference to the biblical names of
Solomons columns, Jachin and Boaz, meaning He shall establish and In it is strength
(cf. Fergusson, 1970, 321 ff.; further to Fischers columns in Chabrowe, 1974). Fischer seems
also to echo the design and the themes of Giacomo Lauros reconstruction of the ancient
temple of Honor and Virtue in Rome, to be discussed presently.
78
603
relief much discussed by contemporary antiquarians as an epitome of classical mythological symbolism (Fig. 60). A radiate bust of Apollo appears
between a pair of Herculean clubs resting on rocky bases that anticipate the
supports of the Hercules figures flanking the entrance in Berninis third
Louvre project (see Fig. 4). The relief which was in the Mattei collection in
Rome, had been illustrated and interpreted by the great Jesuit polymath
Athanasius Kircher, who had worked closely with Bernini on the Piazza
Navona fountain, in a learned book on the fountains obelisk.80 Rearing
equestrian portraits and twisted columns had appeared together on the
catafalque of Francesco I dEste (Fig. 61); Bernini had once engaged to provide the model of a commemorative equestrian monument of the duke for
the Piazza Ducale at Modena.81 Paired columns representing the pillars of
Hercules and associated with the motto Non Plus Ultra were a common
emblem that might refer either to an unsurpassable achievement, physical or
spiritual, or a limitation imposed by prudence. Associated especially with the
Hapsburgs, the device also connoted the geographical extent of the empire.82
80
Kircher 1650, 235 f., also in Kircher, 165254,11, I, 206 (cf. Godwin, 1979, 60). The
relief had been elaborately interpreted by Girolamo Aleandro in a publication of 1616 (see
Allen, 1970, 27072), from which it was reproduced and discussed in our context by Del
Pesco, Il Louvre, 1984, 143, Fig. 114. On Kircher and Bernini, cf. Preimesberger, 1974,
102 ff.; Rivosecchi, 1982, esp. 11738; Del Pesco, Il Louvre, 1984, 138 f.
Kircher also wrote a book on the Piazza Minerva obelisk erected by Bernini shortly after
his return from Paris (Heckscher, 1947); in certain workshop studies for the monument the
obelisk is held up by allegorical figures posed on a rocky base (Brauer and Wittkower, 1931,
Pls. 176, 177b; cf. also DOnofrio, 1965, Fig. 134 opp. p. 235).
Berninis preoccupation at this period with the theme of the rocky mountain of virtue is
expressed also in a series of drawings of devotional themes, which evidently began during his
stay in Paris. The compositions portray penitent saints kneeling and ecstatically worshiping
a crucifix that lies prone before them; all portray the event taking place atop a rocky peak.
See Brauer and Wittkower, 1931, 151 ff.; Blunt, 1972.
81
Gambetti, 1659, 5, Pl. opp. p.190; cf. Berendsen, 1961, 134 ff., no. 8o, 219 ff. The
catafalque was designed by Gaspare Vigarani, who later built the Salle des Machines in the
Tuileries and whose son, Carlo, was in Paris as theater architect to Louis XIV during
Berninis visit (Chantelou, 1985, 80 n. 139, 81 n. 144). Surmounted by a trumpeting Figure
of Glory standing on a globe and triumphant over Death, the monument also anticipated
Berninis notion of Glory at the summit of the earth as the reward for virtue (see pp. 583).
The projected equestrian monument to Francesco I is the subject of correspondence in
June 1659 published by Fraschetti, 1900, 226.
82
On the Hapsburg device, see E. S. Rosenthal, 1971, 1974, and 1985, 81 f., 257 ff.;
and Sider (1989), who stresses the spiritual aspects.
604
All these associations converged in Berninis mind with a stunning proposal he had evidently made to Pope Alexander VII in Rome before his trip
to Paris. The family of the pope in 1659 had acquired a palace on the Piazza
Colonna, immediately adjacent to the still unfinished Palazzo di
Montecitorio, which Bernini had designed for Alexanders predecessor.83
Bernini suggested moving the column of Trajan from the Forum, presumably to the Piazza di Montecitorio, to make a pair with the column of
Marcus Aurelius. This arrangement would have created an explicit reciprocity between the columns in the Montecitorio-Colonna area, and the
two papal palaces would have been linked by the citys most grandiose public square after that of St. Peters itself.84 Thus paired, the columns would
have suggested the columns and metas marking the spina of an ancient circus, and the whole arrangement would have recalled that at Piazza Navona
(Fig. 62) the ancient stadium of Domitian as well as the disposition
of the Vatican Palace beside the circus of Nero. The connection of palace
and circus evoked an ancient tradition of imperial, Herculean triumph,
based on the juxtaposition of the palace of the emperors on the Palatine and
the Circus Maximus (see Figs. 32, 33).85 The ancient columns had been
paired spiritually, as it were, ever since Sixtus V had crowned them with
statues of Peter and Paul, patrons of the Holy See. Sixtus also restored the
badly damaged column of Marcus Aurelius, and the inscription on the new
base refers to the triumph of Christianity over paganism.86 The ancient spiral columns had also been brought together physically as trophies on the
catafalque erected for Sixtuss funeral in 1591 (Fig. 63) and as background
See most recently Krautheimer, 1983 and 1985, 53 ff.
Bernini recalls his project on two occasions recorded in Chantelous diary: II a parl
ensuite de la proposition quil avait faite au Pape de transporter la colonne Trajane dans la
place o est la colonne Antoniane, et dy faire deux fontaines que eussent baign toute la
place; quelle et et la plus belle de Rome (Chantelou, 1885, 40, June 25); Il a dit quil avait
propos au Pape de la transporter dans la place o est lAntoniane, et l, faire deux grandes
fontaines, qui auraient noy la place en t; que cet t Ia plus magnifique chose de Rome;
quil rpondait de la transporter sans la gter (Chantelou, 1885, 249, October 19).
A legacy of Berninis idea, and an echo of his linking it to France, are evident in the pair
of monumental spiral columns that formed part of the temporary decorations erected in the
Piazza Navona to celebrate the birth of Louis XIVs successor in 1729 (Kiene, 1991).
85
The ancient tradition, admirably sketched by Frazer, 1966, was revived in the palace
architecture of the popes in sixteenth-century Rome, for which see Courtright, 1990,
119 ff.
86
See Pastor, 192353, XXI, 239 ff.; the inscriptions are given in Caprini et al., 1955,
41 f.
83
84
605
for Giacomo Lauros ideal reconstruction of the Temple of Honor and

Virtue in Rome (Fig. 64).87 Berninis project for the Piazza Colonna would
have referred these themes specifically to the Chigi papacy.88 By shifting the
ideas of religious and moral victory to the Louvre and associating the
Roman triumphal columns with the Pillars of Hercules, Bernini would have
endowed Louis with the same claim to superiority over the ancients in the
secular sphere. In the Louvre project, however; this notion acquires a different and unexpected aspect, owing to the repercussions of a great historical event that must have played a considerable role in Bernini s thinking.
In 1659 the Treaty of the Pyrenees was signed by France and Spain,
whose power was broken. The treaty established the boundary between the
two countries, with the victorious Louis agreeing not to pursue his expansionist designs beyond the Pyrenees. Louiss marriage the following year to
Maria Theresa of Austria, daughter of Philip IV and queen of Len and
Castile, forged a new link between the two countries. The spirit of peace
and reconciliation heralded by these events was invoked in a tract published
in 1660 by Berninis own nephew; Father Francesco Marchesi, a devout and
learned member of the Oratorio of San Filippo Neri. This massive work,
dedicated to the respective protagonists, Cardinal Mazarin and the countduke of Olivares, extolls the treaty and marriage as the culmination of the
entire millennial history of the relations between the two countries. Bernini
was extremely attached to his nephew, and recent research has shown that
87
On the catafalque, cf. Berendsen, 1961, 110 ff., no. 10, 166 ff. The columns are often
shown together in the imagery of Sixtus V (DOnofrio, 1965, Fig. 63 opp. p. 149, Fig. 89
opp. p. 187; Fagiolo and Madonna, eds, 1985, Fig. on p. 199). The temple (Lauro,
161241, Pl. 30) is cited by Del Pesco, Il Louvre, 1984, 147 f., and idem, Una fonte, 1984,
424 f. Lauros reconstruction had been compared to Berninis Santa Maria dellAssunta in
Ariccia by Hager, 1975, 122 f.; also Marder, La chiesa, 1984, 268.
88
The force of the ecclesio-political associations evoked by the columns is witnessed by
another project from the time of Alexander VII (published by Krautheimer, 1983, 206, and
idem, 1985, 58 f.) that envisaged making the column of Marcus Aurelius the mast of a fountain in the form of a ship the navicella of St. Peter, the ship of the church. Although
related to a specific boat-fountain type (for which see Hibbard and Jaffe, 1964), the project
obviously revives a proposal made by Papirio Bartoli early in the seventeenth century to create a choir in the crossing of St. Peters in the form of a ship whose mast was a bronze version of the column of Trajan, with reliefs of the Passion (Hibbard and Jaffe, 1964, 164;
Lavin, Bernini, 1968, 43); the spiral column also recalls the Solomonic twisted columns that
decorated the Constantinian presbytery at St. Peters.
606
Marchesi was an important influence on the artist in his later years.89 No

doubt in this case Marchesis views prepared the way for Berninis subsequent adaptation for his equestrian project of another work in which essentially the same attitude was expressed emblematically.
The political implications of the pact were illustrated in a great tableau
used in the celebration at Lyon in 1660 of Louiss marriage to Maria
Theresa (Fig. 65).90 A personification of war stood on a pile of military
spoils that bore the inscription Non Ultra, between two columns to which
her arms are bound by chains. One column was decorated with the emblem
of France, the other with those of Len and Castile, and the whole was
placed atop a craggy two-peaked mass referring to the Pyrenees. Menestrier
included the device in another publication with a commentary that explains
Bernini s conceit, which radically reinterpreted the traditional notion of an
equestrian monument.
It is often desirable for the glory of heros that they themselves voluntarily put limits on their designs before Time or Death does so of
necessity. . . . The grand example [of Hercules who raised the
columns, then stopped to rest after his victories] makes all the world
admire the moderation of our monarch, who, having more ardor and
courage than any of the heros of ancient Greece and Rome, knew
how to restrain his generous movements in the midst of success and
victories and place voluntary limits to his fortune . . . The trophy that
will render him glorious in the history of all time will be the knowledge that this young conqueror preferred the repose of his people
89
Marchesi, 1660; the work was published under the pseudonym Pietro Roselli. The
importance of Berninis relationship to his nephew, First emphasized by Lavin (1972), has
been greatly expanded by the recent studies of Marchesis ambitious project for a charitable
hospice for the indigents of Rome, for which Berninis last work, the bust of the Savior,
became the emblem; see the essays by B. Contardi, M. Lattanzi, and E. Di Gioia, in Le
immagini, 1988, 17 ff., 272 ff. (cf. p.273 on Marchesi, 1660), 285 ff.
90
Menestrier, 1662, opposite p. 54. The print was first related to Berninis project by K.
O. Johnson, 1981, 33 f., followed by Petzet, 1984, 443, and Del Pesco, Il Louvre, 1984, 150;
Johnson drew no implications concerning the interpretation of the statue, but he clearly
understood the Bernini project in the light of current political repercussions of the treaty. A
confusing error by Vivanti, 1967, Pl. 21e, concerning the print, was corrected by Johnson,
40 n. 12.
607
over the advantages of his glory and sacrificed his interests to the
tranquility of his subjects.91
Precisely the same sentiment introduced the commemorative inscription
on a copper tablet that was immured by the king with the foundation stone
of the Louvre itself in a ceremony shortly before Bernini left Paris:
Louis XIIII
King of France and Navarre,
Having conquered his enemies and given
peace to Europe
Eased the burdens of his people.92
The themes of virtue and self-mastery as the true basis for rule were also
the leitmotif of Le Bruns great series of paintings from the life of Alexander
executed for the king beginning in 1661. Bernini, who saw and greatly
admired two of the compositions during his stay in Paris,93 took up this
Menestrier, 1662, 129 f.: II seroit souvent a souhaiter pour la gloire des Heros quils
missent eux mesmes des bornes volontaires leur desseins avant que le Temps ou la Mort
leur en fissent de necessaires . . . cest ce grand Example, qui doit faire admirer tous les
Peuples la moderation de nostre Monarque qui ayant plus dardeur & de courage que nen
eurent tous les Heros de la vieille Grece & de Rome, sceu retenir ces mouvements genereux
au milieu du succez de ses victoires, & donner volontairement des bornes sa fortune . . .
Ce sera aussi ce Trophe qui le rendra glorieux dans lhistoire de tous les sicles, quand on
saura que ce ieune conquerant prfer le repos de ses Peuples aux avantages de sa gloire,
& sacrifi ses interests la tranquillit de ses Sujets.
The Lyon image, in turn, was evidently modeled in part on Rubenss Arch of the Mint
from the Pompa Introitus Ferdinandi (J. R. Martin, 1972, Pl. 99; and see McGrath, 1974).
The motif of a woman chained to two pillars was familiar from zodiacal depictions of the
constellation Andromeda (Murdoch, 1984, 252 f.).
92
Louis XIIIIe
Roy de France et de Navarre,
Aprs avoir dompt ses ennemis, donn la paix a lEurope,
A soulag ses peuples.
For the entire inscription and its Latin pendant, see Chantelou, 1885, 228, October 12,
and, for the ceremony, 240 f., October 17; Chantelou, 1985, 290 f., 306.
93
Chantelou, 1885, 219, October 10; on Le Bruns paintings see Hartle, 1957, 93f;
Posner, 1959, 240 ff.; Hartle, 1970, 393 ff., 401 ff., and idem, 1985, 109. Rosasco, 1991,
has shown that the same idea subsequently played an important role at Versailles. For other
aspects of the theme of Alexander as the self-conquering hero, see also, concerning an opera
first performed in Venice in 1651, Osthoff, 1960; Straub, 1969, 2019.
91
608
72. Thomas
Bernard, medal of
Cardinal Franois
de la
Rochefoucauld.
Bibliothque
Nationale, Paris.
73. Copy after Charles

Le Brun, project for a
monument of Louis XIV,
drawing.
Nationalmuseum,
Stockholm.
74. Antoine Coysevox, Louis XIV crowned by Princely Glory.

Salon de la Guerre, Versailles (photo: Giraudon 16915).
609
610
75. Jean Warin, bust of

Louis XIV.
Muse National du
Chteau de Versailles
photographique de la
Runion des muses
nationaux 74 Dn 2415).
76. Anonymous, Louis Le

Vaus original project for the
west facade of Versailles.
Muse National du Chteau
de Versailles
des muses nationaux
84 EN 3116).
77. Attributed to Raphael,

Palazzo Caffarelli-Vidoni,
Rome
(photo: Fototeca
Unione 1385).
78. Baldassare Peruzzi, Villa Farnesina, Rome (photo: Anderson 27850).
611
612
79. Carlo Maderno and Bernini, Palazzo Barberini. Rome

(photo: Fototeca Unione 10954 FG).
80. Jean-Baptiste
Martin, view of the
Alle Royale,
Versailles. Grand
Trianon, Versailles
(photo:
Documentation
photographique de
la Runion des
muses nationaux
64 EN 147).
81. Bernini, equestrian monument of Louis XIV,

defaced by vandals on June 6, 1980. Versailles
(photo: Simone Hoog).
613
614
82. Projects for the Louvre, 1624-1829, engraving.

Bibliothque National, Paris.
83. I. M. Pei, entrance to the

Louvre. Paris
(photo: Stephen Rustow).
84. I. M. Pei, entrance to the

Louvre. Paris
(photo: Stephen Rustow).
615
85. I. M. Pei, illustration of derivation of the Louvre pyramid

from the geometric configuration
of Le Ntres garden parterre of
the Tuileries (diagram at upper
left) and axial displacement,
December 29, 1989, drawing.
Collection of the author.
616
86. I. M. Pei, lead cast of Berninis equestrian statue of Louis XIV.

Louvre, Paris (photo: Stephen Rustow).
87. I. M. Pei, plan of the entrance to the

Louvre indicating the siting of the
equestrian Louis XIV
(photo: office of I. M. Pei,
redrawn by Susanne Philippson.
617
618
idea, combining the image from the Lyon festival with the centerpiece of
another project celebrating the Peace of the Pyrenees to which he himself
had contributed. To commemorate the event and further humiliate Spain
in Rome, the French minister proposed to create an elaborate stairway up
the Pincian hill from the Piazza di Spagna to the French enclave at Trinit
dei Monti. Bernini made a model for the project, and his idea may be
reflected in several drawings that include an equestrian monument in which
the king is shown charging forward with drapery flying (Figs. 66, 67).94 The
conception seems to anticipate the work Bernini made for the Louvre, but
it is far more aggressive. Indeed, Bernini may well have been referring to this
project when he pointedly remarked that he would not show Louis commanding his troops (see p. 583 above).
Menestriers comment on the image from Lyon explains Berninis
emphasis on the privations, the terrible labors, the lamentable strain,
and the cost of blood Louis suffered for his greatness. Bernini universalized
the idea; the Pyrenees became the mountain of virtue, and territorial containment became victory over the self. He thus managed to embody both
meanings of the Non Plus Ultra/Pillars of Hercules tradition, expressing
Louiss attainment of the extreme limit of glory through victories achieved
at great self-sacrifice. The essence of Berninis conceit lies in the profound
irony of the great hero reaching the heights of spiritual triumph by limiting
earthly ambition.95 The equestrian monument becomes thereby an emblem
The latest contributions concerning this project, in which references to the earlier literature will be found, are by Marder, The Decision, 1984, 85 f.; Laurain-Portemer, in
Fagiolo, ed, 1985, 13 ff.; and Krautheimer, 1985, 99 ff.
95
The significance of the Peace of the Pyrenees may be deeper still. Menestrier felt constrained to publish a whole volume (1679) in which he defended the kings Nec Pluribus
Impar emblem of 1662 against a claim that it had been used earlier by Philip II. Menestrier
was certainly right, but it is no less clear that the device was invented as a response, from
Louiss new position of power, to the Hapsburg claim to world dominion. (Although he did
not connect it to the treaty; K. O. Johnson, 1981, 40 n. 17, also recognized that Louiss
device had Spanish connotations from the beginning.) The Lyon tableau belongs to the same
context, and I suspect its rocky mountains may be reflected not only in the base of Berninis
equestrian statue but also in the scogliera of the Louvre itself. The Peace of the Pyrenees and
its implications were fundamental to Berninis conception of the Sun King, and linking the
globe of the Nec Pluribus Impar emblem with the mountain of the Non Ultra tableau provided the common ground for the image he created in all three projects for the king.
In an exemplary study Ostrow, 1991, esp. 109 ff., has emphasized the importance both
of the rivalry between Spain and France and of the Peace of the Pyrenees in the history of the
statue of Philip IV in Santa Maria Maggiore, designed by Bernini just before his trip to Paris.
94
619
not only of military but of moral force, a vehicle not only of political but
also of ethical precept. Berninis image, above all, is that of potentially overwhelming power held in firm and benign restraint.
The King, Rome, and the Pope
All three works by Bernini for Louis XIV were composed of essentially
the same three elements, which serve in each context to create a form of
visual apotheosis: a lower realm of the natural earth; an intermediate, manmade, Herculean domain of dressed stone or providentially arranged drapery; and an upper level inhabited by the king. The community of Berninis
projects was clearly understood by his astute assistant Mattia de Rossi,
whose report from Paris, quoted on p. 547, 558 above, gave Berninis own
interpretation of the equestrian monument. A design signed by de Rossi
(Fig. 68), presumably dating from shortly after Berninis death, incorporates
the same three elements and allusions to all three projects.96 An isolated
tempietto containing the equestrian group on its rocky base stands on a
scogliera platform; the entrance is flanked by statues of Hercules with his
club, while above the portal a figure of Atlas, surrounded by military trophies, supports a globe displaying fleurs-de-lys.
I trust it is also clear that all three works convey essentially the same message: noble ideals are embodied in a man whose merit derives not from his
noble birth but from his virtue and labors. Bernini himself expressed as
much shortly before he left Paris, when he said to Louis that he would have
been happy to spend the rest of his life in his service, not because he was a
king of France and a great king, but because he had realized that his spirit
was even more exalted than his position.97 It is striking and symptomatic
that Berninis design for the palace is inordinately sparing of ornament and
almost devoid of regal or dynastic references an austerity that Colbert
had already complained of in the second project.98 Moreover, the visual and
conceptual hierarchy from crude mass to ideal form reflects Berninis underSee Berger, In the Garden, 1985, 72, 108 n. 25, Fig. 102 f.
. . . il sestimerait heureux de finir sa vie son service, non pas pour ce quil tait un
roi de France et un grand roi, mais parce quil avait connu que son esprit tait encore plus
relev que sa condition (Chantelou, 1885, 201, October 5; translation from Chantelou,
1985, 254, with modifications).
98
See n. 10 above. Fleurs-de-lys crown the cornice of the central oval in the first project
(Fig. 15; for a discussion of the crown motif see Berger, 1966, 173 ff., and idem, 1969,
96
97
620
standing of the creative process itself He cited the example of the orator,
who first invents, then orders, dresses, and adorns.99 The processes of
achieving moral and expressive perfection are essentially the same. In its
context each portrayal of the king embodied on a monumental scale a single existential hierarchy in which form and meaning were permeated with
ethical content.100 It seems only logical that Bernini should have regarded
the medium through which the hierarchy is unified, stone, not as a rigid but
as a protean material subject to his will. It seems appropriate that he formulated this unorthodox notion precisely in response to a criticism of the
crinkled and perforated drapery and mane of the equestrian Louis XIV the
imputed defect, he replied, was the greatest praise of his chisel, with which
he had conquered the difficulty of rendering marble malleable as wax; not
even the ancients were given the heart to render stones obedient to the
hand as if they were of dough.101
The simplicity, grandeur, and unity of Berninis thought can be fully
grasped, however, only if one reconstructs in the minds eye how he imagined
the works would be seen. Following the path of the sun, as it were, the visi29 f.); a coat of arms appears above the portal in the third project (Figs. 1, 4); and fleurs-delys, monograms, and sunbursts appear in the frieze of the Stockholm version of the third
project (Del Pesco, Il Louvre, 1984, Fig. 40).
99
Nel prepararsi del opere usava di pensare . . . prima allinvenzione e poi rifletteva
allordinazione delle parti, finalmente a dar loro perfezione di grazia, e tenerezza. Portava in
ci lesempio delloratore, il quale prima inventa, poi ordina, veste e adorna (Baldinucci,
1948, 145). Berninis is a simplified and more sharply focused version of the orator-painter
analogy drawn by Federico Zuccari: E Si come lOratore . . . prima inventa, poi dispone,
orna, manda memoria, e finalmente pronuncia . . . Cos il buon Pastore deve considerare
tutte le patti della sua Pittura, linventione, la dispositione, e Ia compositione (see Zuccari,
1607, part II, p. 9; Heikamp, ed, 1961, 229).
100
The rigor and astrigency of the project designed in Paris seem to have been mitigated
by the modifications Bernini introduced after his return to Rome, as recorded in drawings
preserved at Stockholm. Changes evident in the east faade (see also n. 98 above) include the
following: the natural rustication is confined to the main central block, and the horizontal
joins in the stone courses seem more emphatic; the Hercules figures are asymmetrical, they
are placed on regular low plinths, and their poses are more open and welcoming (cf. Del
Pesco, Il Louvre, 1984, 44 f. n. 7, Figs. 4042).
101
. . . Esser i panneggiamenti del R, & i crini del Cavallo come troppo ripiegati, e trafitti,
fuor di quella regola, che hanno a Noi lasciata gli antichi Scultori, liberamente rispose, Questo
che . . . gli veniva imputato per difetto, esser il pregio maggiore del sue Scalpello con cui vinto
haveva la dificolt di render il Marmo pieghevole come la cera . . . El non haver ci fatte gli
antichi Artefici esser forse provenute dal non haver lore dato il cuere di rendere i sassi cosi ubbidienti alla mano, come se stati fossero di pasta (Bernini, 1713, 149; cf. Baldinucci, 1948, 141).
621
tor entered the mountain-top palace through the Hercules portals of the east
facade to have his audience with the king. While waiting in the antechamber
to be admitted to the august presence, he would gaze upon the kings portrait
bust hovering above its mundane pedestal.102 Bernini envisaged the equestrian
monument in front of the opposite, western, faade, between the Louvre and
the Palace of the Tuileries. There, the image of Louis, smiling as his mount
leaps to the summit of the Mountain of Glory and flanked by the imperial
triumphal columns as the Pillars of Hercules, would have been the focus of
the vista at the western limit of the suns trajectory.
The thinking displayed here had its only real precedent in Rome. To be
sure, despite Berninis notorious distaste for much of what he saw in France,
his projects for Louis were deeply and deliberately imbued with allusions to
French tradition; the visualization of the royal emblem, the retention of the
palace-in-a-moat the portrait mounted on a globe, the palace equestrian, all
bear witness to this acknowledgment 103 Yet, Berninis whole conception of the
Louvre seems intended to meld into one surpassing synthesis at Paris the two
quintessential monuments of Roman world dominion, secular and religious.104 This dual significance was defined explicitly in the medals issued to
commemorate the enterprise, of which those recording the equestrian portrait
have already been discussed (p. 594 f. above). The same idea was inscribed on
the foundation medal of the Louvre itself, by Jean Warin, showing Berninis
faade with the legend Maiestati ac Aeternit(ati) Gall(orum) Imperii Sacrum,
sacred to the majesty and eternity of the Gallic empire (Fig. 64).105
Seen in this light the complementary monumental allusions secular
and sacral of Berninis conception become all but inevitable. The colossal order crowned by a continuous balustrade with statues emulates
Michelangelos palaces on the Campidoglio (Fig. 70); these, too, like the
Bernini himself chose the position in the ante-chamber of the kings new audience
hall on October 13, a week before his departure (Chantelou, 1885, 231 f.).
103
The idea of Paris surpassing Rome was expressed by Bernini himself at his first meeting with the king (cf. p. 533 f. and n. 12 above) and was bruited in a French sonnet extolling
Bernini and the king (Chantelou, 1885, 149, September 9).
104
Robert Berger (1966) has persuasively argued that Berninis first Louvre project,
including its characteristic drum-without-dome motif, doffed its hat, as it were, to an ideal
chteau design of 1652 by Antoine Lepautre.
105
The medal (for which see La Mdaille, 1970, 81, no. 116; Jones, 198288, II, 224 ff.,
no. 239) was inserted in the foundation stone along with the inscriptions mentioned above,
n. 92; it is discussed several times in Chantelous diary (Chantelou, 1885, 164, 168 f., 215,
228 f., 240, entries for September 16, 19; October 8, 12, 17).
102
622
residence on the Palatine, rise from a summit redolent of imperial glory,

that of the Capitoline hill, and include the equestrian statue portraying the
most benign of emperors, Marcus Aurelius. The analogy actually gave rise
to a dialogue between the Capitol and Bernini, in which the artist was
reported to have said, Dove il gran Luigi, il Campidoglio!106 (where the
great Louis is, there is the Capitol a Roman version of Louiss notorious
dictum Ltt cest moi!). No less meaningful and deliberate were the many
transferrals to Paris we have noted of ideas and projects Bernini had devised
in the service of the popes. The imperial palace tradition had long since
been assimilated to papal ideology, and important aspects of Berninis conceit for the Louvre had been suggested in a volume of emblems devoted to
Gregory XIII in which that popes actions and his armorial device, the
dragon, had been graphically intertwined.107 The image illustrating the summer palace built by Gregory (Fig. 71) shows the building perched conspicuously atop the Quirinal hill (Monte Cavallo, from the ancient sculptures
of the horse tamers that adorn the square); the accompanying epigram identifies the pope as the sun and Rome and the pontiff as head of the microcosm, radiating beneficence on Italy and the world; Italy is described as a
piccol Mondo, anticipating the inscription Bernini intended for the globular
base of his bust of Louis XIV. I believe that Bernini, in turn, was consciously
seeking to create at the Louvre for the worlds greatest terrestrial monarch
the equivalent of what he had created at St. Peters for the worlds greatest
spiritual monarch. The invention of the scogliera even made it possible to
link the allusions to the imperial mountain-top palaces with the Mons
Vaticanus of St. Peter and the popes and with the biblical metaphor of the
rock on which Christ had built his church: Tu es Petrus et super hanc petram
aedificabo Ecclesiam meam (Matthew 16:18). These associations had been
given a French cast in a medal that showed the basilica of St. Peters perched
on a rocky base (Fig. 72). The medal celebrated the constant support given
to the Holy See by one of the great French cardinals of the period, Franois
de la Rochefoucauld (15581645), the image and the inscription Rupe
Firmatur in Ista, secure on that rock, punning on his name.108
Cureau de la Chambre, 1685, 23 (cf. n. 65 above); Wittkower, 1961, 511 n. 61, 529.
Fabricii, 1588; the emblem to be discussed appears on p. 308. On this emblem and
its signficance for the Quirinal palace, see Courtright, 1990, 128 f.
108
De la Rochefoucauld is portrayed on the obverse; his devotion to the papacy was
exemplary (see Pastor, 192353, 28:441; Bergin, 1987). The elevation of St. Peters, which
includes Madernos bell towers, reproduces Mattheus Greuters 1613 engraving (Hibbard,
1971, Pl. 54). The reverse is illustrated without comment in Kthmann et al., 1973, 219 f.,
106
107
623
The visitor to the Louvre would have been ravished by a secular version
of the awesome spectacle he experienced in Rome proceeding through the
embracing portico into the basilica to the high altar, surmounted by the baldachin, and beyond to the throne of the Prince of the Apostles in the apse.
When Berninis unitarian vision of the Sun King is viewed in this way, one
can readily understand Berninis view of his own contribution as an artist:
he was, he said, the first to make of the arts a marvelous whole, occasionally breaching without violence the boundaries that separate them.109
After-images at Versailles
The failure of Berninis visit to Paris is normally taken as a turning point
in French attitudes toward Italian culture since the Renaissance; the demise
of his various projects for the Louvre signaled the triumph of a new national
self-consciousness and self-confidence north of the Alps. Stylistically these
new attitudes are linked to the rejection of the fulsome rhetoric of the
Italian baroque and the development of the tempered logic of French classicism. Although correct in general terms, this analysis needs to be qualified,
especially on the evidence of what took place in the immediately succeeding years when the king determined to move both his residence and the seat
of government from the Louvre to Versailles. Le Brun adapted Berninis
equestrian project in designing a monument of Louis, intended initially for
no. 51. The reverse of the example in the Bibliothque Nationale reproduced in Fig. 248 is
inscribed T. BERl/l[sic]ARD. F., presumably the first medallist of that name, who was active
ca. 162265 (Forrer, 190430, I, 172 f., VII, 74). It should be noted that the Rochefoucauld
medal repeats the image of St. Peters on a rock on the medal by Caradosso of 1506 illustrating Bramantes project for the new basilica.
Bernini explicitly recalled the piazza of St. Peters in his planning for the area between
the Louvre and the Tuileries as well as for that in front of the Louvre (Chantelou, 1885, 42,
July 1; 52, July 15). Boucher (1981) has recently suggested that Berninis first design for the
Louvre reflected early projects by Peruzzi for St. Peters.
Another mountain-top theme with which Bernini must have been familiar appeared in
the 1644 medal commemorating the accession to the throne of Queen Christina of Sweden,
who later became the artists good friend. The medal shows a phoenix rising from a mountain top beneath a radiant sun, her favorite emblem (Eimer, 1992, 8487).
109
. . . egli sia stato fra Primi . . . che habbia saputo in modo unire assieme le belle Arti
della Scultura, Pittura, & Architettura, che di tutte habbia fatte in se un maraviglioso
composto . . . con uscir tal volta dalle Regole, senza per giammai violarle (Bernini, 1713,
32 f.; cf. Baldinucci, 1948, 140).
For a discussion of Berninis wholistic views on art generally, see Lavin, Bernini, 1980, 6 ff.
624
the Louvre but then evidently to be placed before the faade of Versailles
(Fig. 73).110 Le Brun also presumably designed the stucco relief executed by
Coysevox in the Salle de la Guerre that serves as the antechamber to the ceremonial reception hall known as the Galerie des Glaces (Fig. 74). Depicting Louis crowned by a personification of princely glory, the composition
translates Berninis moral conceit into the grandiloquent language of high
allegory.111
Both of Berninis own sculptures were also brought to Versailles, after all.
The equestrian group was placed in the garden and moved several times,
but the common notion that it was sent into exile must be reconsidered. In
fact, it was given conspicuous locations as the focal point of the view along
the major transverse axis in front of and parallel to the faade of the palace,
first toward the north at the end of the Bassin de Neptune, reaching its final
destination in the early eighteenth century at the other extremity at the end
of the Pice dEau des Suisses. It was replaced at the Bassin de Neptune by
Domenico Guidis highly esteemed group of Time and History holding a
portrait medallion of the king, so that the two works faced each other at
opposite sides of the horizon. Berninis sculpture was thus displayed far
more prominently than many other works dispersed among the minor
recesses of the garden.112 Furthermore, the transformation of the group was,
in a way, singularly appropriate. Marcus Curtius was one of the great legendary heros of antiquity who sacrificed himself to save his country. In this
sense the revision showed a remarkably subtle understanding of the meaning Bernini emphasized in explaining his conception. I suspect, indeed, that
Girardons alterations were not intended to obliterate the reference to the
king but to transform the work into a moralized depiction of Louis XIV in
the guise of Marcus Curtius.113 The modification accommodated the sculp110
On this project, see Josephson, 1928; Wittkower, 1961, 513 f.; Hedin, 1983, 211,
no. 49; Souchal, 1977 , vol. G-L, 47 f., no. 47; Weber, 1985, 190 ff.; M. Martin, 1986,
5460.
111
Keller-Dorian, 1920, I, 37 ff., no. 30.; Kuraszewski, 1974; Souchal, 1977 , vol.
AF, 186 f., no. 25. On the personification of Gloria dei Prencipi holding an obelisk (Ripa,
1603, 189), see Petzet, 1984, 443.
112
See on this important point Berger, In the Garden, 1985, 63. The traditional, architectural pedestal the work ultimately received was supplied by Mattia deRossi (Menichella,
1985, 23 f.).
113
There was a striking and well-known precedent for such an interpretation of the
theme in Rome early in the century: Cardinal Scipione Borghese had been compared to
Marcus Curtius, and Berninis father, Pietro, had portrayed the subject by restoring an
625
ture to the principle, followed consistently in the garden decorations, of

avoiding any direct portrayal of the king. Louis was present everywhere, of
course, but in the sublimated domain of the garden his spirit was invoked
only through allegory.114
We know that Berninis bust of Louis also had a rather active life before
it finally alighted in the Salon de Diane in 1684. At each stage along the
way, it was accompanied by the bust made by Jean Warin in 1666 to rival
Berninis (Fig. 75). First at the Louvre and then at the Tuileries and finally
again at Versailles, Warins sculpture accompanied Berninis as a demonstration of French ability to compete with the acknowledged master, whose
work was thus regarded and prominently displayed as the touchstone of
supreme achievement in the art.115
As to the chteau of Versailles (Fig. 76), the very clarion of French architectural identity, the analogy was long ago noted between the upper silhouette of Berninis Louvre project the continuous horizontal cornice and
balustrade crowned with sculptures and that of Louis Le Vaus building.116
This relationship, indeed, is symptomatic of the synthetic creative procedure
that is perhaps the chief legacy at Versailles of Berninis work for the Louvre.
In certain respects the garden faade, as originally planned by Le Vau, belongs
in a series of works that link elements of the two traditional types of noble residential architecture, the urban palace (Fig. 77) and the informal extramural
villa (Fig. 78). The earmark of the former was the flat street faade with a
monumental order or orders placed on a high rusticated base; the earmark of
the latter was a U-shaped plan embracing a garden or courtyard between projecting wings. Various steps had been taken earlier in the century to relate the
two types. In the Villa Borghese at Rome a coherent faade was achieved by
antique fragment for display at the Villa Borghese (cf. DOnofrio, 1967, 2089, 213,
25558, Haskell and Penny, 1981, 19193). Though in a different way, Wittkower also saw
the appropriateness of the Marcus Curtius theme; see Wittkower, 1961, 514.
114
Strictly speaking this observation applies to Guidis group as well; incidentally, Guidi
himself might be said to have metaphorized his portrait of the king by transforming the contemporary armor shown in the model into classical costume (cf. Seelig, 1972, 90).
The evident restraints on direct portrayals of the king inside Versailles until about 1680,
and much more tenaciously in the garden, are emphasized by Berger, Versailles, 1985, 39, 50,
53, 55, and In the Garden, 1985, 26, 64 f.
115
Again, I am indebted to Berger for this perception, (Versailles, 1985, 39, 50, 87
nn. 1045).
116
Cf. Blunt, 1953, 192, 279 n. 35.
626
including a terrace between the two wings (Fig. 23).117 In the Palazzo
Barberini, where Bernini himself had worked, the orders and rusticated base
of the palace type were introduced in a U-shaped faade (Fig. 79). It can
hardly be coincidence that both these buildings are near, but not in, the city
center; hence they are topographically as well as typologically intermediate
between the two alternatives. Le Vau in effect combined these intermediate
suburban arrangements, partly by applying the unifying lesson of Berninis
Louvre: a rusticated base surmounted by a single order and crowned by a horizontal roofline with sculptured balustrade. Le Vau thus for the first time
fused the palace and villa types into a unified and consistent architectural system that incorporates the entire faade. The fusion perfectly expresses the
unique status of Versailles as a royal chteau in the venerable tradition stemming from Charlemagne Constantines great successor and Louiss model in
other respects as well a permanent extra-urban seat of the monarchy.
In another context a bold observation has recently been made concerning a painting of Versailles by Jean-Baptiste Martin (Fig. 80). The view
toward the west of the Bassin dApollon and the Grand Canal is framed by
poplar trees, sacred to Hercules. The arrangement seems to reflect Berninis
project for the Louvre, where the Pillars of Hercules would have framed the
view from the palace to the west, in reference to the Non Plus Ultra device
used by the Hapsburgs.118
Most intriguing of all is the evidence recently discovered that Bernini
actually made a design for Versailles and that, for a time at least, his design
117
Cf. Berger, Versailles, 1985, 23, 25. My analysis is merely an extension and refinement
of Bergers observation that the primary sources of Le Vaus Enveloppe at Versailles were the
Italian villa type with terrace and Roman High Renaissance palaces. French indebtedness to
Bernini later at the Louvre and at Versailles has also been stressed by Tadgell, 1978, 5458,
83 n. 121 and 1980, 327, 335.
118
K. O. Johnson, 1981, 33 ff. Our attention here being focused in the legacy at
Versailles of Berninis ideas for the Louvre, I will not pursue possible relationships between
the planning of the chteau and other projects in which Bernini had been involved
notably those between the tridentine avenues of approach with twin buildings at the angles
and the Piazza del Popolo at Rome (most recently, Castex et al., 1980, 7 ff., a reference for
which I am indebted to Guy Walton). A similar arrangement was proposed in 1669 by
Franois dOrbais for the approach to the main faade of the Louvre (cf. Chastel and Prouse
de Montclos, 1966, 181, Fig. 5 and Pl. V).
627
may have been adopted for execution.119 This information is supplied by a

source that cannot be dismissed out of hand a detailed diary of a visit to
Versailles by the future Grand Duke Cosimo III of Tuscany in 1669. Under
the date August 11 of that year, it is reported that work at Versailles was proceeding on a majestic faade designed by Bernini. Except for Berninis own
expressed admiration for Versailles during his stay in Paris in 1665,120 this
statement provides the first direct link between Bernini and the chteau. No
trace of Berninis project has come down to us, and the claim may well be
exaggerated. It is certainly fortuitous, however, that the notice comes at just
the right moment to help explain a heretofore puzzling episode in the history of the planning of Versailles. Early in the summer of 1669 work was
proceeding according to a plan by Le Vau that, following the kings wish,
retained the old Petit Chteau built by his father. Yet in June Louis suddenly
changed his mind and issued a public declaration that he intended to
demolish the earlier structure. Colbert, who opposed the idea, held an
emergency competition among half-a-dozen French architects, including Le
Vau, for new proposals for a new Versailles. The suggestion is inescapable
that the competition was held in reaction to the receipt perhaps unsolicited of a project of this kind from Bernini. His submission may even
have been adopted until the final decision was taken later that year to retain
the old building after all and return to Le Vaus first plan.
* * *
Absolutely nothing of Berninis projects for France remains as he
intended, either at the Louvre or at Versailles. There can be no doubt, however, that his conception of the nobility and grandeur suitable for a great
monarch left an indelible trace on the French imagination. A tragi-comical
testimony to this fact was the defacement and mutilation of the equestrian
portrait with paint and hammer, perpetrated in 1980, the tricentennial of
Berninis death (Fig. 81). Evidently, the vandals considered the monument
For what follows, see Phringer-Zwanowetz, 1976. The author of the report to be discussed was probably Lorenzo Magalotti, whose interest in the Louvre is known from letters
written to him by the painter Ciro Ferri on September 30, 1665, and February 17, 1666
(Bottari and Ticozzi, 182225, II, 4752).
120
Chantelou, 1885, 154 ff., September 13.
119
628
a symbol of French culture, and instead of the inscription Bernini intended,

they left an eloquent graffito of their own:
YARK YARK!!!
PATRIMOINE
KAPUTT
ANTIFRANCE121
The Idea of the Prince Hero
There was a certain ironic justice in the vandals gesture of desecration,
for Berninis conception itself was profoundly subversive, both in its form
the suppression of royal and dynastic imagery, the portrayal of the king
in a momentary action, the smile that seemed inappropriate, the treatment
of marble as if it were dough, the elevation of raw nature to the domain of
high art and in its content. Berninis image of Louis XIV must be seen
against a major current of thought concerning political hegemony and the
qualities required of the ideal ruler, that had been developing for the better
part of a century. The main proponents were the Jesuits, who were intent
upon responding and providing an alternative to Machiavellis model of
cynical unscrupulousness in the worldly practice of statecraft. In the late
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries a veritable stream of anti-Machiavellian
literature defended the relevance of Christian moral principles not only to
utopistic ideals of domestic rule and foreign diplomacy but also to realistic
and successful statesmanship. The key argument in this reason of state was
121
I am greatly indebted to Simone Hoog of the Muse Nationale du Chteau de
Versailles for photographs and the following information, in litteris:
1) lacte de vandalisme sur le Marcus Curtius sest pass dans la nuit du 5 au 6 juin 1980.
2) les morceaux du cheval qui avaient t arrachs concernaient: la queue, la crinire, la
patte avant droite, loreille droite et, pour le cavalier un morceau du cimier et le menton;
avec bien sr quelques pauffrures supplmentaires de moindre importance . . . tout a t
recoll, mais il nous manque malheureusement quelques petits clats de marbre (pour la
queue et loreille du cheval en particulier).
3) la presse franaise a t trangement silencieuse sur ce triste vnement. Voici malgr
tout trois rfrences: Les Nouvelles de Versailles, 11 juin et 3 septembre 1980; Le Figaro, 12
aot 1980; Le Monde, 20 novembre 1980.
Mais il ne sagit pas darticles importants, seulement de bulletin dinformation trs
courts. Jai moi-mme voqu le sujet et les problmes de restauration quil soulve dans un
article paru dans Monuments Historiques, no. 138, avrilmai 1985.
The restored sculpture is now permanently on display in the Grandes Ecuries.
629
that the best form of government, monarchy, while responsible ultimately

to God, was based on the consent of the people, that the power of the ruler
derived practically from his reputation, and that his reputation in turn
depended on his exercise of virtue. Bernini was profoundly indebted to this
vital tradition of moral statesmanship, which culminated in the idea of the
prince-hero, but he carried the argument a decisive step further. The change
is evident in his explanation of his own work and the philosophy of kingship it embodied, as well as in his appropration of the Jesuit Claude
Menestriers emblem and interpretation of the Peace of the Pyrenees. The
restrained intensity of the equestrian portrait and the bust of Louis
expressed the radical political idea that the true basis of just rule lay in individual virtue and self-control rather than in inherited rank and unbridled
power. His view challenged the very foundations of traditional monarchist
ideology.122
This fundamental conflict of interest is dramatically illustrated by what
was perhaps the major bone of contention in the debates between the artist
and Colbert and the other French critics of his design for the Louvre: the
location of the royal apartment. Bernini insisted, to what proved to be the
bitter end, that the king must be quartered in the east wing, the most
prominent part of the palace; he rejected the argument that the rooms
would be relatively cramped and exposed to the turmoil and dangers of the
public square in front (the Fronde and the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 against
On Bernini, the anti-Machiavellian tradition and the prince-hero (p. 572 f. above),
see Lavin, 1991. The anti-Machiavellian tradition, first defined by Meinecke, 1957, has been
studied by De Mattei, 1969 and 1979, and the theories of the chief exponents in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries have been summarized by Bireley, 1990. This development
in the secular sphere had a close and surely related corollary in the theological principle of
heroic virtue, essential in the process of canonizing saints, first introduced in 1602 and elaborately formulated later in the century (for which see Hofmann, 1933; Enciclopedia cattolica,
194854, III, s. v. Canonizzazione, cols. 595 f., 605 f.).
An important and pioneering study by Keller (1971) discusses the major European
equestrian monuments of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in relation to contemporary political theory, including some of the writers who belong in the anti-Machiavellian
camp. In the present context, however, Kellers work has a critical shortcoming: although his
perception of Berninis intention is sound, Keller excludes Berninis equestrian Louis XIV as
expressing an allegorical conceit rather than a political theory (see pp. 17 and 68 ff.). In fact,
Berninis innovation lay precisely in merging these two levels of meaning.
122
630
James I of England had not been forgotten).123 Ceremony and symbolism,

as such, were not the primary point; it was rather that the concerns of safety
and convenience were secondary to the duties and obligations imposed by
the office of ruler. Bernini measured the stature of a ruler by the moral
restraints and obligations of personal leadership he undertook, despite the
discomforts and risks they entailed.
This was precisely the point Bernini explained to the obtuse Frenchman
who could not understand a happy, benevolent expression on the face of an
armed warrior on a martial horse that he had portrayed Louis enjoying
the glory of victory attained through virtue and self-sacrifice. The passage
(quoted in n. 63 above) is of further interest because it reveals the full
import of Berninis formal subversion of hallowed ideology, his nonviolent
break with artistic convention and decorum. Having given his explanation,
Bernini added that his meaning was evident throughout the work, but
would become much clearer still when the sculpture was seen on its
intended rocky promontory. By raising to lofty moral and aesthetic standards a lowly and deprecated form, he created a new means of visual expression to convey a new social ideal.124
POSTSCRIPT
Louis XIV:Bernini = Mitterand:Pei
The power of Berninis image of the Sun King has been reflected anew
in the no less revolutionary developments that have taken place at the
Louvre under President Mitterand and the architect I. M. Pei. This rapprochement across the centuries is evident in an anecdote recounted to me
by Pei, who recalled that on one occasion Mitterand said to him, You can
be sure of one thing, Mr. Pei: I will not abandon you as Louis XIV abandoned Bernini! a promise the president has maintained, despite a storm
of protest against the project for a new entrance to the new, Grand Louvre.
The sharpest critique is that of Colbert, reported by Chantelou as the last entry in his
diary, November 30, 1665, a few days after Bernini left for Rome (Chantelou, 1885, 264
f.). Bauer rightly recalls the Gunpowder Plot in this connection (in Chantelou, 1985, 37,
303).
124
The inversion and moralization of conventional social values implicit in Berninis attitude in the official, public domain has its counterpart in his creation of the private caricature portrait of exalted and high-born personages (see Lavin, 1990).
123
631
Owing in part, perhaps, to the sheer logic of the situation but also in part,
surely, by design, Pei has brought into being several important elements of
Berninis dream of giving form to the glory of France.
From the time of Louis XIV and Bernini onward, the space between the
west faade of the Louvre and the Tuileries was not meant to stand empty.
Many projects were proposed (Fig. 82 includes those dating 1624-1829),
until the series finally came to an end in the glass pyramid designed by
another architect imported from abroad, who succeeded in illustrating the
breadth of French vision and the grandeur of French culture.125 Bernini
himself proposed for the area now occupied by Peis pyramid two theaters,
modeled on the Colosseum and the Theater of Marcellus in Rome, one facing the Louvre, the other the Tuileries.126 Placed back to back, with room
for ten thousand spectators on either side, the theaters would have realized
on a monumental scale the effect of one of Berninis fabled comedies, in
which he created the illusion of two theaters and two audiences in plain
view of one another.127 The two theaters at the Louvre would have reflected
the spectacle of French civic and ceremonial life at its very heart.
This is exactly what Pei has created a great spectacle at the veritable
center of French cultural life. And he has achieved this result, which might
be described as maximum, with means that can be described as minimum
(Figs. 83, 84). Apart from its symbolic associations (Pei denies that he
intended any cf. Fig. 85),128 the pyramid is the simplest and least obtrusive of structural forms, and glass, whether opaque or transparent, is the
most self-effacing structural material. When the glass is opaque, it mirrors
the scene of people from all over the world who have come to enjoy, participate in, and pay homage to French culture, with the sacrosanct faades
of the Louvre as their backdrop. When the glass is transparent, what does
one see? People from all over the world who have come to enjoy, participate
in and pay homage to French culture, with the sacrosanct faades of the
Louvre as their backdrop. Either way, the pyramid itself disappears, becomFor a complete and thorough survey of these projects, see Daufresne, 1987.
The sources concerning this proposal are conveniently gathered in Del Pesco, Il
Louvre, 1984, 41 f., 48 n. 22, who also reproduces several projects, including two by Claude
Perrault, that reflect Berninis scheme; further, Daufresne, 1987, 76 ff.
127
Berninis comedy of two theaters is described by Baldinucci, 1948, 151, and Bernini,
1713, 56.
128
In an interview Pei demonstrated to me (see Fig. 85) how he derived the pyramid
from the geometric configuration of Le Ntres garden parterre of the Tuileries.
125
126
632
ing a clear and limpid representation of its environment.129 Pei solved the
terrifying problem of making a monumental entrance to the Louvre by creating an almost invisible theater where the people of the world are the actors
and the Louvre is the stage set.
Almost exactly ten years after its desecration at Versailles, Berninis
equestrian image of the Sun King was restored (cast in lead) to the space
between the Louvre and the Tuileries for which it had originally been destined (Fig. 86).130 The restitution of the image to its proper position of leadership provoked almost the same furor as its original appearance in Paris
three centuries before appropriately enough, since Berninis sculpture,
far from adhering comfortably to the conventions of its genre, was meant
to convey the artists new, provocative, even subversive, conception of the
ideal head of state. In replacing the work, Pei used neither the same material nor the same location Bernini had envisaged. Instead, Pei used the
image of the Sun King to resolve one of the historic problems of ceremonial
urbanism in Paris the nonalignment of the Louvre with the axis formed
by the Tuileries, the Napoleonic arches of triumph and the Champs-Elyses.
Pei oriented the horseman and his pedestal on that axis, but aligned the
platform beneath the monument with the Louvre (Fig. 87).131 In this way,
the Pei-Bernini image of the Sun King came to serve precisely the function
for which it was intended, as the visual and symbolic link between the old
France and the new.
The whole conception, which is truly in the spirit of Bernini, also fulfills Berninis definition of the architects task: which consists not in making beautiful and comfortable buildings, but in knowing how to invent
ways of using the insufficient, the bad, and the ill-suited to make beautiful
things in which what had been a defect becomes useful, so that if it did not
exist one would have to create it.132
129
The importance of simplicity-opacity-transparency as Peis way of relating his pyramid to the historic buildings of the Louvre, has been observed by S. Lavin, 1988. The
transparancy of the pyramid was ably discussed in a paper by Stephen L. Rustow,
Transparent Contradictions: Peis Pyramid at the Louvre, delivered at the 1990 meeting of
the Society of Architectural Historians.
130
See Hoog, 1989, 57 ff.
131
The displacement of the statue on the grand axe of Paris is also noted by Fleckner,
1992.
132
. . . il sommo pregio dellartefice [is] il sapere inventar maniere per servirsi del poco,
del cattivo e male adattato al bisogno per far cose belle e far s che sia utile quel che fu difetto
e che, se non fusse, bisognerebbe farlo (Baldinucci, 1948, 146; cf. Bernini 1713, 32).
633
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Visible Spirit
The Art of
Gianlorenzo Bernini
Vol. II
Irving Lavin
The Pindar Press

London 2009
Published by The Pindar Press

40 Narcissus Road
London NW6 1TH UK
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-1-904597-45-2 (hb)

ISBN 978-1-904597-55-1 (pb)
Printed by
Estudios Grficos ZURE
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Spain
This book is printed on acid-free paper
Contents
XVII

Bernini and Antiquity The Baroque Paradox:

A Poetical View
645
XVIII
Berninis Portraits of No-Body
681
XIX
The Roma Alessandrina of Richard Krautheimer
748
XX

Impresa quasi impossibile: The Making of

Berninis Bust of Francesco I dEste
757
XXI
Berninis Bust of the Medusa: An Awful Pun
789
XXII

Berninis Bust of the Savior and the Problem of

the Homeless in Seventeenth-Century Rome
849
XXIII

XXIV
Berninis Image of the Ideal Christian Monarch
917
Berninis Bumbling Barberini Bees
955
XXV

Bernini-Bozzetti: One More, One Less. A Berninesque

Sculptor in Mid-Eighteenth Century France
1018
XXVI
Berninis Death: Visions of Redemption
1046
XXVII The Rome of Alexander VII: Bernini and the

Reverse of the Medal
1087
XXVIII The Young Bernini
1127
XXIX

Bozzetto Style: The Renaissance Sculptors

Handiwork
1174
XXX

The Regal Gift: Bernini and his Portraits of

Royal Subjects
1234
XXXI

Urbanitas urbana: The Pope, the Artist, and

the Genius of the Place
1267
XXXII The Baldacchino. Borromini vs Bernini: Did Borromini

Forget Himself?
1336
Bibliography
1385
Index
1397
Lavin XVII. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap V
11/12/08
18:01
Page 1
XVII
Bernini and Antiquity The Baroque Paradox

A Poetical View*
Y chief purpose in this paper is to bring together and consider under

one heading two papers by earlier scholars on apparently quite different subjects that are fundamental to some of our current views on the
relationship of Baroque art to antiquity. In a brief note entitled Rhetoric
and Baroque Art, published in 1955, Giulio Carlo Argan for the first time
offered what has since become perhaps the prevalent interpretation of
Baroque art, based on the classical tradition of rhetoric.1 The primary
source book on the subject, Aristotles treatise on rhetoric, became available
in Italian translation in 1570. The wide influence of Argans essay was very
salubrious, suggesting as it did that Baroque style, often regarded as a decadent superabundance of ornament and conceit, could better be understood
positively as a deliberate and sophisticated technique of persuasion. The second paper, published by Rudolf Wittkower in 1963, compared the use of
ancient models by Poussin, the arch classicist of France, and Bernini, the
outstanding representative of Italian Baroque exuberance.2 With great perspicuity Wittkower showed from preparatory studies how classical sources
* The gist of this paper was first presented in a lecture at a meeting of the College Art
Association of America in 1961.
1
Giulio Carlo Argan, La rettorica e larte barocca, in: Rettorica e barocco. Atti del III congresso internazionale di studi umanistici, Rome, 1955, pp. 914.
2
Rudolf Wittkower, The Role of Classical Models in Berninis and Poussins Preparatory
Work, in: Studies in Western Art: Latin American Art and the Baroque Period in Europe. Acts
of the Twentieth International Congress of the History of Art. III, Princeton, 1963,
pp. 4150 (reprinted in idem, Studies in the Italian Baroque, London, 1975, pp. 103114).
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functioned in diametrically opposite ways in the development of their

works. Poussin would typically start with a dynamic, Baroque design, into
which ancient models would then intervene to produce a restrained, classicizing final version; Bernini, on the other hand, would often start with a
classical prototype, which he would then transform into a free and volatile
Baroque solution.
Invaluable as they are and everything I shall say this evening proves
my own indebtedness to them the essays of Argan and Wittkower seem
to me to beg two essential questions that are also interrelated. The rhetorical approach inevitably focuses on the form and mechanisms, rather than
the substance and meaning of style; and emphasis on the extreme differences in response to ancient models overlooks what the opposing attitudes
have in common, and hence misses the significance of the antique for that
which is, after all, Baroque about Baroque art.
I shall take up these issues in reverse order.
Any discussion of the relationship between Baroque art and the art of
antiquity must inevitably confront the fundamental paradox that underlies
Wittkowers comparison. The popular and I think nevertheless largely valid
conception of the Baroque is that it is the period in art when exaggerated,
dramatic emotions were expressed through violent and often apparently
arbitrary formal contrasts in short the farthest thing possible from the
noble balance, reticence, and harmony we normally associate with classical
art. While this description applies to a great deal of Baroque art, north as
well as south of the Alps, it does not apply to all. In Poussins famous Et in
Arcadia Ego, we find neither overly dramatic gestures and emotions, nor
violent formal contrasts (Fig. 1). Yet, Poussin must be included in any general definition of Baroque art, not merely because he lived in the seventeenth century, but because he does in fact make use of many Baroque formal and expressive devices. Perhaps most important, I should say, is precisely his sense of drama he very subtly yet very definitely concentrates
our attention upon a dramatic focus, which he fills with a poignant mood
that is deeply moving. As we continue to study the picture, our eye is caught
and held as if bewitched at the open space at the very center of the composition where the poised hands of the shepherds decipher the melancholy
inscription. Berninis Ecstasy of St. Teresa could hardly be more different in
other respects (Fig. 2). Yet here, too, everything is focused on a dominant
central void; everything contributes to charge the space between the figures
with an almost painful sense of expectancy.
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We have invented the brashly self-contradictory term Baroque

Classicism to cope with this kind of situation, which is not only paradoxical but remarkably persistent.
Though perhaps to a somewhat lesser degree, the same dichotomy can
be found in the Baroque art of Italy, as well. The fantastical and tumultuous
architecture of Borromini, as witness the faade of this little church in
Rome, S. Carlo alle Quattro Fontane (Fig. 3), is the absolute antithesis of
the clear, simple, at times even austere grandeur of Berninis architecture.
One would hardly believe that a Baroque building could have inspired the
following statement, No other Italian structure of the post-Renaissance
period shows an equally deep affinity with Greece. Yet it was written by
Wittkower himself, about Berninis colonnade in front of St. Peters
(Fig. 4).3
We can carry this dilemma yet a step further. Berninis colossal figure of
St. Longinus in St. Peters (Fig. 5), captured at the height of a dramatic
moment, with thundering drapery and ecstatic expression, is the very
essence of what most people mean by Baroque, whether they like it or not.
Considered in relation to the statement just quoted about the Hellenic
character of Berninis colonnade, one can understand why some critics have
gone so far as to suggest that Bernini was a kind of artistic schizophrenic
classical in his architecture, Baroque in his sculpture.
The dichotomy runs still deeper. Compare the St. Longinus with
another of Berninis statues in St. Peters, of the Countess Matilda of
Tuscany, the great twelfth-century benefactress of the papacy, begun in
1633 (Fig. 6). Although contemporaneous in execution, the two works
seem diametrically opposed. Matilda is a grand and noble matron, obviously inspired by some classical figure of Juno or Athena. She stands solid
and stable, her drapery is fulsome and heavy, and her countenance displays
a grave composure that is more classical in spirit, one might almost say, than
antiquity itself.
In the case of Bernini our problem is compounded by what we know of
his views on art, which is quite a good deal. The chief source is the journal
kept of Berninis visit to France on the invitation of Louis XIV. by Paul de
Rudolf Wittkower, Art and Architecture in Italy. 1600 to 1750, Harmondsworth, etc.
1980. p. 196.
3
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1. Nicolas Poussin,
Et in Arcadia Ego,
Paris, Muse du Louvre,
photo Archives
photographiques MNLP
360/112c.
2. Bernini,
Ecstasy of St. Teresa,
Rome, S. Maria della
Vittoria,
photo Alinari 6193.
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3. Borromini, Rome,
S. Carlo alle Quattro
Fontane,
photo Alinari 27898.
4. Bernini, Rome, St.

Peters, photo
Anderson 24399.
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5. Bernini, St. Longinus, Rome, St. Peters,

photo Anderson 20588.
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6. Bernini, Countess Matilda of Tuscany, Rome, St. Peters,

651
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Chantelou, whom Louis had designated as the renowned artists chaperon.4

Chantelou kept a day-by-day record, from which we glimpse Berninis ideas
and character with a freshness and intimacy unparalleled before the nineteenth century. The remarkable fact is that while the Journal itself is thus a
profoundly Baroque sort of document, and the brilliant, extroverted artist
emerges as a profoundly Baroque sort of personality, the things he says
about art betray an analogous kind of duality. On the one hand he speaks
of the difficulty of rendering the subtle color gradations of the skin in white
marble a possibility only a sculptor of the seventeenth century would
articulate. On the other hand, he advises the young student to copy the
masterpieces of antiquity even before nature. On the one hand, he does not
wish the king to pose for his portrait, but sketches him in action in order
to capture a characteristic, momentary expression. On the other hand. he
was deeply impressed, even disturbed by the reserved, cerebral paintings of
Poussin, whose works he says he wishes he had not seen because they make
him realize how little he knows about art.
Under the circumstances one can readily comprehend that commentators have resorted to some rather peculiar arguments in order to explain
these contradictory aspects of Berninis art and thought. His classicizing
sculptures represent a sort of capitulation to the conservative currents of the
day. His emphatic admiration for antiquity was simply part of the intellectual furniture of classicistic art theory inherited from the sixteenth century.
His admiration of Poussin was merely an attempt to cull favor at the French
court. All of which imputes to Bernini a degree of superficiality, even of
hypocrisy that is utterly belied by the divinely proud and self-assured individual we know from Chantelous journal. One need only point out, for
example, that Poussin was just about all he praised in France; almost everything else he saw he criticized so openly and severely that Chantelou had to
ask him in private if he wouldnt be a bit more tactful he was hurting
everyones feelings.
No, I believe we must accept the fact that Berninis response to antiquity
was both genuine and deep-seated. We must reconcile ourselves to the likelihood that the contradiction we feel between two opposing principles is at
some level anachronistic; and if we are ever really to understand Baroque
4
M. de Chantelou, Journal du voyage du Cavalier Bernin en France. Ed. Ludovic Lalanne,
Paris 1885. An English translation by M. Corbett, with excellent notes by G. Bauer, is now
available, Paul Frart de Chantelou, Diary of the Cavaliere Berninis Visit to France. Ed.
Anthony Blunt, Princeton, 1985.
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art in general, and Bernini in particular, we must find the common

denominator.
Possibly the clearest insight I know into the significance of classical art
for Bernini, at least during the early part of his career, is provided by his
epoch-making group of Apollo and Daphne (Fig. 7). The relationship of
the figure of Apollo to the Apollo Belvedere (Fig. 8) is one of the most direct
and obvious quotations from another work of art, classical or otherwise, in
the whole of Berninis uvre. The model has been greatly altered, to be
sure, but the reference is so explicit that one can scarcely imagine the groups
initial derivation from quite a different prototype. This is a work by the
obscure Florentine sculptor, Battista Lorenzi, whose relationship to
Berninis Apollo and Daphne has not, I think, received the attention it
deserves (Fig. 9). The sculpture, which represents Alpheus and Arethusa,
was executed sometime before 1584 for the garden of a villa at Florence.5
The similarities are too close for coincidence, and we are driven to the
conclusion that one of the most revolutionary works of Berninis youth
apparently originated in an almost paradigmatic work of late Mannerist
sculpture.
While some may find this realization rather disillusioning, it does help
us to grasp one of the important services the classical model performed. For
among the many differences of the Apollo and Daphne from the earlier
group, perhaps the most critical is the return to a dominant viewpoint a
distinctive novelty of Berninis early work, as Wittkower emphasized in
another context.6 One of the earlier sculptors chief concerns was to provide
the spectator with something to look at from various points of view.
Berninis chief concern was to present to the spectator a dramatic momentary situation, We know from documents that he took care to have the
group placed against a wall, so that it could be seen only from one side. By
thus concentrating and focusing the action of the figures Bernini trans5
Preston Remington, Alpheus and Arethusa. A Marble Group by Battista Lorenzi, in:
Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, XXXV, 1940, pp. 6165. References to
Florentine sculpture are frequent in Berninis early work.
6
Rudolf Wittkower, Le Bernin et le baroque romain, in: Gazette des Beaux-Arts, XI, 1934,
pp. 327341. Wittkowers analysis retains its essential validity despite recent studies that
have emphasized the care with which Bernini also calculated subordinate views. Joy Kenseth,
Berninis Borghese Sculptures: Another View, in: The Art Bulletin, LXIII, 1981, pp.
191210; Rudolf Kuhn, Die Dreiansichtigkeit der Skulpturen des Gianlorenzo Bernini und
des Ignaz Gnther, in: Festschrift fr Wilhelm Messerer zum 60. Geburtstag, Cologne, 1980,
pp. 231249.
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7. Bernini, Apollo and Daphne, Rome, Galleria Borghese,

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8. Apollo Belvedere, Rome, Musei Vaticani,

photo Alinari 6501.
655
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9. Battista Lorenzi, Alpheus and Arethusa, New York,

Metropolitan Museum, Neg. No. 120512.
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10. Bernini, David, Rome, Galleria Borghese,

657
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formed the whole course of European sculpture. It would be foolish to

maintain that Bernini would not have returned to the dominant viewpoint
without the Apollo Belvedere, but there can be no doubt that the ancient
statue provided him with unimpeachable precedent for his break with
Mannerist tradition.
What we have said of the Apollo and Daphne can be said of virtually all
the major revolutionary works of Berninis youth. Berninis David seems to
have started from the great figure of Polyphemus hurling a rock at Acis
painted by Annibale Carracci, another of Berninis favorite artists, on a vault
of the Palazzo Farnese in Rome 20 years before (Figs. 10, 11). This time one
recognizes the interposition of two ancient works in the genesis of different
aspects of Berninis sculpture. The complex torsion of Carraccis figure,
moving forward toward the spectator while turning backward toward the
fleeing enemy, is simplified, frontalized and brought into sharp psychological focus thanks to the Borghese gladiator and the group of Menelaus
holding the body of Patroclus; we know that Bernini greatly admired both
these famous works (Figs. 12, 13).7
Clearly, it is hard to agree with those who conceive that Berninis explicit
admiration for antiquity was incompatible with his own direction. On the
contrary, in view of the consistency with which the young Bernini adopted
classical models, one might even propose the somewhat startling thesis that
the beginning of Baroque sculpture was actually accompanied by a classical
revival, of almost the proportions and significance of the Early Renaissance
itself. Berninis relation to antiquity in his early work has all the earmarks of
a passionate rediscovery. In each case, upon a contemporary, or near contemporary, starting point he superimposed some ancient reference which
helped to clarify, concentrate and intensify what can only be described as a
new quality of heroic pathos and drama. This is the quality, after all, that
underlies the seemingly contradictory extremes of the relationship between
the Baroque and antiquity, linking Poussin to Bernini, Borromini to
Bernini, the St. Longinus to the Matilda of Tuscany.
Bernini was far from alone in this respect. There is ample evidence that
a renewed interest in antiquity was an essential aspect of the profound
On these works, with references to Berninis enthusiasm for them, see Francis
Haskell/Nicholas Penny, Taste and the Antique. The Lure of Classical Sculpture 15001900,
New Haven and London, 1981, pp. 221224, 291296. See also my essay, Bernini and the
Art of Social Satire, in: Irving Lavin (Ed.), Drawings by Gian Lorenzo Bernini from the
Museum der bildenden Knste, Leipzig and Princeton, 1981, p. 40.
7
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changes that were being wrought in other art forms during the early seventeenth century in Rome, notably in the theater in drama, in music, and
above all in the combination of the two, opera. Here at last we begin to
reach the heart of the matter I wish to consider here, and I shall focus initially on these parallel phenomena, which I think may have some bearing
upon Berninis development.
As far as drama is concerned, it is too little known that among the major
forces in the development of Baroque theater were the Jesuits.8 From its
inception the Society had fostered a great tradition of stage productions as
part of its program of education and indoctrination. The plays were put on
in the Jesuit colleges, under the direction of the teacher of rhetoric, for the
benefit of the students, who were the actors; the students were often the
sons of powerful noblemen and the practice helped to perfect their Latin
and their oratorical prowess, while the lofty subject matter served to inculcate them with spiritual truth. By the early seventeenth century in Rome
these productions became quite elaborate and were among the citys stellar
attractions, serving to advance the twin causes of religious faith and the
Jesuit order. Perhaps the leading figure in the Jesuit theater during the first
quarter of the century was one Bernardino Stefonio, who was teacher of
humanities and rhetoric in Rome for more than a decade before 1618,
when he became tutor to the Duke of Modena.9 Stefonio wrote a number
of dramas whose success is witnessed by the several editions and performances they were given. Chief among them were two tragedies, one called
Crispus, first performed at the Collegio Romano in 1597, the other Flavia,
performed for the Jubilee year 1600. Both plays recount the stories of
Christian martyrdoms under Roman emperors, but they incorporate
important elements of plots and language from the tragedies of Seneca.
For a recent survey, see William H. McCabe, An Introduction to the Jesuit Theater, St.
Louis, 1983. For Rome, see Gualtiero Gnerghi, Il teatro gesuitico nesuoi primord a Roma,
Rome 1907, and the valuable but unpublished work by V. R. Yanitelli, The Jesuit Theatre in
Italy, Ph.D. Diss. Fordham Univ., 1945. See also a series of essays by various authors on the
theaters of the Collegio and Seminario Romano, in The Ohio State University Theatre
Collection Bulletin, No. 16, 1969.
9
Stefonios work has been the subject of two excellent essays by Marc Fumaroli, Le
Crispus et la Favia du P. Bernardino Stefonia S. J. Contribution lhistoire du thatre au
Collegio Romano (15971628), in: Jean Jacquot/Elie Konigson. Les ftes de la Renaissance.
III, Paris, 1975, pp. 505524, and Thtre, humanisme et contre-rforme Rome
(15971642): luvre du P. Bernardino Stefonio et son influence, in: Bulletin de lAssociation
Guillaume Bud, XXXIII, 1974, pp. 397411.
8
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11. Annibale Carracci,

Polyphemus, Rome,
Palazzo Farnese,
photo Gabinetto
Fotografico
Nazionale,
Roma 37163.

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13. Menelaus and Patroclus, Florence, Loggia dei Lanzi,

photo Alinari 2482.
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photo Alinari 22625.
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12. Borghese Gladiator, Paris, Muse du Louvre,

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Stefonios plays thus combine the Counter-Reformatory recourse to the

pristine Christian values of the early church, with a number of basic reforms
intended to arouse an immediate emotional response in the audience by
emulating the simplicity and directness of ancient tragedy.
Another important innovation in Stefonios plays, especially compared
with the academic productions of ancient plays they were intended to emulate, was the introduction of singing and dancing at various points in the
action, in intermezzos between the acts, and especially through a chorus
whose choreography, charged with high symbolism, was recorded in
engraved diagrams (Fig. 14).
A second great innovation in Rome at this period took place only a short
distance away but at the opposite end of the social and theatrical scale, as it
were, under the aegis of the arch rival of the Jesuits, the Congregation of the
Oratorio founded by St. Phillip Neri.10 The saint had insisted from the outset on the necessity and appropriateness of singing popular spiritual songs
in the vernacular to musical accompaniment, as part of the regular devotions of the order. The practice was also a conscious emulation of the communal worship of the primitive church, and the orders very name,
Congregation of the Oratory, derives from this distinctive practise of musical prayer. The Oratorys tradition underwent a profound transformation,
however, and a new era in the development of the Baroque theater opened,
with an event held in the Jubilee year of 1600, at the same time as the Jesuit
production of Bernardino Stefonios Flavia. The event, no doubt partly
intended as a response to the Jesuit theatrical success, was the performance
at the Oratory of what really amounted to a new art form a religious
drama set entirely to music with the parts sung by a combination of choral
and solo voices. The Rappresentatione di Anima e di Corpo marked a critical
turning point in the development of a movement that had begun in
Florence in the 80s of the sixteenth century, with the Florentine Camerata,
familiar to every musicologist. Under the patronage of a certain nobleman,
Giovanni Bardi, a group of amateurs held informal meetings for the purpose of studying and recreating the music and drama of the ancients. In so
10
The paragraphs that follow concerning the Oratory and the Rappresentatione di Anima
e di Corpo, and Berninis sculptures of the Damned and Blessed Souls, are taken from a
forthcoming essay by the writer, Berninis Portraits of No-Body, which provides full
documentation.
The standard work on the Oratorio is Howard E. Smither, A History of the Oratorio. 3
vols. Chapel Hill, 19771987.
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doing, they took the first basic steps in the creation of Baroque opera.
Among the better-known participants were the theoretician Vincenzo
Galilei, father of the astronomer, the poet Ottavio Rinuccini, who later
wrote the libretto for Monteverdis Lament of Ariadne, and Emilio de
Cavalieri, who was instrumental in introducing the movement to Rome.
De Cavalieri (15501602) composed the music for the Rappresentatione
di Anima e di Corpo, while the text was written by a member of the Oratory,
Agostino Manni (15481618). The Rappresentatione was an extraordinary
and seminal production from many points of view. It marked a turning
point in the development and transferral from Florence to Rome of the new
technique of melodic recitation, or the use of song in a dramatic enactment
melodrama, in other words intended to recapture what was thought
to be the essential principle of ancient theatrical art. All this was stated
explicitly in the preface to the original edition of the text and score of the
Rappresentatione, as was the intention to move the audience by expressing
through the melodic dialogue the strongly contrasting emotions of the
characters: singular and novel compositions of music, made similar to that
style with which, it is said, the ancient Greeks and Romans in their scenes
and theaters used to move the spectators to various affections; played and
sung allantica, as it is said; affective music; able to revive that ancient
usage so felicitously; this style is also suited to move to devotion; this kind
of music revived by him [Cavalieri] will move to various affections, like pity
and joy, weeping and laughter, and others like them; the singer should
express well the words so that they may be understood and accompany
them with gestures and movements, not only of the hands but also of steps,
which are very effective aids to move the affection; [Cavalieri] would praise
to change instruments according to the affect of the singer; passing from
one affection to its contrary, as from mournful to happy, from ferocious to
gentle and the like, is greatly moving.11
The text of the play, which must certainly have been conceived with
musical enactment in mind, was no less innovative. The subject was a religious allegory which combined two forms of late medieval popular devotion that had been revived in the latter part of the sixteenth century: the
Lauda spirituale, or song of praise on a religious theme, which might
11
Translated from the dedication and preface to Rappresentatione di anima, et di
corpo. Nuouamente posta in musica dal Sig. Emilio del Cavaliere per recitar cantando, Rome,
1600 (facsimile ed., Westmead, England, 1967).
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include elements of narrative and dialogue but was not a proper enactment;
and the Sacra Rappresentazione, or religious play in verse, based normally on
a Biblical story, with parts often sung to musical accompaniment. The
three-act work, something between a recitation and a play, includes, besides
Body and Soul, allegorical characters such as Time, Understanding, Good
Counsel, Mammon, and Worldly Life. The plot consists entirely in the
exchange of arguments for good and evil, presented alternately in a kind of
contrapuntal symmetry, until Virtue triumphs in the end. The only events,
properly speaking, occur in the third act when Hell and Heaven alternately
open and close, and their denizens Damned and Blessed Souls intone
their respective laments and exaltations.
The impact of the jubilee production of the Rappresentatione di Anima
e di Corpo was immediate and extraordinary. A contemporary biographer of
Manni described the representation as the first in Rome in the new recitative style, which then became frequent and universally applauded.12 The
response of cultivated Roman society may be judged from the vivid recollections of an eyewitness, recorded after the death of Emilio de Cavalieri in
1602. I want to quote the report in extenso because it is quite moving in
itself and illustrates not only the thematic but also the expressive context of
our subject.
I, Giovanni Vittorio Rossi, found myself one day in the home of Signor
Cavaliere Giulio Cesare Bottifango, not only a fine gentleman but also one
of rare qualities excellent secretary, most knowledgeable poet and musician. Having begun to discuss music that moves the emotions (musica che
move gli affetti), he told me resolutely that he had never heard anything
more affecting (pi affettuosa), or that had moved him more than the
Representation of the Soul put to music by the late Signor Emilio de
Cavalieri, and performed the Holy Year 1600 in the oratory of the
Assumption, in the house of the Reverend Fathers of the Oratorio at the
Chiesa Nuova. He was present that day when it was performed three times
without satisfying the demand, and he said in particular that hearing the
part of Time, he felt come over him a great fear and terror: and at the part
when the Body, performed by the same person as Time, in doubt whether
to follow God or the World, resolved to follow God, his eyes poured forth
a great abundance of tears and he felt arise in his heart a great repentance
Cf. D. Alaleona, Su Emilio de Cavalieri, la Rappresentatione di Anima e di Corpo e
alcune sue composizioni inedite, in: La nuova musica, X, 1905, p. 18.
12
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and pain for his sins. Nor did this happen only then, but thereafter whenever he sang it he was so excited to devotion that he wanted to take communion, and he erupted in a river to tears. He also gave extreme praise to
the part of the Soul, divinely performed by that castrato; he said the music
was also an inestimable artifice that expressed the emotions of pain and tenderness with certain false sixths tending toward sevenths, which ravished
the spirit. In sum, he concluded, one could not do anything more beautiful or more perfect in that genre, and, so I might see for myself the truth of
what he said, he took me to the harpsichord and sang several pieces from
the representation, in particular that part of the Body which had so moved
him. It pleased me so much that I asked him to share it with me, and he
most courteously copied it himself. I learned it by heart, and often went to
his house to hear him sing it himself .13
It must be said, in sum, that the Jesuit and Oratorian productions for
the jubilee of 1600 represented two new, alternative and complementary
approaches to combining words and music in a specifically Christian dramatic performance inspired by a renewed emulation of antiquity. The highculture academic exercises of the Jesuits focused primarily on the classical
drama and scenic splendor, introducing music, singing and dance as ancillary ingredients of a moving effect. The Oratorians took the more popular
path of vernacular dramatic text, all of it sung to musical accompaniment,
but with relatively little emphasis on staging and scenography. Each of these
approaches had a long and fruitful legacy. The Oratorians subsequently suppressed the theatrical aspect altogether, focusing instead on the musicdrama itself in the development of the Oratorio form for which the Order
is famous. The Jesuits tended to suppress the musical in favor of the
theatrical aspects of the drama, and spectacular productions of Jesuit school
plays in the later seventeenth and eighteenth centuries became legendary.
There was one particular context, however, in which a clear and specific
effort was made to combine the two approaches and create a fully developed
music-drama, with elaborate staging, all roles played by actor-singers to
orchestral accompaniment, a corps de ballet performing dances that were an
integral part of the event, and a plot that recounted the inspiring spiritual
victories of the early church martyrs. These first great religious operas were
created in the second quarter of the seventeenth century under the patronCf. Marcello Fagiolo/Maria Luisa Madonna (Eds.), Roma sancta. La citt delle basiliche,
Rome 1985, p. 196.
13
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age of the family of Pope Urban VIII Barberini, who was Berninis greatest
patron.14 In a series of productions mainly in the Palazzo Barberini, newly
brought to completion by Bernini himself, the musical as well as the purely
theatrical possibilities of the earlier innovations were further developed. In
fact, one might say without too much exaggeration that it was largely in the
Palazzo Barberini that opera acquired the spectacular and scenographic
character with which it is still associated. The Barberini productions are also
of interest because they brought religion to the opera. Whereas previous
musical dramas had used mythological themes, the operas sponsored by the
papal family were mostly devoted to the lives of early saints and thus combined classical settings with an explicit Christian spiritual message.
Throughout this development those involved were quite conscious of
the revolution in progress, and there was much discussion of the nuova
musica, and musica rappresentativa, or monody meaning the setting of a
single melodic line, carried by the voice, against an orchestral accompaniment. This, it was said, constituted a simple, direct means of representing
dramatic situations and arousing the emotions quite impossible with the
complex formal configurations of sixteenth-century polyphony. The whole
discussion, I repeat, took place in terms of a new understanding of the relation between words and music in ancient tragedy. Hence it becomes understandable, for example, that one of the chief theoreticians of the new movement in Rome, Giovanni Battista Doni, to whom the term monody is due,
should also have been one of the founders of the modern study of ancient
music, especially Greek. He conceived of Greek tragedy, it seems hardly
necessary to mention, very much like early Baroque opera. He even
invented an instrument, the Lyra Barberina, with which he sought to
reconcile the requirements of ancient and contemporary technique.15
Both the continuity between the Roman and earlier Florentine tradition, and the self-consciousness of it all, are illustrated by the fact that the
first historical account we have of the origins of the melodrama is a letter
about the Camerata Fiorentina written by Piero Bardi, the original patrons
14
For an overview of Barberini theater patronage, see Enciclopedia dello spettacolo, 11
vols. Rome 1975, I, cols. 146870, s. v. Barberini. The standard work remains Alessandro
Ademollo, I teatri di Roma nel secolo decimosettimo, Rome, 1888. The only comprehensive
study of the Barberini theater is the unpublished dissertation by M. L. Pietrangeli Chanaz,
Il teatro barberiniano, Univ. of Rome, 1968; see also Margaret K. Murata, Operas for the
Papal Court 16311668, Ann Arbor, Mich., 1981.
15
On Doni, see Enciclopedia . . ., op. cit. (cf. n. 14), II. cols., 855 f.
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son, to Giovanni Battista Doni in 1634. Doni actually lived with the
Barberini from 1623 till 1640.
In the theater too, therefore, we are faced with the curious paradox of an
intimate link between the formation of early Baroque principles and a consciously renewed classicism. In as much as antiquity had always played a
preeminent role in Renaissance artistic theory, however, the idea of a
renewal is here particularly important. The difference may be illustrated
with special relevance in our present context by certain aspects of the history of dramatic theory.
The key document for the understanding of the theory and practice of
the theater in antiquity was the Poetics of Aristotle. Like the Rhetoric, the
Poetics is devoted ultimately to the art of persuasion, but whereas the
Rhetoric focuses primarily on discursive argument as the means toward that
end, the Poetics is concerned with mimetic representation. The theater persuaded not through analysis and demonstration, but through eliciting an
empathetic response in which the audience is transported out of its normal
frame of reference into one of the authors own design. Hence it was that
since the early years of the sixteenth century, after the first publication of
Aristotles Poetics, one of the crucial issues was the famous definition of the
function of tragedy, Catharsis.16 The portion of Aristotles treatise that supposedly explained the term was lost; hence the history of interpretations of
Catharsis is a perfect index to successive conceptions of ancient drama.
Generally speaking, two main views have prevailed. The first, which practically dominated sixteenth century thought on the subject, has been called
the moral or didactic (sometimes liturgical or religious) interpretation:
tragedy by demonstrating the effects of certain actions produces a moral
purification of the passions. The second interpretation has been called
pathological, or homeopathic, since it focuses not so much upon the ethical or didactic value of tragedy as upon its power to arouse our emotions.
Catharsis is a kind of treatment, curing emotion by exciting it. The basis for
this interpretation is Aristotle himself who, in a remarkable passage in the
16
Eugne Napolon Tigerstedt, Observations on the Reception of the Aristotelian Poetics
in the Latin West, in: Studies in the Renaissance, XV, 1968. pp. 724. For a recent survey of
interpretations of Catharsis, see Stephen Halliwell, Aristotles Poetics. Chapel Hill, 1986,
pp. 350356; see also Franz Susemihl/Robert D. Hicks. The Politics of Aristotle, New York,
1976, pp. 641 ff. A vast resource on sixteenth-century interpretations is provided by Bernard
Weinbergs A History of Literary Criticism in the Italian Renaissance, 2 vols. Chicago, 1961,
and his Trattati di poetica e retorica del cinquecento, 4 vols., Bari, 19701974.
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Politics, describes the effect of certain kinds of music upon those possessed
of God, in a state of religious fervor, or enthusiasms. The music serves as a
physical stimulus that provides an outlet for the religious fervor, and the
result is a harmless joy. Similarly, the spectator who is brought face to face
with grander suffering than his own, experiences an empathetic ecstasy, or
lifting out of himself. In the glow of tragic excitement, feelings such as pity
and fear become universal and are so transformed that the net result is a
noble emotional satisfaction.
This sounds like a quite modern view of the matter, and much of the
phraseology I have used is actually taken from S. H. Butchers standard
work: Aristotles Theory of Poetry and Fine Art, London-New York, 1895. It
is also easy to see, however, that by adopting such a view Aristotle could not
only be reconciled with, but made into a prime witness for the direct appeal
to the emotions that is the core of Baroque theater. Indeed, although adumbrated earlier, the pathological interpretation flourished in the seventeenth
century and can be traced thenceforward down to our own times. To be
precise, it seems first to reappear, complete with a reference to the passage
on music and religious ecstasy from the Politics, in a treatise on tragedy published in 1621 by one Tarquinio Galluzzi a Jesuit father who was rector
of the Greek College in Rome from 1631 to 1644. Galluzzi, I might add,
wrote another treatise, significantly entitled The Revival of Ancient Tragedy,
specifically in defense of Father Stefonios Crispus.17
Of particular interest in our context is a circumstance often overlooked
or neglected in discussions of Catharsis. Aristotles explanation of the concept occurs not in the Poetics but in the Politics, and does not concern
tragedy as such, but music and its role in human society, especially the education of the young. Aristotle thus spoke directly to the Jesuit Baroque
theatrical endeavor, on several levels at once, the primary aim of the exercise was pedagogical, serving to produce an effect on the moral character of
the soul: the homeopathic view of Catharsis confirmed the emphasis on a
direct appeal to the emotions; and the focus on music as the agent of
Catharsis reinforced the effort to integrate music and words in the theater
to create a dramatic whole. Definitely, the air in Rome was filled with such
notions in the first half of the century. Interestingly enough, the passage in
17
See Ingram Bywater, Milton and the Aristotelian Definition of Tragedy, in: Journal of
Philology, XXVII, 1901, pp. 267275. On Galluzzi and his teacher, Stefonio, see Fumaroli,
op. cit. (cf. n. 9).
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Galluzzi has been quoted in connection with John Miltons introduction to

Samson Agonistes, which apparently introduced the pathological interpretation of Catharsis to England. Milton, it will be remembered, was in Rome
in 1639, and had close contacts with the local literati. One of his letters
records his attendance at a splendid performance, in the Palazzo Barberini.18
Several points thus seem quite clear: that the theater in Rome during the
early seventeenth century was a leader in the creation of new and more
powerful forms of dramatic presentation: that people were very conscious
of this development and eminently aware of the theaters unique capacity to
achieve, by means of its illusions, what Coleridge called the willing suspension of disbelief . It seems certain, finally, that this attitude was regarded
as a new rapprochement to the essential spirit of the ancient theater.
The question will naturally have arisen, what exactly has all this to do
with Bernini? On one level at least, the answer is very simple. Berninis own
interest in the theater amounted to a real passion.19 From all accounts, and
there are many, it is clear that he spent an inordinate amount of time
throughout his long life writing, producing, staging and acting in plays.
The decade of the 30s was certainly the most critical in this respect. During
those years, in productions for the Barberini and on his own, he engineered
such astonishing effects that he became an acknowledged master in the
field. The sunrise he created for one of his plays, called the Sea-Shore, was
famous throughout Europe. Louis XIII requested Berninis recipe so that it
could be repeated at Paris. In the midst of a production of Berninis called
The Fair, as a carnival chariot lit by torches was passing on stage, a fire
seemed to break out. There ensued, naturally, a mad scramble for the exits,
in which several members of the audience were wounded. While attention
was thus diverted, the fire suddenly disappeared and the stage was transformed into a tranquil garden. In 1637 there had been a disastrous flood of
the Tiber at Rome. The next year, Bernini staged a play called The
Inundation of the Tiber. Boats were passing across the stage on real water,
retained by embankments. Suddenly the levee breaks and the water spills
out toward the audience, until it just reaches the edge of the stage, where in
the nick of time a barrier is raised to stop it. The subject of the play was the
Bywater, as cited in the preceding note, and Gretchen Ludke Finney, Chorus in
Samson Agonistes, in: Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, LVIII,
1943, pp. 649664, esp. p. 658.
19
For what follows, see Irving Lavin, Bernini and the Unity of the Visual Arts, New York
and London 1980, pp. 146 ff.
18
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15. Bernini, Anima Beata, Rome, Palazzo di Spagna,

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14. Diagram of dances, from B. Stefonio,

Crispus, Naples, 1604.

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THE BAROQUE PARADOX
17. Hildegard of Bingen, Beati and Maledicti,

MS lat. 935, fol. 38v., Munich, Staatsbibliothek.
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16. Bernini, Anima Dannata. Palazzo di Spagna, Rome

Page 27
671
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18. Frans Floris,

Last Judgment,
Vienna,
Kunsthistorisches
Museum,
photo A3835.

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THE BAROQUE PARADOX
20. Alexander Mair, Damned Soul, engraving,

Munich, Staatliche Graphische Sammlung,
Inv. Nr. 95591. 6/7 82/10/3.
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19. Alexander Mair, Blessed Soul, engraving,

Munich, Staatliche Graphische Sammlung,
Inv. Nr. 98591. 6/7 82/9/4.

Page 29
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674
malefactions of two scoundrels who finally get their reward when their
house collapses in the flood. In a comedy of 1637 called Of Two Theaters
the audience saw an actor on stage reciting the prologue; behind him they
saw the back side of another actor facing another audience, also reciting a
prologue. At the end of the prologue a curtain came down between the two
actors and the play began. At the end of the play the curtain went up, and
the audience saw the other audience leaving the other theater in splendid
coaches by the light of torches and of the moon shining through clouds.
In order to understand why Bernini became a legend in his day it is
essential to grasp the sense in which his achievements in this domain were
fundamentally new. Such tricks invariably depended on earlier theatrical
techniques. Stage pyrotechnics had been highly developed for scenes of hell,
and stage hydraulics for marine spectacles that often included real naval
battles. The play-within-a-play had a long history. and is familiar to us from
Shakespeare. Bernini used the old devices in such a way, however, that they
acquired a powerful new dramatic force. Upon the illusion normally
expected in the theater he superimposed another illusion that was unexpected and in which the audience was directly involved. The spectator, in
an instant became an actor, aware of himself as an active, if involuntary participant in the happening. It is clear that for Bernini the theater had a quite
specific and unique significance: it was here and only here that such
miracles became real experiences represented by real people, before a real
audience.
One would scarcely find a better description of such an experience than
cathartic mimetic persuasion par excellence. Herein precisely lies the
essence of the poetic view of Berninis sometimes seemingly contradictory
relationship to antiquity. His art of persuasion was to create a new reality,
by which the spectator is inevitably and forever transformed. Moreover, it
is symptomatic of the main point of this talk that contemporaries perceived
such works by Bernini in a distinctly classical light. His comedies were compared favorably to those of Terence and Plautus. Giovanni Battista Doni in
his Treatise on Music for the Stage even cites Berninis comedy productions
as exemplary of the use of masks in the ancient Greek theater.20
20
. . . Erano cosi significanti, spiritosi, e fondati sul vero, che molti Virtuosi ne attribuivano alcuni a Plauto; altri a Terenzio, altri ad altri Autori, che il Cavaliere non lesse giammai.
perche il tutto faceva a forza solo dingegno. Domenico Bernini, Vita del Cavalier Gio.
Lorenzo Bernino, Rome 1713, p. 54.
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I will conclude by considering briefly two instances in which the

homeopathic view of the Poetics as mimetic drama may be relevant to
Berninis art, if not specifically, then at least in spirit. The first is an early
(1619) pair of sculptured busts, representing Damned and Blessed Souls
(Figs. 15, 16), perhaps commissioned as part of the funeral monument of
Monsignor Pedro de Foix Montoya, which included one of Berninis most
famous early portraits. The sculptures belong in the same eschatological
domain as the Rappresentatione di Anima et di Corpo of Emilio de Cavalieri
and Agostino Manni. The climactic ending of that performance was the
only part with a properly dramatic and scenographic aspect. There, moreover, for the first time as far as I can discover, the moral aspects of the
human spirit, named Anima Dannata and Anima Beata, were imbued with
personalities of their own and confronted each other directly as independent participants in a dramatic dialogue. Berninis sculptures, which portray
Damned and Blessed Souls in just such a dramatic confrontation, were part
of the legacy of that famous theatrical production. I am not primarily concerned with the external relationship to the Oratorian Rappresentatione,
however, but the analogous conceptual history that lies behind Berninis
works. The sculptures are also deeply rooted in medieval traditions revived
by the Counter-Reformation; most especially, Damned and Blessed souls
had long been conceived together, engaging in mortal combat or embracing in harmony (Fig. 17), and juxtaposed in scenes of the Last Judgment
(Fig. 18) or the Four Last Things (Figs. 19, 20). By contrast, Bernini has
isolated the participants from their contexts, concentrating and intensifying
them into a powerful duet of independent and contrasting but also complementary actors on the infinite stage of human existence. In doing so he
invoked and combined two ancient prototypes that served to personify the
actors and express their roles, literally as well as metaphorically. He portrayed the souls in the classical form of the portrait bust, as though they
were, or had been, real people (Fig. 21); and in juxtaposing the idealized
female head with the wild and unruly male he recalled the ancient masks of
Insomma io loderei che dopo le tragedie e rappresentazioni gravi si recitasse una di
queste farse, la cui favola non fosse lunga; ma ingegnosa e nuova dinvenzione, e abbondante
di sali arguti e faceti, e recitata con viva ed espressiva azione, con maschere artifiziosamente
formate sul modello di unaffettata fisionomia, come erano quelle degli antichi Greci, e come
le ha usate il Cavaliere Bernino in Roma nelle commedie che egli ha fatto rappresentare cos
al vivo dai giovani dellAccademia del disegno, le quali saccostavano assai a quelle commedie de greci che propriamente si dicevano antiche. Giovanni Battista Doni, Trattato della
musica scenica, cited from Angelo Solerti, Le origini del melodramma, Turin, 1903, p. 197.
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21. So-called Dying

Alexander the Great,
Florence, Uffizi,
photo Brogi 3223.
22. Theater masks, mosaic,

Rome, Museo Capitolino,
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THE BAROQUE PARADOX
23. Bernini, Rome,

S. Andrea al Quirinale,
24. Temple of Virtue and

Honor (from G. Lauro,
Antiquae . . ., Rome
161241, pl. 30).
677
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678
25. Bernini, Rome,

S. Andrea al Quirinale,
photo postcard.
26. Stage set of the opera

S. Alessio, 1634
(from Il S. Alessio . . .,
Rome 1634, pl. 6).
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Tragedy and Comedy (Fig. 22), as if restoring to them the deeper meaning
of the term persona, by which they were known in antiquity.
The second instance illustrates the specifically scenographic tradition of
the Jesuits and it is in fact the one great architectural commission Bernini
received from the Order, the oval church of Sant Andrea al Quirinale,
begun in 1658; the building was part of the Jesuits novitiate, where students prepared for admission to the Order (Fig. 23). It is noteworthy that
the basic conception of the building as a central plan structure preceded by
a vestibule and a convex wall that both embraces the space in front and
channels attention toward the entrance, reflects an earlier antiquarian
reconstruction of a famous classical monument, the Temple of Virtue and
Honor in Rome (Fig. 24).21 In this case the reference to the classical model
is more than purely formal: the Temple of Virtue and Honor was an illustrious instance of the incorporation of moral content into architectural
design the structure being conceived in two parts so that the devotee had
to pass through the sanctuary of Virtue to reach that of Honor. The architectural realization of such a moral progression was singularly appropriate
for the church of an institution devoted to embodying essentially the same
kind of progression in Christian form. Inside Sant Andrea, the steady
march of alternating piers and arches and the sweeping lines of the horizontal entablature draw the eye in a rushing movement toward the apse
(Fig. 25). The altar, flooded with light from a large lantern above, is framed
by columns supporting a pediment. The pediment in turn is crowned by a
gleaming white figure of St. Andrew swooshing into the heavens on a cloud.
The general effect is very like that of an engraving of a stage set used in a
1634 Barberini production of the opera S. Alessio, which Bernini must certainly have seen (Fig. 26).22 The rhythmic sequence of buildings engulfs the
worshipper and leads him toward an arched screen, also crowned by an allegorical figure riding on a cloud, and with a vista opening behind. The
patron of the opera, incidentally, was Cardinal Francesco Barberini, who
had been a pupil in the Collegio Romano during the most active years of
Bernardino Stefonio as a teacher and producer of plays.
21
Giacomo Lauro, Antiquae urbis splendor, Rome, 16121641, Pl. 30. This comparison
has been made before, though not in the moral sense suggested here; see most recently, D. del
Pesco, Una fonte per gli architetti del barocco romano; Lantiquae urbis splendor di Giacomo
Lauro, in: Studi di storia dellarte in memoria di Mario Rotili, Naples, 1984, pp. 424 ff.
22
In older literature the sets of this production were erroneously attributed to Bernini
himself, cf. Lavin, op. cit (cf. n. 19), pp. 147f., n. 7.
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Finally, I want to retreat. I want to retreat from what I fear may be indefensible positions on two fronts in my dramatically poetic view of Bernini
and antiquity. First, it must be emphasized that there is probably no single
element in Berninis work that owes its origin exclusively to the theater.
Every detail, every technique, every device can be shown to have roots in
the prior traditions of the permanent visual arts. What Berninis art has in
common with the theater is nothing more and nothing less that its role as
the medium in which miracles really do take place.
I also want to retreat by emphasizing that there is not the slightest evidence that Bernini adhered to the pathological interpretation of Catharsis,
or even that he read Aristotle. I rather doubt it, in fact, since he was not of
a very scholarly turn of mind. Nor can it be proved specifically that he
shared the views of those of his contemporaries who, in creating Baroque
drama, Baroque music and Baroque opera, found nurture in a fresh and
enthusiastic approach to antiquity. Wouldnt it be the nicest paradox of all,
however, if the most Baroque element of all in Berninis style its so-called
theatricalism was also conceived in terms of a return to classical
precedent?
Lavin XVIII. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap IV
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XVIII
Berninis Portraits of No-Body*
OME of Berninis most innovative works owe their novelty in part to the
revival of much earlier traditions. A notable case is the pair of busts portraying blessed and damned souls (Anima Beata and Anima Dannata) in
which Bernini explored what might be described as the two extreme reactions to the prospect of death (Figs. 1, 2).1 Bernini presumably made the
sculptures in 1619 (when he was twenty-two), at the behest of a Spanish
prelate, Monsignor Pedro de Foix Montoya, for whose tomb in the Spanish
national church in Rome, San Giacomo degli Spagnoli, Bernini carved the
portrait in 1622.2 Montoya died in 1630, and two years later the busts were
bequeathed by a certain Fernando Botinete to the Confraternity of the
Resurrection at San Giacomo, of which Montoya had also been a member.
The purpose of the sculptures is unknown, but their subject is appropriate
for a confraternity devoted to the Resurrection, for which Montoya may
have intended them from the outset; a further possibility is that Montoya
intended them eventually to decorate his tomb. The souls of the dead are
portrayed life-size, al vivo in contemporary terminology, an irony that was
surely deliberate.
Such powerful physiognomical and expressive contrasts have an ancient
history, occurring, like Beauty and the Beast, on opposite sides of certain
* First presented in March 1987 in a colloquium at the University of Maryland honoring my friend George Levitine, to whom it is now sadly dedicated in memoriam.
1
See Wittkower, 1981, 177, no. 7.
2
See Lavin, Five Youthful Sculptures, 1968, 239 f, and Appendix A. New documentary evidence presented here supports the 1619 date proposed by Wittkower for the Anime
busts on stylistic grounds.
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Greek coins of the fourth century B.C. (Fig. 3), and, juxtaposed, in the
familiar masks of Comedy and Tragedy from the classical theater (Fig. 4).3
In both cases the focus is on the face alone and one, male, is distorted in a
wild and grimacing shout, while the other, female, is beautiful and portrayed as if transmitting some lofty, portentous truth. The masks are particularly relevant because, like Berninis busts, they have generic as well as
specific meaning: they symbolize their respective theatrical genres, but they
also represent the actual roles or characters the actors performed the
ancients called them personas. The masks stand for heroic types, however,
not real people, as do Berninis sculptures. This reference to ordinary people relates the busts to the participants in those great medieval visualizations
of the Last Judgment in which the souls of the resurrected dead are weighed
by St. Michael and go, joyously or pathetically, to their fates (Fig. 5).
Three points above all distinguish Berninis sculptures not only from
these precedents, but from all precedents, as far as I know. The souls are
portrayed not as masks or full-length figures but as busts, they are isolated
from any narrative context, and they are independent, freestanding sculptures. The images are thus blatantly self-contradictory. They constitute a
deliberate art-historical solecism, in which Bernini adopted a classical,
pagan form invented expressly to portray the external features of a specific
individual, to represent a Christian abstract idea referring to the inner
nature of every individual. My purpose in this chapter is to shed some light
on the background of these astonishing works and their significance in the
history of our human confrontation with our own end.
Among the intense mystical exercises enjoined upon the pious in the late
Middle Ages was to contemplate death. Often regarded as a morbid symptom of decadence at the end of the Age of Faith, this preoccupation in fact
reflected a positive, indeed optimistic, view that people could provide for
3
On the coins, see Head, 1911, 805; G. F. Hill, 1914, lxxxviii f, 182 f, Pl. XX, 13. The
few instances of coins with facing heads on both sides (Baldwin, 19089, 130) nearly all
involve male-female confrontations. For the mosaic, found on the Aventine in Rome, see
Bieber, 1920, 162, no. 137. Theater masks were sometimes actually associated with portrait
busts, as on a Roman sarcophagus in the Camposanto at Pisa which shows three masks, a
youth, a female and a grizzled Pan, beneath a medallion containing busts of a man and his
wife (Aries et al., 1977, 114 ff ). Among the classical precedents revived and much illustrated,
often as bust portraits, from the Renaissance on were the philosophers Democritus and
Heraclitus who, respectively, laughed and wept at the foibles of the world).
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BERNINIS PORTRAITS OF NO-BODY
683
their well-being in the afterlife by looking death in the face. They could prepare for a good death, as it was termed, by putting their affairs in order and
examining their conscience, and they could consider the effect of their attitude and behavior upon Gods just and ineluctable judgment. These two
complementary exhortations, to prepare for death and consider the afterlife,
were converted into veritable techniques for achieving salvation in two of
the most widely distributed books of the fifteenth century, which had
remarkably similar histories. The Ars moriendi (The Art of Dying) prescribed the measures to be taken as life drew to a close, and the Quattuor
novissima (The Four Last Things) described the ultimate events in the curriculum of human existence: death, judgment, damnation, and salvation.4
Although not directly related the first work ends where the second begins.
After their original success The Art of Dying and The Four Last Things (Figs.
69), to which most of our attention will be devoted, were largely eclipsed
during the humanistic florescence of the early sixteenth century. Thereafter,
however, these popular eschatologies were retrieved and vigorously cultivated by the militant church activists of the Counter-Reformation,5 especially the Jesuits, who incorporated the Four Last Things into their catechisms. Among the most powerful offensive weapons in the Jesuitss spiritual arsenal, the catechisms were not theological tracts but served a primarily edificatory purpose, and from the beginning they were frequently
accompanied by illustrations (Figs. 1013).
There were even instances when the illustrations predominated over
the text, the latter being reduced to brief captions (Figs. 1417).6
Characteristic of the entire tradition of the Four Last Things illustrations is
that whereas death, following the Ars moriendi, might be confined to a sin-
I have discussed the revived Ars moriendi tradition and Berninis profound relationship
to it in life and death (1972). On the Ars moriendi, see Delumeau, 1983, 389 ff.
On the Quattuor novissima, see Lane, 1985. My own remarks on the visual tradition of
the Four Last Things, including Berninis busts, offer only modest supplements to those in
the excellent article by Malke, 1976.
5
See Franza, 1958; Turrini, 1982. The illustrated catechisms have been studied by
Prosperi, 1985.
6
On the engravings by Theodor Galle after Maarten van Heemskerck, and a painting of
the same theme by Heemskerck, see Grosshans, 1980, 21443. Other important suites are
by J. B. Wierix after Martin de Vos (Mauquoy-Hendrickx, 1979, II, 271 f ), Hendrik
Goltzius after Johannes Stradanus (Strauss, ed., 1980, 309 f ), Jan Sadeler after Dirck
Barendsz (Judson, 1970, 64 f, 74, 14042).
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684
1. Bernini, Anima Beata. Palazzo di Spagna, Rome

(photo: Vasari 18618).
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2. Bernini, Anima Dannata. Palazzo di Spagna, Rome

(photo: Vasari 18617).
685
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Page 6
686
3. Female head and head of Bes, obverse and reverse of obolos

from Judea. Bibliothque Nationale, Paris (Deleperre 306869).
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Page 7
4. Theater masks, mosaic. Capitoline Museum, Rome

5. Last Judgment, detail. Cathedral, Bourges
(photo: Monuments historiques AH 18902).
687
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688
6, 7. Death, Last Judgment

(from Dionysius, 1482).
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8, 9. Hell, Heaven (from

Dionysius, 1482).
689
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Page 10
690
10, 11. Death, Last

Judgment
(from Bellarmine, 1614,
11215).
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12, 13. Hell, Heaven (from

Bellarmine, 1614, 11215).
691
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692
14, 15. Maarten van

Heemskerck, Death, Last
Judgment, engravings.
Metropolitan Museum of Art,
New York. The Elisha
Whittelsey Collection, The
Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1949.
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16, 17. Maarten van

Heemskerck, Hell, Heaven,
engravings.
Metropolitan Museum of Art,
New York. The Elisha
Whittelsey Collection, The
Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1949.
693
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694
gle individual, the events of the afterlife judgment, damnation and salvation were conceived as universal occurrences and shown as panoramic
scenes with many participants.7
Berninis sculptures break with this tradition by eliminating the first two
events and focusing instead upon their ethical implications. Moreover,
Bernini conceived of damnation and salvation themselves in a novel way,
describing neither the tortures of hell nor the pleasures of paradise, but
instead concentrating on the single soul and its state of mind. Treated as
independent busts, Berninis sculptures are soul portraits: portraits of
Everyman and Everywoman, but of No-body.
As such, the sculptures seem unprecedented on two accounts. Antiquity
might deify certain personal qualities such as piety or magnanimity (Fig.
18), and the Middle Ages might personify certain moral qualities such as
virtues and vices (cf. Fig. 17). The pagan concepts were the subject of religious cults, and the Christian notions were part of an abstract scheme; but
neither personal nor moral qualities were represented as individual, isolated
sculptured busts. As far as I can determine, the Anima Beata and Anima
Dannata are the first independent images of the soul, and they are the first
independent portrayals of pure psychological states. Most scholars have
been preoccupied with these pyschological states. The sculptures are indeed
prime documents in the history of physiognomical expression in art, key
links in a chain that leads from Leonardos studies of grotesque facial types
(Fig. 19 note especially the juxtaposition of the smiling and howling
heads at the left) and Michelangelos explorations of extreme expressions
(Fig. 20), through the quasi-scientific classical tradition represented in the
late sixteenth century by Giambattista della Portas book relating animal
and human characterological traits (Fig. 21), to Charles Le Bruns systematic treatment of physiognomics and emotional expression in the midseventeenth century (Figs. 22, 23). The tradition culminated in the eighteenth century with the series of bronze busts by Franz Xavier
Messerschmidt (Figs. 24, 25), in which Berninis contrasting pair of object
lessons in affective morality is transformed into an extensive catalogue of
grimacing character masks, including the artists own.8
In these instances, it seems the purpose was to establish a deliberate link between the
universal character of the Quattuor novissima and the individual focus of the Ars moriendi.
8
Although the moral component of Berninis interest in expression was diluted, his position in this development is clear. So far as we know, Leonardos drawings do not portray any
particular emotions or pattern or system of emotions. Della Portas physiognomics are
7
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695
However important Berninis sculptures may be to these scientific and

rhetorical explorations of psycho-physiognomics, his chief interest surely
lay in the interface between moral and psychological states, as is apparent
from what must have been one of his direct inspirations for the anime
busts. In 1605 the visual tradition of the Four Last Things had been radically reinterpreted by the Augsburg printmaker Alexander Mair, who
issued a suite of six engravings on the theme (including the intermediate
state of purgatory) dedicated to the Archbishop of Eichsttt in Bavaria,
Johann Conrad (Figs. 2631).9 The playing-card-size format of this suite
reflects its individual, ad hominem function; and Mair in fact distilled the
universal scope of the catechistic tradition into a personal, not to say private, memento mori in which events are reduced to a few peripheral symbolic details and the subject of the action is one individual. The framed
niche, the close-up view and the bust-length format are all features that
suggest the familiar type of the portrait medallion, especially on tombs
(Fig. 32). Indeed, it might be said, conversely, that Mair here transformed
the traditional portrait medallion into a moral emblem. The emblem is
given a liturgical and sacerdotal cast by the inscriptions, drawn mainly
from the Office for the Dead, and by the image of the Blessed Soul, shown
wearing the surplice of a deacon and a brooch inscribed with the IHS
device of the Jesuit order.
consistent, but they are not really devoted to expression; they attempt, instead, to link various physiognomical types with corresponding character types, based on counterparts in the
animal kingdom. Descartes was the first to study human emotions systematically, and it was
Le Bruns contribution to relate that effort to the visual tradition represented by Leonardo,
Della Porta and Bernini, producing the first systematic exploration of the facial effects of
emotion.
The most recent interpretation of Berninis sculptures in this vein, which entails characteristically a focus on the Anima Dannata as a self-representation, will be found in a perceptive essay by Preimesberger, 1989, with further references.
On Messerschmidts character studies, see Behr et al., 1983.
9
Mairs engravings are reproduced in Hollstein, 1954, XXIII, 146 ff, with further bibliography. Johann Conrad (15611612), who had lived for several years in Italy, was a great
patron of the arts and maintained close ties with the Jesuits; Sax, 188485, II, 47893; H.
A. Braun, 1983, 168 ff. (I am much indebted to Georg Daltrop, professor at the Catholic
University of Eichsttt, for bibliography and other help in this connection). Apart from the
images discussed here, Mairs emotional and seemingly rising skeleton in a medallion frame
(Fig. 27) was an important model for the gesticulating skeletons Bernini later depicted in the
pavement of his Cornaro and Chigi chapels (Lavin, Bernini, 1980, 134 ff ); I hope to explore
this relationship in another context.
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696
18. Megalopsychia, mosaic. Antioch (photo: Dept. of Art and Archaeology,

Princeton University).
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697
19. Leonardo,
grotesque heads,
drawing. Royal
Library, Windsor
Castle.
20. Michelangelo, so-called Anima

Dannata, drawing. Galleria degli
Uffizi, Florence.
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Page 18
21. Physiognomical
types
(from Della Porta,
1586).
698
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22, 23. Charles Le Brun, Amour and Dsespoir, drawings. Muse du Louvre, Paris
(photo: Documentation photographique de la Runion des muses nationaux).

Page 19
699
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25. Franz Messerschmidt, The Yawner.

Szpmvszti Mzeum, Budapest.
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24. Franz Messerschmidt, self-portrait, smiling.

Galria hlavnho mesta SSR Bratislavy, Bratislava.

Page 20
700
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26, 27. Alexander Mair, arms of Johann Conrad and Memento mori, engravings. Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Munich.

Page 21
701
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17:04
28, 29. Alexander Mair, Death and Purgatory, engravings. Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Munich.

Page 22
702
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30, 31. Alexander Mair, Hell and Heaven, engravings. Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Munich.

Page 23
703
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704
The expressive force of Mairs images would have been of particular

interest to Bernini. The souls highly charged emotional responses to what
they see, from the howling scream of the damned to the blissful moan of
the saved, were also probably transferred from a domain other than the
engraved Novissima suites. The intensity of the contrast recalls the great
painted altarpieces of Frans Floris, in which the reactions of the participants
are brought to the fore (Fig. 33).
If Bernini knew Mairs suite of engravings, as I think he did, he transformed them in three ways. He treated them as independent sculptured
busts, he eliminated the narrative elements entirely, and he reduced the
number to a pair, the damned and the saved, male and female, alter egos of
our common humanity. For each innovation there was at least partial precedent. Mairs powerful images had been made even more vivid in threedimensional translations or rather, re-translations, since they themselves
allude to sculptured medallions by a once acclaimed but now little
known painter and sculptor, Giovanni Bernardino Azzolini. Azzolini was a
native of Sicily who worked mainly in Naples. He visited Genoa in 1610,
where he modeled in colored wax depictions of the Four Last Things as half
figures, in whose faces transpired the affects of a blessed soul, of another
condemned to suffer but with hope for eternal peace [that is, a soul in purgatory], of a third portraying a skeleton, and of a fourth expressing in a horrid abyss the idea of rabid desperation (cf. Figs 4665).10 Azzolinis
10
Giunse in Genova lAzzolini circa lanno 1510, ove vedutisi alcuni suoi lavorietti in
cera dal Sig. MarcAntonio Doria, tanto piacquero a questo Cavaliere; che alcuni gliene commise; i quali con indicibile accuratezza, e finezza furono dal Napoletano Artefice eseguiti:
onde ne sal in maggior credito presso i nostri Cittadini.
Ci, che egli al Doria compose furono quattro mezze figure rappresentative de novissimi. Ne volti di quelle rispettivamente spiravano gli affetti dunAnima beata: dunaltra
condannata a patire, ma con la speranza delleterno contento: della terza finta dentro uno
scheletro: e della quarta esprimente nellorrendo abisso lidea duna rabbiosa disperazione.
Lavori di spiritosa, ed efficace energa (Soprani, 1768], I, 417). On Azzolini, see Pyke, 1973,
8, and the important contribution by Gonzles-Palacios, 1984, I, 22636. There is considerable confusion with at least one other artist named Giovanni Bernardino (Prota-Giurleo,
1953, 12351; Mostra, 1977, 10913; Mongitore, 1977, 80112; Di Dario Guida, 1978,
14954).
For a checklist and illustrations of preserved and recorded examples of the Four Last
Things in the wax versions by Azzolini, plus a few related works, see Appendix B, p. 730,
and Figs. 4665. The traditional association of these works with the better known wax
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705
dramatic portrayals were very successful and many versions are known,
none of which can be ascribed to him with certainty. What is clear, both
from the descriptions and from the known copies, is that the reliefs were
based on Mairs prints, and it is possible that Azzolini, who registered with
the painters guild in Rome in 1618, may in turn have inspired Bernini to
make his own sculptural versions.11
Azzolini was known for another work that may have been relevant to
Berninis sculptures. This was a pair of colored waxs, now lost, described as
heads of infants, one crying the other laughing.12 Here, human emotions
were brought to expressive peaks and directly contrasted. The pertinence of
these sculptures is enhanced by an almost inevitable association with the old
tradition of representing the human soul in the form of an infant. Many
versions of the pair are known (Fig. 34), including the marble busts in the
ideal collection shown in a gallery picture of the seventeenth century by
the Flemish master Willem van Haecht the Younger (Fig. 35).13
This version, in turn, brings into focus another aspect of the prehistory
of Berninis soul portraits: his adoption of the bust form. The ancient
Romans developed the sculptured bust as the portrait form par excellence.14
The full-length statue might portray an allegory, a god, or a human being,
whereas the bust was reserved almost exclusively for people or rather, the
spirits of people, for it originated and remained intimately associated with
the ancestor cult (Fig. 36). The bust was thus antiquitys most conspicuous
form of personal commemoration and its role in the imperial cult made it
for early Christians the very symbol of idolatry. Certain Early Christian
sculptor Gaetano Giulio Zumbo (16561701), who also came from southern Italy and
worked for a time in Naples, is unfounded. Fagiolo dellArco and Fagiolo dellArco, 1967,
Scheda no. 12, noted the dependence of the Victoria and Albert waxes, attributed to the circle of Zumbo, on Berninis sculptures.
11
Azzolinis presence in Rome was noted by Orlandi (1788, col. 617).
12
E questo suo medesimo talento nella forza dellespressione diede pur egli a conoscere
allo stesso Signore in due altre modellate, e colorite teste di putti, ridente luna, e piangente
laltra: ove laffetto, che in esse appariva, vivamente eccitavasi neriguardanti (Soprani, 1768,
I, 417).
13
The theme of the Laughing and Crying Babies is discussed briefly, with great acumen
but without reference to Azzolini, by Schlegel (1978, 12931), who attributes the origin of
the type to Duquesnoy. For a recent discussion of the painting by Van Haecht, see Filipczak,
1987, 47 ff. Closely related are the crying babies attributed to Hendrik de Keyser (cf. Avery,
1981, 183 Figs. 18, 19, 184 ff ).
14
For what follows concerning the history and significance of the bust type, see Lavin,
1970 and 1975.
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706
32. Tomb portrait of Ippolito Buzio. Santa Maria sopra Minerva,

Rome (photo: Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione,
Rome E54398).
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33. Frans Floris, Last Judgment. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

34. Crying and laughing babies, wax. Formerly Lanna collection,
Prague (from Sammlung, 1911, pl. 20).
707
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708
35. Willem van Haecht the Younger, Studio of Cornelis van der Geest, detail.
Rubenshuis, Antwerp.
37, Nebuchadnezzar and the Three Youths, sarcophagus of St. Ambrose,
detail. SantAmbrogio, Milan (photo: Electa).
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36 . Roman patrician with ancestor portraits. Palazzo Barberini,

Rome (photo: Anderson 6371).
709
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38. Jan Davidsz de

Heem,
Vanitas still life.
Schloss
Pommersfelden
(photo: Marburg
63877).

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710
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711
40. Laughing Faun. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
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39. Laocon, detail. Vatican Museum, Rome.
712
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Page 32
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Page 33
41, 42. Last act of Rappresentatione di Anima e di Corpo

(from De Cavalieri, 1600).
713
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714
depictions of the story of the three youths who refuse to worship the image
of Nebuchadnezzar show not a statue but a bust on a pedestal standing on
the ground (Fig. 37). The bust signified far more than met the eye, and this
quasi-demonic potency led to its virtually complete suppression in the
Middle Ages. When it was revived in the Renaissance, some of its supercharged meaning was transmitted to the modern cult of the individual, so
that the renewed form acquired an emblematic significance of its own. In
the seventeenth century, by a characteristic process that might be called paradoxical inversion, sculptured busts were often given prominent roles in the
flourishing genre of moralized still life, or vanitas, painting.15 These pictured
busts were never actual portraits but represented ideal types, such as were
kept in artists studios as models of classical beauty and expression. In this
context they might have dual significance, alluding not only to the transitoriness of life but also to the futility of the arts themselves, even that of
carving stone. A memento mori composition by Jan Davidsz de Heem (Fig.
38) evidently alludes to the three ages of man, with a skull in the center
flanked by sculptured heads of a serene child and a suffering man, perhaps
that of the son of Laocon in the ancient exemplum doloris group in the
Vatican (Fig. 39).16 By adopting the bust form for his soul portraits, Bernini
transformed a visual device that evoked generically the life of this world into
one that evoked individual life in the next.
Berninis busts form a complementary and contrasting pair in composition, sex, and expression. The action of the heads and direction of the
glances create a spatial environment that includes the spectator and extends
upward to heaven and downward to hell. The portrayal of the souls followed a tendency evident in some depictions of the Last Judgment to focus
on a representative male to convey the rabid fury of the damned and on a
female to convey the ecstasy of the saved (see Fig. 30).17 In the Anima Beata
Bernini omitted the deacons surplice Mair had provided (see Fig. 31) and
gave greater prominence to the wreath of flowers, an attribute of purity
Works of this kind, including that by De Heem reproduced here, are discussed in
Veca, 1981, 8591; Stilleben, 1979, 1069, 4557; Heezen-Stoll, 1979, 21821; Merrill,
1960, 7 ff.
16
See Ladendorf, 1953, 3745; Ettlinger, 1961. On the painting, see recently Leselust,
1993, 21011.
17
Frans Floris repeated the elements of the Vienna composition reproduced in Figure 33
(dated 1566) in a triptych in the Muse des Beaux-Arts, Brussels (cf. Van de Velde, 1975,
31418, nos. 17880).
15
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715
often worn by angels. The effect is to replace the liturgical and ritual
emphasis of Mairs interpretation with an embodiment of moral innocence.
Looking up and slightly to the side, with nostrils distended and lips parted
in a gentle sigh, the blessed soul responds to the beatific vision that all the
blessed in heaven enjoy. The expression of blissful suffering recalls, in positive terms, the physical torment and anguished groan of Laocons son.
The blunt features and unruly hair of the damned soul are derived from
the common identification of devils with satyrs, the ancient embodiments
of unrestrained passion. In certain instances the satyr-devils ghoulish grin
is quite deliberately matched by the howling grimace of the damned
(see Fig. 33). Specifically, the Anima Dannata seems to convert into negative terms the features of an ancient dancing satyr, a type for which Bernini
later expressed great admiration, and which was also given bust form in this
period (Fig. 40).18 In both of Berninis busts, therefore, the expressive qualities seem to have resulted in part from subtle and ironic inversions of
ancient expressive conventions.
Taken together, the sculptures convey a sense of the Last Things very different from that of earlier portrayals of the theme; Bernini emphasized not
the physical but the psychological consequences of good and evil. In this
respect the Anima Beata and Anima Dannata seem to embody medieval theological definitions of the summum bonum and the summum malum as the
judged soul aware of its destiny either to behold or to be banished from the
face of God, forever.19 These are the prospects Berninis images contemplate
and they react to what they see.
Finally, there can be little doubt that Berninis soul portraits reflect a
Roman theatrical event of the Jubilee year 1600, in which personifications
of damned and blessed souls appeared together outside their usual narrative
context. This was the Rappresentatione di anima et di corpo, a musical drama
sponsored by the Fathers of the Oratory, founded in the late sixteenth century in Rome by St. Philip Neri, and performed in the orders oratory at
For the type, see Haskell and Penny, 1981, 2058; Bober and Rubinstein, 1986, 97.
Berninis enthusiasm is recorded for a version of the type he saw during his visit to Paris in
1665: Il a dit, voyant de Faune qui danse, quil voyait cette statue mal volontiers, lui faisant
connatre quen comparaison il ne savait rien (Chantelou, 1885, 116; entry for August 23).
The bronze in Amsterdam reproduced in Figure 40 is ascribed to Rome, seventeenth century (Leeuwenberg, 1973, 404).
19
For a survey of the medieval history of this idea, and further bibliography, see
Bernstein, 1982.
18
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716
Santa Maria in Vallicella.20 The music was written by Emilio de Cavalieri

(1550?1602), a leading figure in the development of the early opera, and
the text by Agostino Manni (15481618), an Oratorian who had previously published several volumes of spiritual poems called laude. The
Rappresentatione was important from many points of view. It marked the
introduction from Florence to Rome of the new technique of melodic
recitation, or the use of song in a dramatic enactment melodrama, as it
was called intended to recapture what was thought to be the essential
principle of ancient theatrical art. All this was stated explicitly in the preface to the original edition of the text and score of the Rappresentatione, as
was the intention to move the audience by expressing through the melodic
dialogue the strongly contrasting emotions of the characters, like pity and
joy, weeping and laughter. Passing from one affection to its contrary, as
from mournful to happy, from ferocious to gentle and the like, is greatly
moving.21
The text of the play, which must certainly have been conceived with
musical enactment in mind, was no less innovative, in part because of precisely the return to much earlier traditions that would animate Berninis
sculptures. Essentially, the text combined two late-medieval modes, both
revived in the latter part of the sixteenth century: the lauda, or song of
praise, with a narrative and dialogue between voices or characters, real or
imaginary, but no proper enactment; and the sacra rappresentazione, or religious play in verse, usually based on a biblical story, with parts often sung
to musical accompaniment.22 The three-act work, something between a
See Smither, 197787, I, 8089. A facsimile of the original edition, De Cavalieri,
1600, was published in 1967. A useful commentary and English translation of the text can
be found in T. C. Read, 1969. On the architectural history of the oratory, see Connors, 1980.
21
. . . singolari, e nuoue sue compositioni di Musica, fatte somiglianza di quello stile,
col quale si dice, che gli antichi Greci, e Romani nelle scene, e teatri loro soleano diuersi
affetti muouere gli spettatori, suonato, e ctato allantica, come s detto, musica affettuosa, habbia potuto . . . rauuiuare quellantica usanza cos felicemente, questo stile sia atto
muoueranco deuotione, questa sorte di Musica da lui rinouata commoua diuersi
affetti, come piet, & pianto, & riso, & ad altri fimili, esprima bene le parole, che
siano intese, & le accompagni con gesti, & motiui non solamente di mani, ma di passi
ancora, che sono aiuti molto efficaci muouere laffetto, laudarebbe mutare i[s]tromenti
conforme allaffetto del recitante, il passar da vno affetto allaltro ctrario, come dal mesto
allallegro, dal feroce al mire, e simili, commuoue grandemente.
22
My analysis is based essentially on Smither, 197787, I, 6 f, 2228, 5789;
Kirkendale, 1971; J. W. Hill, 1979; and an as yet unpublished essay kindly placed at my disposal by Prizer, 1987.
20
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717
recitation and a play, included, besides Body and Soul, allegorical characters
such as Time, Understanding, Good Counsel, Mammon, and Wordly Life.
The plot consists entirely in the exchange of arguments for good and evil,
presented in counterpoint until Virtue triumphs. The only events, properly
speaking, occur in the third act when hell and heaven alternately open and
close, their denizens intoning laments and exaltations (cf. Figs. 41, 42).
So far as we know, the Rappresentatione di anima et di corpo was not performed again after the Jubilee of 1600, but its impact was immediate and
profound. A contemporary biographer of Manni described the performances attended by the whole College of Cardinals, as the first in Rome in
the new recitative style, which then became frequent and universally
applauded.23 The response may be judged from the vivid, moving recollections of an eyewitness, recorded after the death of Emilio de Cavalieri in
1602. The report illustrates not only the thematic but also the expressive
context from which Berninis sculptures emerged.
I, Giovanni Vittorio Rossi, found myself one day in the home of
Signor Cavaliere Giulio Cesare Bottifango, not only a fine gentleman
but also one of rare qualities excellent secretary, most knowledgeable poet and musician. Having begun to discuss music that moves
the emotions [musica che move gli affetti], he told me resolutely that
he had never heard anything more affecting [pi affettuosa], or that
had moved him more than the Representation of the Soul put to
music by the late Mr. Emilio del Cavaliere, and performed the Holy
Year 1600 in the oratory of the Assumption, in the house of the
Reverend Fathers of the Oratorio at the Chiesa Nova. He was present that day when it was performed three times without satisfying
the demand, and he said in particular that hearing the part of Time,
he felt come over him a great fear and terror; and at the part when
the Body, performed by the same person as Time, in doubt whether
to follow God or the World, resolved to follow God, his eyes poured
forth a great abundance of tears and he felt arise in his heart a great
repentance and pain for his sins. Nor did this happen only then, but
. . . fu rappresentato in scena coglhabiti nellOratorio nostro da due volte, con lintervento di tutto il sacro collegio di Card.li, e ve ne furono da quindici e venti per ciascuna
volta...Fu questa rappresentatione la prima che fosse fatta in Roma in stile recitativo, e di indi
in poi cominci con universale applauso a frequentarsi negli oratorii il detto stile (Alaleona,
1905, 17, 18).
23
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718
thereafter whenever he sang it he was so excited to devotion that he

wanted to take communion, and he erupted in a river of tears. He
also gave extreme praise to the part of the Soul, divinely performed
by that castrato; he said the music was also an inestimable artifice
that expressed the emotions of pain and tenderness with certain false
sixths tending toward sevenths, which ravished the spirit. In sum, he
concluded, one could not do anything more beautiful or more perfect in that genre, and, so I might see for myself the truth of what he
said, he took me to the harpsicord and sang several pieces from the
representation, in particular that part of the Body which had so
moved him. It pleased me so much that I asked him to share it with
me, and he most courteously copied it himself. I learned it by heart,
and often went to his house to hear him sing it himself.24
Ritrovandomi io Go: Vittorio Rossi un giorno in casa del Signor Cavaliere Giulio
Cesare Bottifango, gentiluomo oltre la bont, di rare qualit secretario eccellente, poeta e
musico intendentissio, et entrati in ragionamento della musica che move gli affetti, mi disse
risolutamente che non haveva sentita cosa pi affettuosa, ne che pi lo movessi della
rappresentatione dellanima messa in musica dalla buona memoria del Signor Emilio del
Cavaliere, e rappresentata lanno Santo 1600 nelloratorio dellAssunta, nella casa delli molto
Reverendi Padri dellOratorio alla Chiesa Nova, e che egli vi si trov presente in quel giorno,
che si rappresent tre volte senza potersi mai satiare e mi disse in particolare che sentendo la
parte del tempo, si sent entrare adosso un timore e spavento grande, et alla parte del corpo,
rappresentata dal medesimo che faceva il tempo, quando stato alquanto in dubbio, che cosa
doveva fare, o seguire Iddio ol Mondo, si risolveva di seguire Iddio che gli uscirno da glocchi in grandissima abbondanza le lacrime e sent destarsi nel core un pentimento grande e
dolore dei suoi peccati, n questo fu per allora solamente, ma di poi sempre che la cantava,
talch ogni volta che si voleva comunicare, per eccitare in s la divotione, quella parte, e prorompeva in un fiume di pianto. Lodava ancora in estremo la parte delanima, che oltre esser
stata rappresentata divinamente da quel putto, diceva nella musica essere un artifitio inestimabile che esprimeva gli affetti di dolore e di dolcezza con certe seste false, che tiravano alla
settima, che rapivano lanima; insomma, concludeva, in quel genere non potersi fare cosa pi
perfetta, e soggiunse, acci vediate soi stesso esser vero quanto vi dico mi condusse al cembalo, e cant alcuni pezzi di quella rappresentatione et in particolare quel loco del Corpo,
che lo moveva tanto, e mi piacque in maniera chio lo pregai a farmene parte, il che molto
cortesemente fece, e me lo copi di sua mano, et io lo imparai alla mente, et andavo spesso
a saca sua per sentrilo cantare da lui (Morelli, 1985, 196). Rossi is well known as Ianus
Nicius Erythraeus, the author of the three-volume series of biographies of contemporaries,
Pinacotheca (Cologne, 1643, 1645, 1648), which included accounts of Agostino Manni and
Bottifango (for the latter, see also Dizionario, 1960, XXIII, 456 f ).
Cavalieri himself described the audiences response in a letter written to Florence soon
after: I forgot to say what the priests of the Vallicella told me, and this is great. Many prelates
among those who came to Florence saw a rappresentatione in musica that I had done this
24
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719
The legacy of Mannis and Cavalieris Rappresentatione was twofold. Its

drama and spectacle were absorbed in the operas on religious themes produced in Rome in the second quarter of the century; the work also influenced the development by Neris order of the oratorio form itself, in which
recitative predominated over staging. Common to both forms was the
melodic dialogue, and its use in the Rappresentatione may have been directly
inspired by a medieval work. The interchange between Anima and Corpo
that provided the main theme as well as the title of the Rappresentatione
seems to recall explicitly one of the laude, a contrasto between Body and
Soul by the fourteenth-century Franciscan poet Jacopone da Todi, whose
writings were incorporated into the daily devotions of the Oratorians by
Philip Neri himself.25 The contrasto was a distinct literary genre in which
two characters, who may personify abstract ideas, debate a moral issue.
Related both to scholastic dialectic and the Psychomachia, or Battle of the
Virtues and Vices,26 the struggle could take forms that strikingly anticipate
Berninis contrast of moral, physical, and emotional types. In a capital of the
cathedral of Clermont-Ferrand (Fig. 43), for example, a noble female
Liberality (Largitas) confronts a disheveled male Avarice (Avaricia). In an
illumination of the prayer book of the great twelfth-century mystic
Hildegard of Bingen a similar pairing of opposites illustrates the concord
and discord of Beati and Maledicti (Fig. 44). Hildegards vision is a rare
precedent for the isolation of good and bad spirits in the last act of
Rappresentatione di anima et di corpo, where, apparently for the first time,
carnival at their Oratorio, for which the expenditure was six scudi at the most. They say that
they found it much more to their taste, because the music moved them to tears and laughter and pleased them greatly, unlike this music of Florence, which did not move them at all,
unless to boredom and irritation (Mi era scordato dire; che questa e grande; che da quei
preti della Vallicella mi hanno detto; che molti prelati; di quelli uenuti a Fio.za ueddero una
costesta che io feci fare questo Carneuale, di rappresentatione in musica; al loro oratorio; che
si spese da D sei al piu; et dicono; che ne receuerno altro gusto; poiche la musica il mosse a
pianto et riso; et le diede gran gusto/et che questa musica di Firenze; non li mosse se non a
tedio et fastidio); published in English by Palisca, 1963, 352, to whom I am indebted for
supplying the Italian text.
25
The relationship to the medieval contrasto and Jacopone da Todi was first suggested by
Becherini (1943, 3 n. 3, and 1951, 233 f ), followed by Kirkendale (1971, 17), who referred
specifically to Jacopones Anima e Corpo contrasto (Jacopone da Todi, 1953, 911), and
Smither (197787, I, 57), who also noted Neris interest in and use of Jacopone.
On the medieval contrasto between Body and Soul, see Walther, 1920, 63 ff; Wilmart,
1939; Toschi, 1955, 14965; Osmond, 1974; Enciclopedia, 1975, III, cols. 135760.
26
For what follows, see Katzenellenbogen, 1964, 1 ff, 8 n. 1, 58 f; Houlet, 1969.
720
43. Largitas and Avaricia.

Ntre-Dame-du-Port,
Clermont-Ferrand
(photo: Monuments
historiques J.F. 639/73).
45. Anima ragionevole

e beata
(from Ripa, 1603, 22).
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Page 41
44. Hildegard of Bingen, Beati and Maledicti. MS lat. 935.

fol. 38v, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich.
721
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722
damned and blessed souls acting in chorus become characters in a dramatic

confrontation. In this respect, as well, the Rappresentatione prepared the way
for Berninis sculptures.
So far as I can discover, Anima Dannata and Anima Beata were also first
treated as isolated images precisely in this context. Cesare Ripa included
them in the third edition (1603) of his pictorial handbook of personified
concepts, the Iconologia. He explains that when the soul of a person is introduced onstage in dramatic presentations, it should be given human form.
No doubt Ripa, who lived and worked in Rome under the patronage of
Cardinal Antonio Salviati and his family, was referring to and motivated by
the Oratorian production; his description of the images, one of which he
illustrates (Fig. 45), may well reflect the costumes used in 1600. The figures
are identified by various attributes Beata is a gracious maiden, Dannata
is disheveled and by accidents indicating their condition: wounded, in
glory, tormented.27
Bernini, too, isolated the participants from their contexts, creating a
powerful duet of independent and contrasting, yet also complementary,
actors performing on the infinite stage of human existence. Souls in the
form of portrait busts, the sculptures seem to restore to the masks of
Tragedy and Comedy the deeper meaning of the term persona by which
they were known in antiquity. In the Anima Dannata and Anima Beata,
innermost human nature emerges at last from collective anonymity to
assume, for better or for worse, a personality of its own.
Agostino Mannis subsequent publications bring our themes down to
Berninis sculptures and even suggest a reciprocal relationship between
them. In 1609 and 1613 Manni published Spiritual Exercises, an easy way
to fruitful prayer to God and to think upon the things principally relevant
ANIMA RAGIONEVOLE E BEATA...Si dipinge donzella gratiosissima, per esser
fatta dal Creatore, che fonte dogni bellezza, & perfettione, sua similitudine . . . Anima
dannata. Occorrendo spesse volte nelle tragedie, & rappresentationi di casi seguiti, & finti,
si spirituali come profani, introdurre nel palco lanima di alcuna persona, fa mestiero hauer
luce, come ella si debba visibilmente introdurre. Per tanto si dour rappresentare in forma,
& figura humana, ritenendo leffigie del suo corpo. Sar nuda, o da sottilissimo & trasparente velo coperta, come anco scapigliata, & il colore della carnagione di lionato scuro, & il
velo di color negro...Dicesi anco meglio conoscerla, se gli habbia rappresentarla con diuersi
accidenti, come per esempio, ferita, in gloria, tormentata, &c. & in tal caso si qualificher in quella maniera, che si conuiene allo stato, & conditione sua (Ripa, 1603, 22 f ).
Ripas image in turn inspired Guido Renis late visionary portrayals of Anima Beata, in
the Capitoline Museum, Rome (The Age of Correggio, 1986, 522; Bruno, 1978, 61 f ).
27
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723
to salvation, to acquire the true pain of sins, and to make a good death.
Following a series of daily devotions, the things principally relevant to salvation are treated in exercises which often include what Manni calls
imaginations on heaven and hell, the Four Last Things, and a good life
and death.28 Mannis exercises thus actually combine the two great late
medieval eschatologies, The Four Last Things and the The Art of Dying, with
which we began. The last edition, greatly abbreviated, appeared posthumously in 1620, shortly after Berninis sculptures were presumably made.29
There followed in 1625 a new publication excerpted from Mannis works,
this time in just two parts. The first consists only of the meditations on the
joys of heaven and the torments of hell; the second is none other than a
reprint of the text of the Rappresentatione di anima et di corpo.30 In effect,
the Four Last Things have been reduced to two, and the dramatic debate
between virtue and vice has become the model of preparation for a good
death. Significantly, however, the drama itself is given a new name. It is no
longer conceived in terms of body and soul, but rather and I quote the
new title as a representation in which by diverse images the individual
is shown the calamitous end of the sinner and the honored and glorious end
of the just man. I can think of no better description of Berninis sculptures.
In fact, when one recalls that they had only recently been made for a member of the Spanish church not far from that of the Oratorians, one cannot
help wondering whether they might in turn have played a role in the distillation, intensification, and visualization of the very dramatic work from
which they themselves seem to have derived.
28
Manni, 1609 and 1613. The full titles are given in the bibliography. The headings of
the pertinent sections in the 1613 edition are as follows: pp. 60 ff, Essercitio circa leternit
della felicit del cielo; 79 ff, Essercitio circa la consideratione delle pene dellInferno; 104,
Essercitio per haverin pronto le quattro memorie, della Morte, del Guidicio, dellInferno, e
del Paradiso; 105 ff, Memoria della Morte; 122 ff, Memoria secondo, del Giudicio; 132 ff,
Memoria Terza, dellInferno; 142 ff, Quarta Memoria, del Paradiso; 177 ff, Essercitio per
vivere, e morire felicemente.
29
Manni, 1620.
30
Manni, 1625; this edition, which I have not seen, is recorded in Villarosa, 1837, 162.
I give the full title from the edition published in 1637 (see Bibliography).
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Appendix A
New Documents Concerning the Anime Busts
and the Tomb of Pedro de Foix Montoya
The sculptures, mentioned by Berninis biographers Filippo Baldinucci
and Domenico Bernini as in San Giacomo degli Spagnoli, were moved in
the late nineteenth century to the Palazzo di Spagna, residence of the
Spanish ambassador to the Vatican (replacement copies were made which
are now in Santa Maria di Monserrato). Having discovered that they came
to the church with the legacy of Botinete, I once questioned the traditional
association of these busts with Monsignor Pedro de Foix Montoya, for
whose tomb, also originally in San Giacomo and now in Santa Maria in
Monserrato, Bernini executed the famous portrait toward the end of 1622
(Lavin, Five Youthful Sculptures, 1968, 240 n. 114). I subsequently found
in the archive of the confraternity additonal documents concerning
Montoya and his tomb; these established that Montoya was indeed the
patron of the Anime, which were in his possession by December 1619, and
suggest that he may have intended them to decorate his tomb.
An inventory of Montoyas household possessions taken in December
1619 includes dos estatuas (see Document 1 below), the only such objects
listed; these must have been the Anime, which appear again in the inventory
taken after Montoyas death (below, and Document 2). On March 8, 1623,
Montoya signed an agreement with the stone-cutter Santi Ghetti for his
tomb (Document 8), to be made according to a design provided by the
architect Orazio Turriani, who received payment on March 11 (Document
9). The monument was to include two angels that are specifically excluded
from Ghettis responsibility, indicating that they, like the portrait, were to
be (or already had been) executed by someone else. Perhaps Fernandez
Alonso (1968, 106) was alluding to this document in suggesting that the
busts formed part of the tomb. The tomb was not finished at Montoyas
death on May 31, 1630, and the executors paid for the remaining work over
the next few months (Documents 37).
The Anime are listed in an inventory of Montoyas possessions, undated
but taken shortly after his death (Document 2), after which they evidently
became the property of Ferdinando Botinete, one of Montoyas confreres;
they next appear in a 1637 inventory of San Giacomo, as a legacy of
Botinete (Document 10).
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725
All the documents listed below are in the Archive of the Instituto Espaol de
Estudios Eclesiasticos, Rome.
Busta 1746, Papeles de la memoria de Mons. Montoya:
Fols. 20 ff: Memoria de toda la Ropa que hasta oy Jueves de dicembre de 1619
Aos Quai en caza de Mons.or De Foix Montoya, Misenor Para el servisio de su casa
y persona.
1. fol. 27: dos estatuas
Fols. 29 ff: Inventory of Montoyas household possessions ordered
executors of his will.
2. fol. 31r: Item dos medios cuerpos de piedra de statuas
by
the
Fols. 35 ff: Nota de como se una cumpliendo los legados y ultima voluntad de
Monseor Pedro de Foix Montoia por sus executores testamentarios desde el dia de
su muerte, que fu alos 31 de Maio de 1630.
3. fol. 42b: Io Giovanne Mariscalco ho receuto dalli ss.ri Essecutori testamentarij
di monsre Montoia in 2 partite scta quarentacinco sonno per il deposito et lapida et
bon conto. Et in fede qto di 16 Xbre 1630 scta 45
[in margin: scarpellino).
4. fol. 43b: Io francesco Pozi muratore ho riceuto dalli ss.ri Essecutori testam.ri del
q. Monre Montoia scudi sedici m.ta sonno per saldo et intiero pagamto di tutti li
lauori di muratore fatti da me nel deposito di d.o Monsre conforme alla lista tassata
dal sig.to della Chiesa.
Et in fede etc. sc 16 q.o di 6 di Genaro 1631.
Io fran.co Pozo a fermo come sopra mano propria.
5. fol. 43b: Io infrascritto ho riceuto dalli Ill.ri sig.ri essecutori testamentarii del
q. Monsig.re Montoya scudi tre mta -p hauere indorato le Arme e le lettere del suo
sepolcro e in fede ho fatto la pte di mia ppa mano questo di 23 Aprile 1631 et dico
______sc 3
Io Giovanni Contini Mano -p-p a
6. fol. 44: Adi 23 Marzo 1632
Io Santi Ghetti ho riccuuto dalli ss.ri Essecutori testamentarii del q. Mons.re
Montoya scudi Trenta m.ta & sonno li scudi venticinq. per la lapida che ho fatto per
la sepoltura di esso Monsig.re et li scudi Cinque per saldo, et intiero pagamento del
deposito.
Et in fede di q.o di
sc.ta 30
Io santi Ghetti afermo come sopra sua mano pp.a
Fols. 46 ff Memoria de lo que se ha sacado de Mons.re foix de Montoya conforme al Inuentario, y al moneda que se hizo
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726
7. fol. 48: al pintor por las armas que hizo _____sc. 5.60
al murador por abrir la sepoltura y cerrarla _____sc. 4
fol. 48 verso: al scarpelino abuena quenta de la sepoltura _____sc. 45
de dorar las armas de la sepoltura _____sc. 3
al murador por los labores hechos en poner el deposito de Monseor _____
sc. 16
al scarpelino por intero pagamento de la lapida y sepoltura _____sc. 30.
al murador por abrir y poner la lapide _____sc. 3.
Fols. 5556b. Contract with Santi Ghetti for Montoyas tomb:
8. Douendosi dal Molto Ill.mo et R.mo Monsig.re de Foix Montoija far fare un
deposito nella Chiesa di s. Giacomo delli spagnioli vecino alla porta che va in
sagrestia mano manca nel entrare, sotto al organo, qual deposito n stato fatto il
disegnio da Horatio Torriani Architetto in Roma per altezza di pi 17 et nel modo,
e forma che si uede detto disegnio, si douera eseguire conforme alli patti capitoli,
conuentioni infrascritti. Pertanto il detto Monsig.re da a fare il sudetto deposito
tutta robba di m.o santi Ghetti scarpellino rencontro la pista piccola di santa
Adriano alli pattani, et campo vaccino a tutte sue spese nel modo, e forma che si
dechiara in questo foglio. _____
Item che detto scarpellino sia obligato di fare il frontespitio sopra larme di
marmo bianco di Carrara.
Il timpano sotto il frontespitio di bianco e nero antico orientale _____
La cornicia sopra larme di marmo bianco di Carrara, atorno al arme il simile
_____
Larme con il cappello, et fiocchi sia tutto di un pezzo di marmo bianco di
Carrara, et il repiano del arme di bianco e nero antiquo orientale, et le cartelle
accanto larme di marmo bianco, et incastrato di marmo, e bianco e nero antiquo
orientale _____
Il frontespitio sopra alle colonne di marmo bianco di Carrara, con il timpano
di bianco e nero antiquo orientale _____
La cornice sotto larme, et che ricorre sopra alle colonne, et membretti si fara di
marmo bianco di Carrara _____
Il campo sotto la cornice, et intorno al retratto, et cassa si fara di bianco e nero
antiquo orientale _____
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727
Cartelle dalle bande del ouato che fa modello si farano di marmo bianco
dCarrara con campanella di marmo simile _____
Louato cioe la fascia si fara di brocatello de Spagnia _____
Lo sfondato del retratto dentro la nicchia si fara -p dentro piano, et di nero
assoluto _____
Il fregio sopra alle colonne si fara di bianco e nero
antiquo orientale _____
La prima iscritione si faccia di paragone senza macchia tutto negro _____
Il tellaro atorno addetta iscritione sia di gialdo orientale _____
fol. 55b
Le caretelle sotto la prima iscrittione siano di marmo bianco di Carrara et repieni di bianco e nero antiquo orientale _____
La cassa sia di gialdo, et nero di portovenere del pi bello che uenghi conforme
quella della cappella del Cardinal Gaetano in santa Potentiana, et sia della medesima fattura ne piu nemeno _____
Il zoccholo sotto alla cassa sia di alabastro rigato antiquo, et il simile sotto alle
base delle colonne, et membretto _____
Le colonne si farano di nero, et gialdo de portovenere come di sop.a conforme
alla cassa de S.a Potentiana, et della medesima bonta di pietra _____
Li contrapilastri delle colonne si farano di marmo bianco di Carrara _____
Li membretti delle colonne cioe dalle bande di brocatello di
Spagnia _____
Le base, et capitelli come si uedono in disegnio siano de marmo bianco di
Carrara _____
La cimasa la colonna di marmo bianco di Carrara _____
La seconda iscritione che fa piedestallo sia di marmo bianco di
Carrara _____
con suo membretti _____
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728
Sopra della 2.a iscrittione si fara un poco di fregio di bianco e nero antiquo orientale dove e il collarino del pedestallo di tutta lunghezza _____
Il basamento che andera sotto a d.o iscritione, et alli pedestalli delle colonne et
membretti si faranno di marmo bianco di Carrara _____
Lultimo zoccholo sotto il fine del opera al piano di terra si fara di africano bello,
et antiquo _____
Ite. che tutta la detta opera sia fatto nel modo e forma detto di sopra con le
pietre dechiarate in questo foglio, et non altrimenti, quale tutte doverano essere
poste in opera, con ogni diligenza, et ataccate con mistura, et stuccate a foco et
doveranno alustrare il tutto ad ogni bellezza, et paragone tutto a spese del detto m.ro
santi scarpellino _____
Ite. che detto m.o santi sia obligato di dar fornito tutta lopera di detto deposito a tutta perfettione intermine di quattro mesi prossimi da cominciarsi da hoggi
_____
fol. 56
Ite. che il detto mons.re sia obligato a tutta sue spese di far mettere in opera il
detto deposito -p quello che spettera al muratore con patto che vi debbia intervenire,
et assistere continuamente il d.o m. santi mentre si mettera in opera, et con interuento alle cose principali del Architetto _____
Ite. che detto m.o santi debbia fare a sue spese una croce di gialdo al detto deposito atutte sue spese ancorche non vi sia nel disegnio, et gli Angeli che sono in d.o
disegnio non si comprendino nel patto, et conventione che si obliga d.o scarpellino
_____
Ite. che detto scarpellino sia obligato di fare intagliare tutte sue spese tutte le
lettere che si daranno da s. R.ma tanto nella prima iscritione di paragone negro come
in quella seconda di marmo bianco di Carrara _____
Che lhoro che andera sopra alle lettere della pietro di paragone si debbia mettere a spese di ss. R.ma et doue anderanno di tenta negre sul bianco a spese del do
scarp.no _____
Ite. che detto scarpellino debbia mostrare primo a s. R.ma et al Architetto tutte
le pietro dette di sop.a avanti li lavori -p mettere in opera, et che non debbia lauorare il detto deposito se prima non habbia hauto li modeni in carta di tutta la detta
opera dal Architetto, et a quelli modeni non sminuisca, et no preterisca di cosa
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729
alguna, et d.i modeni siano dati -p primo che cominci et cole picture siano uiste
prima _____
Che volendo disegniare il detto deposito lo scarpellino in prima grande debbia
il do Monsig.re fare che lArchitetto debbia intervenire -p do disegnio in quel modo
che piu piacera, et sara comodo allo scarpellino, et questo si faccia senza spese dallo
scarpellino _____
Ite. che il detto deposito sintenda allallezza, et larghezza che seconda la scala
delli p.mi che stanno disegniati sotto do deposito et non altrimenti _____
fol. 56b
Ite. che -p tutto quello che si possa pretendere tanto per la fattura come del valore della robba del detto deposito il detto mons.re et santi Ghetti scarpellino si convengono di accordo de farlo p prezzo et valore di sc.di cento sessanta di moneta li
quali s. R.ma promette di pagarli liberamente in questo modo, scudi sessanta al -p te -p
un ordine al banco, et altri sc.di cinquanta nella meta del opera, et li altri scudi
cinquanta fornito che haueua detto deposito subbito _____
Ite. che mancando di fare detto scarpellino alcuna delle cose sud.e che non
fussero a contentimento del s. R.ma possa d.o Monsig.re a tutte spese danni, et interessi di d.o scarpellino farli rifare conforme alli patti, et conventione, et di quello che
importera defalcarlo dal prezzo che douera hauere d.o scarpellino _____
Et -p osservanza delle cose sud.e tanto -p il denaro che douera pagare d.o Mons.re
R. come -p lopera che deue fare il detto m.o santi Ghetti scarpellino, conforme alli
patti conuentioni d.e di sopra, luna parte el laltra si obligano nella piu ampla della
forma della Camera Apostolica, con ogni sorte di clausole, et consuete che si aspettano ado obligo Camerale et -p ci ad ogni beneplacito del una et laltra parte da
adesso -p allora danno faculta, a qualseuoglia Notaro di potere stendere d.i capitoli
come Istrumento publico, che -p segnio della uerita hanno sottoscritto la presente
de loro propria mano alla presentia delli infrascritti Testimonij questo di, et anno
sud.o 8 de Marzo 1623 _____
Licen.do po de Foix Montoya
a
Io santi ghetti afermo quanto di sop
- mano pp _____
o
a
Io Ju yvaniz fui psente quanto di sop. .
Io Jacomo Turriani fui presente quanto di sopa mp
-.
mo
Io soprado mo santi Ghetti scarpellino mi obligo in forma Camera di fornire fra

tutto ottobre di questo anno 1623 tutti li lauori che sto obligato a fare Mons.re de
Foix Montoia in questo Instrumento di sop.a et come non lo fornisca fra questo
tempo me contentero che d.o Mons.re de foix Montoija lo possa mandare fornire
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730
allo scarpellino che verra a tutte spese mie fatta in Roma alli 19 di Agosto 1623
a
a
Io santi Ghetti mi obligo et prometto come di sop
- mano -p-p
o
a
Yo Ju. ybanez fui presente a quanto di s.
Io Jacomo Turriani fui presente quanto di sop.ra
Fol. 57: Receipt of Orazio Turriani

9. Io Horatio Turriani Architetto ho riceuto dal Molto Ill.o et R.mo Mons.re
Montoya scudi sei di moneta quali sono -p ultimo resto et intiero pagamento di
quanto posso pretendere in tutti li disegni et ogni altra cosa che hauessi fatto, et che
douero fare -p tutto lopera del deposito che andera posto nella chiesa di S. Giacomo
delli Spagnioli in Roma, et mi contento di essere sodisfatto con detti scudi sei -p
qualsivolia cosa che di nouo facessi -p do deposito -p sino che sia del tutto posto in
opera in d a chiesa et cosi prometto et me ne chiamo contento questo 11 di Marzo
1623
a
Io Horatio Turriani mp
- -p
Busta 1335, Inventario de los muebles de Santiago hecho en el mes de heno
1637:
10. fol. 169b. Mas dos estatuas de marmol blanco del Bernino con sus
pedestales de jaspe. Son dos testes que representan una el anima in gloria & la otra
anima en pea & las quales vinieron con la que dej el D.r Botinete ala Egl.a
Appendix B
Checklist of Preserved and Recorded Examples of the Four Last Things in the
Wax Version by Giovanni Bernardino Azzolini:*
1. Convento de las Carmelitas Descalzas, Pearanda de Bracamante, Spain. Five
wax panels forming a cross, Death in the center, Purgatory on the left, Limbo (a
naked child) on the right, Hell below, Heaven above. Gmez-Moreno, 1967, I,
453; Gonzles-Palacios (1984, 227) gives evidence for a Neapolitan provenance.
(Fig. 46)
2. Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Purgatory and Hell. Pope-Hennessy,
1964, II, 633f. (Purgatory mistakenly identified as Paradise); Lightbown, 1964,
* For information concerning several of the Spanish examples I am indebted to Professor

Vincente Leo Caal.
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731
46. Death (center), Purgatory (left), Limbo (right), Hell (bottom), Heaven (top), wax
reliefs. Convento de las Carmelitas Descalzas, Pearanda de Bracamante, Spain (photo:
Antonio Casaseca, Salamanca).
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47, 48. Purgatory, Hell, wax reliefs. Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Page 52
732
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49, 50. Purgatory, Hell, wax reliefs. Palazzo Pitti, Florence (photos: Soprintendenza per i Beni Artistici e Storici,
Florence 12274344).

Page 53
733
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51, 52. Limbo and Purgatory, wax reliefs. Galleria Nazionale dArte Moderna, Rome.

Page 54
734
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Page 55
735
53, 54. Hell and Heaven, wax reliefs. Galleria Nazionale dArte Moderna, Rome.
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Page 56
736
5557. Purgatory, Hell, Heaven, wax reliefs. Formerly Coll. Schevitch,

Paris (from Catalogue, 1906, fig. 313).
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Page 57
58. Heaven, wax relief. Formerly Coll. Gonzles-Palacios, Rome

(photo: Arte fotografica 99962).
737
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59, 60. Death and Judgment, wax reliefs. Schloss Nymphenburg, Munich.

Page 58
738
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Page 59
739
61, 62. Hell and Heaven, wax reliefs. Schloss Nymphenburg, Munich.
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Page 60
740
63. Attributed to Gaetano Zumbo, Hell, wax relief. Rhode Island

School of Design Museum, Providence.
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Page 61
741
64. Attributed to Francisco

Ribalta, Purgatory,
Museo del Prado,
Madrid.
65. Attributed to Francisco

Ribalta, Heaven.
Museo del Prado,
Madrid.
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Page 62
742
495 n. 20; Cagnetta, 1977, 497; idem, 1976, 219, Curiosit, 1979, 41; GonzlesPalacios, 1984, 227. (Figs. 47, 48)
3. Museo degli Argenti, Palazzo Pitti, Florence. Purgatory and Hell. Lightbown,
1964, 495; Aschengreen, 1968, 176; Cagnetta, 1977, 497; idem, 1976, 218;
Malke, 1976, 57; Curiosit, 1979, 41; Gonzles-Palacios, 1984, 227. (Figs. 49, 50)
4. Galleria Nazionale dArte Moderna, Rome. Limbo, Purgatory, Hell, Heaven.
Ex coll. Mario Praz, prov. Sestieri, Rome, 1961, from Black, London. Attributed to
Azzolini c. 1560 by Praz, who also noted the relation to the Ex coll. Schevitch
group. Cagnetta, 1977; 498; idem, 1976, 219; Curiosit, 1979, 41. (Figs. 5154)
5. Ex Coll. Schevitch, Paris. Purgatory, Hell, Heaven. Catalogue, 1906, 213f.,
no. 313, ill.; Pyke, 1973, 8; Cagnetta, 1977, 498; idem, 1976, 219; Malke, 1976,
57 n. 18; Gonzles-Palacios, 1984, 227. (Figs. 5557)
6. Ex Coll. Gonzles-Palacios, Rome. Heaven. Attributed to Azzolino.
Cagnetta, 1977, 498; idem, 1976, 219; Gonzles-Palacios, 1984, 227; Finarte,
1986, 81. (Fig. 58)
7. Schloss Nymphenburg, Munich. Death, Judgment, Hell, Heaven. GonzlesPalacios, 1984, 236 n. 97; Metken, ed., 1984, 2628, no. 14. (Figs. 5962)
8. Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence. Hell. Attributed to
Zumbo. Rhode Island, 1985, 30 f. (Fig. 63)
9. Museo del Prado, Madrid. Paintings of Purgatory and Heaven. Attributed to
Francisco Ribalta (d. 1628), Gmez-Moreno, 1967, I: 453; Ribalta, 1987, 144.
(Figs. 64, 65)
10. Coll. Duke of Alcal, Seville. Five wax images framed in ebony, showing the
four souls and one dying, by Giovanni Bernardino [Azzolini]. Recorded in an early
inventory. Brown and Kagan, 1987, 254, no. 131.
11. Coll. Alczar, Madrid. Three wax heads, Purgatory, Hell, Heaven, with
frames of ebony and glass. Recorded in an early inventory. Bottineau, 1956, 450,
no. 47.
15/11/08
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Page 63
743
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LavinXIX.Revised:Lavin2ChapXI15/11/0817:09Page748
XIX
The Roma Alessandrina of Richard Krautheimer
WANT to thank the organizers of this commemoration of Richard

Krautheimer for inviting me to participate, and in particular to discuss
the volume on the Rome of Alexander VII. Unbeknownst to them, the
occasion closes a circle in my vita krautheimeriana that opened when I was
a beginning graduate student in New York more than forty years ago. I
longed to study with Krautheimer, whom I had never met but whose reputation for intellectual stimulation and personal warmth was already
legendary. There was a serious risk of my becoming an architectural historian had my dream come true, but it was fated not to be. He did not come
to teach at New York University while I was studying there, and when he
did come, I had left. My wish was at least partially granted some fifteen
years later, when I myself became a professor at the Institute of Fine Arts.
At last it was possible for me to take a course with Krautheimer; which I
did, along with many of the students in my own class, in the spring of 1968.
What makes the present occasion so special is that the subject of the course
we followed was none other than Baroque Architecture in Rome. The
course contained the nuclei of many ideas that appear in the book he wrote
twenty years later.
Of the many obiter dicta for which Krautheimer was famous one of the
most recent seems particularly relevant to my assigned task of discussing his
last major work of art historical scholarship, the book on The Rome of
Alexander VII published in 1985. In his last years, when he was well into his
nineties, he was fond of saying that he was too old to undertake any more
small projects! The large project he had in mind was surely the three volume history of Rome, the first of which was devoted to the medieval city
THE ROMA ALESSANDRINA OF RICHARD KRAUTHEIMER
749
from Constantine to the Avignon captivity: Rome: Profile of a City,

3121308, Princeton, 1981. The second volume would have dealt with
Rome in the Renaissance, 13001560, the third with the period
15601700, Roma Barocca, or Roma Moderna, as contemporaries called it.
Contemporaries, however, used the term Modern chiefly in the Petrarchan
sense of postmedieval and in contrast to the ancient city, whereas
Krautheimer saw in this period the emergence of features that characterized
the transformation of the chaotic and squalid medieval town that remained
at the end of volume I, into the grand new, modern city we know and
despite everything love today.
With his usual sagacity and prescience, he ultimately struck a bargain
with the inevitable and, renouncing the second volume altogether, he
extracted from the third the architectural personality and ideas, realized and
projected, of the crucial figure and instigator of the transformation, Pope
Alexander VII (16551667). Alexander, of course, was by no means the
first pope with a passion for building, nor was he the first to regard the city
as a projection of himself and of his office. But whereas Sixtus V, for example, still conceived of the city in largely symbolic terms the avenues connecting the patriarchal basilicas were seen as a starshaped pattern reflecting
his family emblem, as well as the star of Bethlehem Alexanders view was
functional, in that the city and its monuments served an urgent, contemporary ideological and strategic purpose.
Alexander thus embodied the essence of what Krautheimer had to say in
the final and culminating portion of his large project. And the volume aptly
culminates Krautheimers intellectual and scholarly life, not just in the
chronological sense that it was his last great work, but in the substantive
sense that it expressed his conception of the link between the past and the
present, between the ancient and the modern, in terms of the physical history of the place where, more than any other, that link was forged. One
might say that the book embodies the contemporary relevance of the historians mission. Moreover, it recounts a story that only an architectural historian could tell, so that it might be said to fulfill the mission of
Krautheimers professional mtier, as well.
Perhaps the main contribution of the book is Krautheimers perception
of a comprehensive significance underlying the building mania that has
always been regarded as Alexanders chief strength or weakness, depending on whether one gives greater importance to its effect on the city or its
effect on the papal treasury. Krautheimer realized, first of all, that Alexander
750
was not just a Maecenas in the popular sense of a vulgar Renaissance tyrant
bent on a vulgar display of wealth and power, but a man of rare intelligence
and refined taste who, moreover, followed the work personally, participating in the most minute details of planning with a passion that can only have
been borne of an innate gift and cultivated interest. In a sense, I suspect that
this last may have been one of the mainsprings of Krautheimers own interest, arising from his study and ultimate publication of the passages dealing
with art and artists from Alexanders personal diary.1 This document is in
itself utterly extraordinary: I am not aware of a comparable personal record
of any previous pope. No less astonishing, however, is the amount of time
and effort Alexander devoted to these matters. Bernini and Alexander were
together constantly consulting, discussing, planning, designing often
for long periods on a weekly basis, sometimes even more often. In this
respect, too, Alexander was unprecedented and Krautheimer perceived that
not only was the pope mad about architecture, but that his madness encompassed the whole of the city. Alexanders improvements were not only
focused on the obvious, major places and monuments in the heart of Rome,
but also extended to the outskirts, the disabitato, to use the term
Krautheimer preferred, although it was often populated with the poor, the
dispossessed and vagabond gypsies. I myself came to appreciate from the
book that the Cathedra Petri was only the last stop on a physical and conceptual pilgrimage that began at the Porta del Popolo. The sharpness and
comprehensiveness of Alexanders vision is attested in many subtle ways
beyond, or underlying, the works themselves the new accuracy and comprehensiveness of the maps of Alexanders Rome, the lists of his works compiled and portrayed in illustrated series of engravings. But perhaps there is
no better index both to the intimacy and the comprehensiveness of
Alexanders vision than the fact that he kept in his private chambers a model
of the city. (It is interesting to speculate where Alexanders miniature Rome
fits in the history of city models;2 it was, I suppose, as complete and accurate as the maps of Alexanders Rome, and it is the first model I can recall
1
Richard Krautheimer and R. S. B. Jones, The Diary of Alexander VII: Notes on Art,
Artists and Buildings, Rmisches Jahrbuch fr Kunstgeschichte, 15 (1975), pp. 199233; supplemented by G. Morello, Bernini e i lavori a San Pietro nel diario di Alessandro VII, in:
Bernini in Vaticano, exhib. cat., Rome, 1981, pp. 321340.
2
See M. Aronberg Lavin, Representation of Urban Models in the Renaissance, in: The
Renaissance from Brunelleschi to Michelangelo. The Representation of Architecture, exhib. cat.
ed. H. Millon and V. Magnago Lampugnani, Milan, 1994, pp. 674678.
751
made for the purpose of urban planning; evidently, the pope not only
thought about the city in a modern, comprehensive way, he also had a
modern, comprehensive way of representing it a new kind of threedimensional urban consciousness, one might say.)
As Alexanders vision was global, so was Krautheimers, as he extends the
normal purview of architectural history itself, and this in two senses. He is
at pains to consider not only individual buildings but also to relate them to
their contexts, their immediate surroundings as well as their interlocking
connections with other works throughout the city, and even beyond.
Moreover, architecture itself is no longer conceived in terms of permanent
structures, but includes city squares and public spaces of all sorts market
places, theater sets and ephemeral spectacles, gardens, streets, and tree-lined
alles everything we tend to call, for want of a still more comprehensive
term, the built environment. A vast panorama is deftly captured in what is,
after all, a relatively brief text.
Considered thus, the book itself is a compromise: profile would have
been an even better title here than for the earlier volume, since the term
alludes to specific personalities and suggests the thin line drawn in this work
between the genres of building history and urban history. The ten chapters
carry the reader through a sequence of ideas, beginning with the career and
character of Alexander VII: his family, his education, his learning, his wit,
his financial nonchalance, his love of architecture. The second chapter deals
with what Krautheimer calls the urban substructure: the popes efforts to
widen and straighten the citys messy tangle of medieval ways, partly to
make them grand and beautiful, and partly to accommodate the growing
traffic problems created by that monstrous newfangled conveyance, the
horse-drawn coach; and his campaign to clean up the equally messy and
unsightly markets that encumbered public spaces of high visibility, like the
Forum and the Pantheon, by confining the vendors to less conspicuous
locations and/or providing new, more efficient accommodations. Chapter
III deals with the popes architects and some of their major projects. The
central figure, of course, is Bernini, followed by Pietro da Cortona;
Borromini, Krautheimer observes, was such a difficult character that
Alexander wanted as little as possible to do with him! Chapter IV explores
the contemporary notion of Teatro, not in the narrow sense of a spectacle
but in the large sense of any global, encompassing idea, especially as the
term applies to churches and the spaces before and around them. Cortonas
Santa Maria della Pace, Berninis SantAndrea al Quirinale and St. Peters,
752
both the square and the Cathedra, are cases in point. Chapter V concerns
Overall Planning and Opposition, primarily the careful control Alexander
exercised, at vast expenditures of his own time and energy, over his projects
and those of other patrons (who sometimes resisted) throughout the city.
Chapter VI, called Prospects deals with unrealized projects that give some
idea of what Alexander might have achieved had he lived longer and had
more money, but which also testify to the colossal scale of what he did manage to carry out. Chapter VII, called Roma antica and moderna, deals with
the treatment of the classical remains, showing that while ancient works
could be treated cavalierly on occasion, the principle objective was to integrate them into the modern city so that they, too, could contribute Ad
Maiorem Gloriam Dei. Chapter VIII is devoted to Piazza del Popolo as a
deliberately theatrical, that is, emulating contemporary stage designs, reformation of the principal entrance to Rome from the North. The piazza was
the prelude to a whole series of works intended to embellish and aggrandize
the processional way through the city to St. Peters and the Vatican. Chapter
IX, The Reverse of the Medal, is devoted to the seamier side of Rome, the
part which the kind of audience Alexander had in view was not supposed
to see. Alexanders Rome may have been beautiful, but for many people it
was not a very nice place in which to live.
Together, these chapters amount to a recitation of the main types of
monumental urban and architectural projects undertaken under
Alexanders direct or indirect control. Although richly informative, awash
with stimulating observations, and written in Krautheimers inimitably
lively informal style, they are essentially repetitions of the same theme
Alexanders passion for building and the grandeur of his ideas, as aided and
abetted by his favorite artist-entrepreneur Bernini. From a formal point of
view, the accent is on the perspective vista, the dramatic focus, and majestic scale. Except for Chapter IX, there is nothing about what we would
today call the urban infrastructure utilitarian projects (other than public markets), such as sewage and sanitation, ordinary housing and the like.
When Alexander said, let nothing built in honor of the Virgin be anything
but great, it matched Berninis statement when he reached Paris to redesign
the Louvre for Louis XIV let no one speak to me of anything small.3 And
Krautheimer gives a corresponding vision of grand ideas on a grand scale
P. Frart de Chantelou, Journal du voyage du Cavalier Bernin en France, ed. L. Lalanne,
1885, p. 15 (June 4th, 1665).
3
753
that defined Rome as a special place with a special role to play on the world
stage. True to his subjects Alexander VII, Bernini, and Rome
Krautheimer did not write microhistory!
If all this sounds very Baroque, the architecture of Krautheimers book
is itself rather Baroque. In fact, this sequence of contrapposto-like repetitions
and variations on a dominant theme creates an increasing feeling of suspense as one wonders what, in the end, is the point. The point appears dramatically in the last chapter, City Planning and Politics: The Illustrious
Foreigner, where Krautheimer presents what he considered to be the guiding principle the political motivation that lay behind Alexanders
urban enterprises, which were concentrated primarily along the principle
ceremonial route throughout the city, and intended primarily to impress the
illustrious foreign visitor. Here it is important to bear in mind that in a
Bibliographical Note Krautheimer explicitly disclaims competence as a
historian, declaring his dependence in such matters on von Pastors History
of the Popes and others standard works on the period.
And his political motivation turns out to be the standard one, familiar
to all students of Italian Baroque: the victories of the Protestants and the rise
in the industrial and mercantile power of the North, the establishment and
hegemony over European affairs of the great national states, especially
France, Spain and the Hapsburgs all these factors had led to a drastic
diminution in the real power of the church, in the face of which pope
Alexander adopted what might be described as a policy of overcompensation, seeking to aggrandize and embellish the physical power of the city to
make up for the loss of political power. He sought to convince the world
that the papacy remained a factor to be reckoned with, by transforming
Rome into a great, modern city, or at least the appearance of one.4 This perception of a diplomatic rationale underlying and motivating Alexanders
architectural mania, may be Krautheimers most original contribution in
the book.
Paradoxically, then, the modern city is created not from any fundamental shift in attitude or values, but as an act of deception. At bottom, from a
strictly art historical point of view, the ultimate argument of the book is
rather conventional. The effect is to instrumentalize the Baroque, which
4
The notion of Alexanders Rome as Roma Moderna, articulated in the publications of
the period, stems from von Pastor, The History of the Popes from the Close of the Middle Ages,
40 vols., London, 192353, XXXI, p. 312.
754
becomes an art of propaganda and representation, rather than the expression of a new world view, which the idea of modernity would suggest. This
conception of the Baroque as an artificial, bombastic, overcompensatory
reaction to the challenge of Protestantism, an art of rhetoric, display, and
theatricality coincides with the equally conventional, absolutist conception of political consciousness in the seventeenth century.5 Alexanders was
preeminently an urban renewal program conceived as of the elite, by the
elite and for the elite.
* * *
There was another side to the medal, however, partly, but only partly
perceived by Krautheimer a reverse, not less important, in my view, than
the obverse. Alexanders new urbanism had what I should call a subversive,
underground aspect, of which Krautheimer caught glimpses but the implications of which he did not fully perceive. The point begins with the fact
that the urban population of Rome was, after all, a very powerful force,
moral, economic and political. In this sense, Rome was like many other
cities in Europe, where there was a growing consciousness of and concern
for social problems that had no doubt long existed. Krautheimer is aware of
this background to the extent that he devotes the next-to-last chapter, The
Reverse of the Medal, to a remarkable document written by an absolutely
minor and otherwise insignificant administrative employee, one Lorenzo
Pizzati from Pontremoli, in which he details the execrable conditions of
everyday life in the city and the pitiable state of its underprivileged population, along with drastic and utopian suggestions for alleviating them. For
Krautheimer the report simply reveals an underlying reality for which
Alexanders urban program was a kind of cosmetic cover-up for the benefit
of visiting dignitaries. However, the improvements were surely meant for
the edification of the people of Rome, as well, and not only as embellishment. For example, more than once it is reported that an important function of the vast expenditures for the Piazza San Pietro was as a public work
program to provide employment for the indigent, especially the unskilled.6
See on this point my introduction to Panofskys essay What is Baroque?, in: I. Lavin
ed., Erwin Panofsky. Three Essays on Style, Cambridge, MA, 1995.
6
See pp. 70, 80, 174; von Pastor, XXXI, p. 291. I think a good case could be made that
this attitude originated with Bernini himself, who certainly promoted it. A primary source
is a remarkable document prepared by Bernini in response to objections to his project, in
5
755
When it is said, rightly, that Alexanders program nearly ruined the papal
finances, it was not merely a vanity and extravagance, it was also the result
of what today would be called a program of social welfare and rehabilitation, the cost of which was ultimately beyond the reach of the economic
system on which it was based. The proof of this point lies in the fact that
Alexander was specifically opposed to outright gifts to the poor, not only
because it engendered dependency on the dole but also because it was an
indignity; instead, he favored helping the poor by providing work for which
they could be paid and so retain their Christian pride.7
The great weight and force of the populace is portrayed in full force in
a fundamental source that is overlooked in Krautheimers Roma
Alessandrina: an official document, deliberately complied at the popes
behest. I refer to the apostolic visitations commanded by Alexander VII to
all the churches and dioceses of Rome. Apostolic visits had a long history,
to be sure, and earlier in the century Urban VIII had ordered one that fills
three very substantial volumes. But none of these precedents even remotely
approaches the scope, depth and systematic coverage of Alexanders effort to
gather and organize information about what ultimately mattered, the spiritual conditions of the people of Rome. Alexanders apostolic visitation
which continued throughout his reign has been described as the most
comprehensive in the modern history of Rome.8
My reasons for emphasizing this reverse of the medal are two. I am not
concerned to reveal the existence of this social substructure of the city and
its problems in Alexanders Rome; they had existed for a long time. What is
important for the notion of Alexanders modernity, and the scope and
meaning of his vision for the city is that he was aware of their existence; he
which he eulogizes Alexanders efforts to deal with precisely the problems of homelessness
and unemployment described by Lorenzo Pizzati (Berninis statement was published by H.
Brauer and R. Wittkower, Die Zeichnungen des Gianlorenzo Bernini, Berlin, 1931, p. 70, who
date it 165960, whereas Krautheimer, p. 174, gives 165758; Pizzatis diatribe was composed 165659, as noted by Krautheimer, p. 191). This was also the basic philosophy of a
major papal welfare program developed subsequently, with which Bernini was closely associated. In particular, Pizzati proposes establishing a hospice for the poor in the Lateran
palace, a project for which Bernini was later reportedly engaged, and which was eventually
actually carried out (I deal with these matters in a forthcoming essay, Berninis Bust of the
Savior and the Problem of the Homeless in Seventeenth-Century Rome).
7
This attitude is emphasized by Alexanders friend and biographer, the Jesuit Sforza
Pallavicino, Della vita di Alessandro VII, 2 vols., Prato, 183940, II, pp. 177 f.
8
L. Forlani, Le visite apostoliche del cinque-seicento e la societ religiosa di Roma,
Ricerche per la storia religiosa di Roma, 4 (1980), pp. 53148, cf. p. 133.
756
perceived the conditions in the city, not only as a physical but also as a social
and moral whole; he sought to grasp them by studying them carefully and
in detail, and to do something about them in a conscious, and comprehensive way. I do not want to overstate my case. Alexander was a product of his
age, not ours. He had his own failings, he failed to realize many of his projects, and many of the projects he did complete failed to achieve their purpose. But just as his urbanistic projects on the obverse of the medal bore
fruit in the subsequent history of architecture and urban planning, so did
his ideas on the reverse. Alexander was the first pope in modern times to
make a serious effort to end the tradition of nepotism, and his effort was a
direct inspiration for Innocent XI, who actually did finally break the tradition.9 And the social need for reform of which Alexander became explicitly
aware, engendered a sequence of developments later in the century that
established institutions and programs of social welfare whose history can be
traced thereafter down to our own time. My point here is that the obverse
and reverse belong to the same medal, after all. Alexanders collective awareness of his distinguished, aristocratic visitors from abroad was part and parcel with his equally collective awareness of his ordinary, often underprivileged subjects at home. In this sense, too, he helped transform Roma Antica
into Roma Moderna.
My second, and final, point is to pay homage to The Rome of Alexander
VII with the praise I think Krautheimer would have appreciated more than
any other: Fa pensare.
Alexanders effort, and ultimate failure, to break the tradition of nepotism, are
described by von Pastor, XXXI, pp. 24 ff.
9
Lavin XX. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap20
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XX
Impresa quasi impossibile

The Making of Berninis Bust of Francesco I dEste
ITH some reluctance in the spring of 1651, Bernini agreed to sculpt

the portrait of Francesco I dEste, the ruler of a duchy of one of the
oldest and most glorious, but now much reduced families of Italy (Fig. 1).
The capital had in 1598 been moved to the small, provincial town of
Modena, when the traditional seat of the duchy, Ferrara, devolved to the
papacy at the death without heir of Francescos uncle. Berninis portrait
formed part of a vast, concerted program of construction and art patronage
at the highest possible level, which Francesco undertook in an effort to
restore the prestige and importance of his house. The likeness, by the most
illustrious and sought-after artist of the day, at the service of the pope himself, was to be based on painted portraits by Justus Sustermans, who served
intermittently as court painter for the Duke. There was never a thought of
Bernini going to Modena or of the Duke going to Rome, a circumstance
that necessitated frequent exchanges of letters between the Duke, his agents
in Rome, and the artist. The correspondence is preserved virtually complete
in the ducal archive at Modena, so that the bust of Francesco takes its place
alongside Berninis other secular ruler portraits, the lost bust of Charles I of
England, and the bust and equestrian portraits of Louis XIV, among the
artists best documented works. The documentation concerning the bust of
Charles I has been extensively investigated, and the portraits of the French
king have been the subject of monographic studies.1 The rich vein of information about the bust of Francesco has also been mined by generations of
scholars, but the records have been cited only in part and in scattered pub1
See note 5 below.
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758
lications. When, after completing an essay on Berninis image of the ideal

Christian Monarch (see Chapter XXIII), I learned that the young
Modenese scholar Giorgia Mancini had been exploring the ducal correspondence systematically, I invited her to prepare as an Appendix a complete transcript of the documents pertinent to Berninis portrait, along with
a summary of their contents. Many of the documents are new, including the
remarkable record of the process of packing and shipping the sculpture, in
which Bernini took particular personal interest. This archival material, to
which I added what could be gleaned from other contemporary sources, as
well as early visual records of the sculpture, was included as an appendix to
the aforementioned essay, in a separate volume published in Italian;
the documents frequently cited in the footnotes here refer to that
appendix.2
* * *
Far che un marmo bianco pigli la somiglianza di una persona,
che sia colore, spirito, e vita, ancorche sia l presente, che si possa
imitare in tutte le sue parti, e proportioni, cosa difficiliss.ma.
Creder poi di poter farlo somigliare con haver sol davanti una
Pittura, senza vedere, ne haver mai visto il Naturale, quasi impossibile, e chi a tale impresa si mette pi temerario che valente si
potrebbe chiamare.
Hanno potuto tanto per verso di me i comandamenti
dellAltezza del sig.r Card.l suo fratello, che mi hanno fatto scordar
di queste verit; per se io non ho saputo far quello, che quasi
impossibile, spero V.ra Alt.za mi scusar, e gradir almeno
quellAmore, che forse lOpera medesima le rappresentar . . .
Gianlorenzo Bernini to Francesco I dEste, October 20, 1651.3 (Fig. 2)
As a prelude to the discussion in the title essay of the formal and ideological significance of Berninis ruler portraits, I want here to single out and
consider from the wealth of documentary information now available concerning the bust of Francesco dEste two points that seem to me especially
important respecting the actual fabrication of the work, one procedural, the
2
3
Lavin 1998. For the shipping records, see Docs. 357, 41, 445, 4759, 61, 634.
See Appendix, Doc. 43.
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BERNINIS BUST OF FRANCESCO I DESTE
759
other sociological. Procedure in this case refers to the particular difficulty,

repeatedly emphasized by Bernini himself, of creating a portrait without
seeing the sitter. The task of making a sculptured bust of a living person
(posthumous portraits for tombs and monuments were another matter 4)
from painted prototypes was in fact unprecedented. As far as I can discover,
this was a new mode of creating portrait sculpture, which Bernini inaugurated with his bust of Charles I of England (163536), followed with that
of Charless wife Henrietta Maria (1638, never executed), both based on
three views of the subjects painted by Van Dyck, and that of Cardinal
Richelieu (16401), based on a triple portrait by Philippe de Champaigne,
and culminated in 165051 with the bust of Francesco I.5 The new procedure, however noteworthy in professional terms, was not an end in itself,
but served a new purpose. It was equally remarkable that three powerful
heads of state should enter into a veritable competition to have themselves
portrayed, sight unseen, by an artist far away. The phenomenon constitutes
an important development in European cultural history since it signaled the
emergence of the artist as the modern, international culture hero who surpassed all his predecessors in virtuosistic conception and technical bravura,
equivalent in both form and substance to the emergence of the absolute
monarch, the modern international political hero whose personal image
Bernini created in these very works.
To a degree, at least, this epochal conjunction of politics and art must
have been evident to all concerned: to Bernini, since, as we shall see, he had
a very clear vision of the ideal Christian monarch his portraits were
intended to convey; to his biographers, Filippo Baldinucci and Domenico
Bernini, the artists son, considering the terms in which they introduced
their accounts of these works: Divulgavasi in tanto sempre pi la fama di
questo artefice, ed il nome di lui ogni d pi chiaro ne diveniva: onde non
fu gran fatto che i maggiori potentati dEuropa incominciassero a gareggiare, per cos dire, fra di loro per chi sue opere aver potesse,6 Ma volando
sempre pi grande per lItalia la fama del Bernino, e divenendo ogni d pi
For which see Montagu 1985, I, 171.
For summary accounts of these works see Wittkower 1981, 207 f., 224, 246 f., 254 ff.,
and recently Avery 1997, 22550. Documentary studies: on the busts of Charles I and
Henrietta Maria see Lightbown 1981; on that of Richelieu, Laurain-Portemer 1981,
177235; on the bust of Louis XIV, Wittkower 1951, Gould 1982, 35, 415, 807, and
Tratz 1988, 46678; on the equestrian, Wittkower 1961, supplemented by Berger 1985,
5063.
6
Baldinucci 1948, 88.
4
5
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760
chiaro il suo nome per il Mondo, trasse ancora a se i Maggiori Potentati

dellEuropa, quali parve, che insieme allora gareggiassero per ch sue Opere
haver potesse;7 and to the noble patrons themselves, considering the
assiduity with which they cultivated the artist, the enormous sums they
paid, and the ecstatic receptions that greeted the results. Of great importance is the fact that the portraits were not conceived independently, but in
specific relation to and emulation of one another. They form a closely interconnected series, artistically as well as historically. Berninis ruler images
incorporate an art-and-historical paradox: they are highly personalized
icons, created by a single individual, of the international development that
created the European nation-state.8 Perhaps the most eloquent testimony
that has come down to us of the significance of Berninis role in the international religio-political sphere is provided by an astonishing remark
beyond any suspicion of flattery made by a member of the English court
in a letter to Mazarin requesting him to use his good offices in Rome to
expedite the project for the portrait of the Queen (there were no direct relations between the papacy and the English crown, although there was hope
on both sides that Charles might ultimately be converted). The Lord
Montaigu observes that Bernini had done more for the doctrine of images
in his country than ever had done Cardinal Bellarmine (the great Jesuit
apologist for the church); the veneration accorded Bernini was undisputed:
Le cavalier Bernino a plus fait pour la doctrine des images en ce pays-cy que
na jamais [fait] le card. Bellarmin. La vnration luy est accord sans controverse. . . .9
The nature of the artistic tour de force that produced these works was
encapsulated in the elegant note, quoted near the beginning of this chapter,
which Bernini wrote to Duke Francesco as he was preparing to ship the finished sculpture. Seemingly a casual flourish of self-indulgence and flattery,
the letter is in fact a veritable three-sentence treatise lament might be a
better word on portraiture in marble as Bernini conceived that art. The
challenge for him lay in infusing the likeness of the subject with three essenBernini 1713, 64.
It is perhaps significant of the sense of national identity inherent in these commissions
that, as also reported by the biographers, Phillip IV of Spain acquired not a portrait of himself but a large bronze crucifix for the royal tomb chapel at the Escorial, for which Bernini
received a large gold necklace (Bernini 1713, 64, Baldinucci 1948, 108; cf. Wittkower 1981,
228 f.).
9
July 21, 1640; Laurain-Portemer 1981, 202, n. 105.
7
8
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Page 761
1. Bernini, Francesco I dEste, Museo Estense, Modena.
761
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Page 762
762
2. Bernini to Francesco I, October 20, 1651.

Archivio di Stato, Modena, A.mat., 9/1.
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Page 763
3. Leonardo da Vinci, three heads, drawing. Biblioteca Reale, Turin.
4. Lorenzo Lotto, triple portrait. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.
763
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Page 764
764
tial qualities, color, spirit and life, to each of which he attached particular
meaning and importance. Difficult in any case, the challenge was virtually
futile quasi impossible when the subject was before the sculptor only
in the form of paintings. The full meaning of Berninis conceit becomes
evident when one considers the implications of his three critical points of
reference.
The problem of creating a sculptured likeness from painted models had
a profound resonance arising from the concern of artists since the
Renaissance to provide theoretical foundations for their vocations and raise
them from the level of the medieval crafts to what came to be thought of as
the Fine Arts. Painting and sculpture, though hand-made, were to be
regarded as equivalent to the traditionally exalted intellectual arts of music
and literature, notably poetry.10 One of the key agencies of this transformation was the great heritage of professional rivalry over the relative merits and
difficulty hence nobility of painting versus sculpture, known as the
Paragone, or comparison of the arts.
It can hardly be coincidental that the earliest testimony to this debate in
the context of portraiture comes from Leonardo, the inventor of the
Paragone as a formal disputation on the arts: a drawing by Leonardo showing the same head in what might be described as the three minimal positions, profile, three-quarter, and full-front (Fig. 3).11 The head is often identified as that of Leonardos patron Cesare Borgia, but there is no evidence
that a sculptured portrait of Borgia was intended and the omission of the
torso speaks against such a purpose. Leonardos drawing seems rather
intended to demonstrate the possibility of representing simultaneously in
two dimensions what the sculptor represents successively in three. In its
most developed stage, however, the Paragone was not simply a matter of
form, but also of color, that is, two-dimensional polychromy versus threedimensional monochomy. This issue underlies the earliest known example
of a painted triple portrait a goldsmith, by Lorenzo Lotto, now with
three views united in a single composition (Fig. 4). There is no evidence
that the Lotto was intended for a sculptured portrait; indeed, the nature of
the poses (the inclusion of the lost profile and the omission of a frontal
The classic text on the subject remains that of Lee 1977.

On Leonardos Paragone and its antecedents, see the recent edition by Farago 1992;
on the Paragone in the sixteenth century, Mendelsohn 1982; on painting vs. sculpture in
particular, Pepe 1968. On the Turin drawing, Pedretti 1975, 10 f.
10
11
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765
view),12 the change of gesture, the inclusion of the attribute of a box of

rings, all seem to exclude that possibility. It is much more likely that the
carefully varied redundancy was intended precisely to defy the suggestion of
subservience to an other medium, and serve instead as a sophisticated salvo
in the Paragone on behalf of painting. Then thought to be a work by Titian,
the picture entered the collection of Charles I, where it was accessible to
Van Dyck and in turn became the model for his triple portrait of the king
intended for Berninis use (Fig. 5).13 Van Dyck evidently understood the
Lotto in the Paragone tradition, since he now melds Leonardos three essential views into a single, composite portrait. The three views give the figure
an effect of rotation, the change of gestures suggests motion and action,
while the luscious coloring, different for each view, belies the pictures purpose as a model for marble sculpture. Van Dycks reserved but splendid display of conceptual intelligence and pictorial bravura was not simply a model
for, but the painted emulation of a sculptured bust; it was surely intended
as a challenge to Bernini, which Bernini just as surely understood as such,
and by which he was deeply affected.14 Subsequently, when asked to provide
images of Henrietta Maria to serve Bernini for a portrait of the queen, Van
Dyck seems to have started with a multiple portrait like that of the king,
but instead provided three separate views, one frontal and two profiles
(Figs. 68).15 The idea of creating a coherent, symmetrical, multifacial composition was abandoned in favor of self-sufficient images that could
unlike a sculpture function independently and yet also be seen simultaneously. The change may have responded to the sculptors own predilection,
based on the traditional method of carving sculptures by first inscribing the
The triple portrait as a type has been studied by Keisch 1976, whose argument (p.
207), I follow on this point. Recently, and quite independently, Humphrey has also reached
the conclusion that Lottos picture is not related to a sculptured portrait but a comment on
the Paragone (Humphrey, 1997, 110 f., Brown, et al., 1977, 1757).
The significance of the differences in poses is evident from Berninis own description of
Van Dycks picture, reported in Doc. 10: tre maniere di postura in profilo in faccia et unaltra partecipante dambidua quelle.
13
Millar 1963, 96 f.
14
This understanding of Van Dycks portrait was suggested by Wheelock in Wheelock,
et al., 1990, 288 f.
15
The original project for a triple portrait emerged from the infrared photocopy of the
profile view in Memphis, which showed at the right a portion of the frontal view, as reported
in Wheelock, et al., 1990, 3079. We know that three views were intended from a letter of
November 27, 1637: The Queen s lasciata depingere in quelle tre maniere che si desiderano per fare la testa compagna di quella de Re (Lightbown 1981), 472 n. 57).
12
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766
5. Anton van Dyck, triple portrait of Charles I. Windsor Castle.
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Page 767
6. Anton van Dyck,

Queen Henrietta Maria.
Brooks Memorial
Art Museum,
Memphis, TN .
7. Anton van Dyck,

Queen Henrietta Maria.
Windsor Castle.
767
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Page 768
768
8. Anton van Dyck, Queen Henrietta Maria. Windsor Castle.
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Page 769
769
9. Bernini, Cardinal Richelieu.

Muse du Louvre, Paris.
10. Philippe de Champaigne,

triple portrait of Richelieu.
National Gallery of Art,
London.
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770
primary views separately on the faces of a rectangular block.16 In Henriettas

case, also, the subtle shift from the full polychromy of the face to the pale
white tonality of the torso, may relate to the Paragone theme.
It is likely that Berninis work on the bust of Charles was in turn the
direct inspiration for the third in the series of Paragone portraits, that of
Richelieu (Fig. 9). Van Dycks painting was sent to Rome soon after March
17, 1635, and the finished bust was shipped from Rome in April 1637.17
The Richelieu project may well have been conceived by Giulio Mazzarino
(later Cardinal Mazarin), who until his departure for Paris, December 13,
1639, was in Rome while Bernini was working from Van Dycks painting.
Hence Philippe de Champaignes triple portrait was explicitly linked to the
same Paragone tradition, and also to Berninis creation of the ideal ruler
image in this case the cardinal-minister (Fig. 10).18 Champaigne, however, adopted the unprecedented alternative of flanking a three-quarter view
by two profiles, thus specifically avoiding the sense of rotation in favor of
the static symmetry of an iconic devotional image. The simultaneous
appearance of opposing, flat views about an oblique center seems uncanny.
The seminal role of Van Dyck was acknowledged by Mazarins wish (never
realized) to replace the Champaigne prototype, which was deemed unsatisfactory, with portraits by Van Dyck himself to serve in the creation of an
another, full-length sculptured image of the cardinal.19 Where Bernini most
acutely felt the challenge of these pictures was in the domain of color the
first of the three desiderata Bernini defined. The Paragone with Van Dycks
image evidently gave rise to Berninis famous disclaimer that the whiteness
of marble made it virtually impossible to achieve a convincing likeness in
that medium. The earliest record of the dictum is the anecdote in the diary
of Nicholas Stone, a British sculptor who visited Berninis studio in Rome,
for October 22, 1638: How can itt than possible be that a marble picture
can resemble the nature when itt is all one coulour, where to the contrary a
man has on coulour in his face, another in his haire, a third in his lips;, and
his eyes yett different from all the rest? Tharefore sayed (the Caualier
16
On Berninis drawings for portraits and caricatures, and the process of marble carving,
see Lavin 1990, 24, 39 f., nn. 18, 19.
17
For the dates see Lightbown 1981, 442, 445.
18
The large literature on the Champaignes and Berninis Richelieu portraits may be
reached though the important contributions of Gaborit 1977, and Laurain-Portemer 1985.
19
Laurain-Portemer 1985, 87.
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771
Bernine) I conclude that itt is the inpossible thinge in the world to make a
picture in stone naturally to resemble any person.
The circumstances of the observation are relevant. Bernini is speaking of
his portrait of a visitor from England, Thomas Baker, which he made after
that of Charles because itt should goe into England, that thay might see the
difference of doing a picture after the life or a painting. 20 In the succeeding
passage Stone reports Berninis oath not to make such portraits, even if by
the hand of Raphael (clearly a recognition of the beauty of Van Dycks
painting), given in response to a request by the pope himself that he make
a portrait after a painting for some other prince; this latter can only have
been Richelieu.21 Bernini repeated the white-face analogy more than once
to Paul Frart de Chantelou, who kept a detailed diary of Berninis visit to
Paris in the summer of 1665 to redesign the Louvre; and it was reported by
Baldinucci and Domenico Bernini where it is used not as a defense, but to
20
On this portrait, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, see Wittkower
1981, 208.
21
. . . after this he began to tell us here was an English gent: who wooed him a long time
to make his effiges in marble, and after a great deale of intreaty and the promise of a large
some of money he did gett of doing a picture after the life or a painting; so he began to
imbost his physyognymy, and being finisht and ready to begin in marble, itt fell out that his
patrone the Pope came to here of itt who sent Cardinall Barberine to forbid him; the gentleman was to come the next morning to sett, in the meane time he defaced the modell in
diuers places, when the gentleman came he began to excuse himselfe that thaire had binn a
mischaunce to the modell and yt he had no mind to goe forward with itt; so I (sayth he) I
returnd him his earnest, and desired him to pardon me; then was the gent. uery much
moued that he should haue such dealing, being he had come so often and had sett diuers
times already; and for my part (sayth the Cauelier) I could not belye itt being commanded
to the contrary; for the Pope would haue no other picture sent into England from his hand
but his Mai ty; then he askt the youg man if he understood Italian well. Then he began to tell
yt the Pope sent for him since the doing of the former head, and would haue him doe another
picture in marble after a painting for some other prince. I told the Pope (says he) that if
thaire were best picture done by the hand of Raphyell yett he would nett undertake to doe
itt, for (sayes he) I told his Hollinesse that itt was impossible that a picture in marble could
haue the semblance of a liuing man; then he askt againe if he understood Italian well; he
answered the Cauelier, perfectly well.
then sayth he, I told his Holinesse that if he went into the next rome and whyted all his
face ouer and his eyes, if possible were, and come forth againe nott being a whit leaner nor
lesse beard, only the chaunging of his colour, no man would know you; for doe not wee see
yt when a man is affrighted thare comes a pallness on the sudden? Presently wee say he likes
nott the same man. How can itt than possible be that a marble picture can resemble the
nature when itt is all one coulour, where to the contrary a man has on coulour in his face,
another in his hair, a third in his lipps, and his eyes yett different from all the rest? Tharefore
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emphasize the greater difficulty of sculpture compared with painting.22

Given Berninis preoccupation with the problem of representing skin tones
in marble, to which he alluded in his letter to Duke Francesco, the Paragone
surely also played a role in his conception of the challenge he sought to meet
in his portraits based on paintings.23 The idea for a comparable portrait of
Francesco dEste may have arisen directly from that of Richelieu, since the
sayd (the Cauelier Bernine) I conclude that itt is the inpossible thinge in the world to
make a picture in stone naturally to semble any person. (Stone 1919, 1701.)
The story is also told by Vertue: The Cavalier told this Author. that it was imossible to
make a bust in Marble. truly like. & to demonstrate it he ordered a person to come in. and
afterwards, haveing flowerd his face all over white. askd Stone if ever he had seen that face
before. he answered no. by which he ment to demonstrate. that the colour of the face. hair.
beard. eyes. lipp. &c. are the greatest part of likeness. (Vertue 192930, 19 f.)
22
En parlant de la sculpture et de la difficult quil y a de russir, particulirement dans
les portraits de marbre et dy metre la ressemblance, il ma dit une chose remarquable et quil
a depuis rpte toute occasion: cest que si quelquun se blanchissait les cheveux, la barbe,
les sourcils et, si cela se pouvait, la prunelle des yeux, et les lvres, et se prsentait en cet tat
ceux mmes qui le voient tous les jours, quils auraient peine le reconnatre; et pour
preuve de cela, il a ajout : Quand une personne tombe en pmoison, la seule pleur qui se
rpand sur son visage fait quon ne le connoit presque plus, et quon dit souvent: Non parea
piu desso; quainsi il est trs-difficile de faire ressembler un portrait de marbre, lequel est tout
dune couleur. Chantelou 1885, 18 (June 6); cf. 1885, 94 (August 12); . . . esser per nel
far somigliare in scultura una certa maggior difficolt, che non nella pittura, mostrando esperienza, che luomo, che simbianca il viso non somiglia a se stesso eppure la scultura in bianco
marmo arriva a farlo somigliante Baldinucci 1948, 146 . . . la Pittura pu . . . con la variet, e vivacit de colri pi facilmnte accostarsi alla effigie del rappresentato, e far bianco ci
che bianco, rosso ci ch rosso; Ma la Scultura priva del commodo de colori, necessitata
ad operar nel sasso, h di mestiere per rendere somiglianti le figure di una impressione vivissima, m schietta, senza lappoggio di mendicati colori, e colla forza solo del Disegno ritrarre
in bianco marmo un volto per altro vermiglio, e renderlo simile; Ci che non riuscirebbe,
conforme mostra lesperienza, in un huomo, che inbiancandosi il viso, benche habbia le
medesime fattezze, rimanesse simile a se, e pur bisogna, che lo Scultore ne procuri la
somiglianza sul bianco marmo. Bernini 1713, 29 f.
23
Doc. 43. Il a dit autre chose plus extraordinaire encore: cest que, quelquefois, dans
un portrait de marbre, il faut, pour bien imiter le naturel, faire ce qui nest pas dans le
naturel. Il semble que ce soit un paradoxe, mais il sen est expliqu ainsi: Pour reprsenter le
livide que quelques-uns ont autour des yeux, il faut creuser dans le marbre lendroit o est
ce livide, pour reprsnter leffet de cette couleur et suppler par cet art, pour ainsi dire, au
dfaut de lart de la sculpture, qui ne peut donner la couleur aux choses. Chantelou 1885,
18 (June 6). It is interesting in this connection that Bernini perceived the aging of marble as
an approximation to the color of flesh: le marbre, neuf ou dix ans aprs avoir t travaill,
acquiert je ne sais quelle douceur et devient enfine couleur de chair. Chantelou 1885, 94
(August 12).
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Modenese agent in Rome gave the Duke a wide-eyed report of the spectacular gift the artist received for his efforts;24 and memory of the royal commission was still an important factor years later in the discussions concerning Francescos portrait.25
While it is wholly characteristic that Bernini should be preoccupied by
the representation of color in marble sculpture, the dilemma is inherent in
the medium, and color is in fact only one of the qualities to which Bernini
refers when in his letter to the Duke he calls the feat he accomplished in the
bust quasi impossibile.26 The unique problem here lay not so much in the
material as in extrapolating a likeness from only painted models, never having seen the natural, as Bernini says. After the experience of Charles I he
had sworn never again to hazard such a task.27 In the case of Francesco
dEste the problem was compounded by the fact that Bernini actually had
before him in working the portrait only two profile views; delivery of the
frontal view he urgently requested was delayed, and in the end he had to
make do with the side views and simple measurements of the Dukes height
See the letter of February 22, 1642, in Freaschetti 1900, 112 n. 2: Per la Citt si
saputo che il Cardinale di Richeli ha donato un gioiello superbissimo al Cavalier Bernino,
et che il Cardinal Mazarino lha regalato nobilissimamente per la statua che di sua mano ha
fatto al primo: onde mille sono gli Encomij che si fanno sopra la Generosit di ambidue.
The gift was mentioned by Bernini 1713, 68: Grad quel Principle [Richelieu] in modo tale
il Ritratto che ne dimostr il gradimento col dono di un Giojelo, che mand al Cavaliere di
trentatr Diamanti, fra quali ve nerano sette di quattordici grani luno di peso. Al Balsimelli
f dare per mancia otto cento scudi. The jewel is evidently one with a portrait of Richelieu
listed among Berninis notable remunerations, valued at 8000 scudi (see n. 50 below); it is
among the many listed in the inventory of Berninis possessions: . . . un gioiello con il
ritratto di Re di Francia circondato da tredici diamanti grossi quanto un cecio, tondi lavorati a faccette e numero novantasei diamanti tra piccoli e mezzani. Borsi et al. 1981, 113.
25
Docs. 10, 20, 35.
26
See our epigraph Doc. 43. Cardinal rinaldo had used the phrase quasi impossibile in
the same context, doubtless repeating what he had heard from Berninis comments to
Nicholas Stone in 1638, cited in n. 21 above.
27
Berninis oath was reported by Stone (n. 21 above) and is also mentioned in the correspondence concerning the bust of Francesco, Docs. 10, 38.
In the end, Bernini was reluctant to do portraits at all, and cited Michelangelo as precedent: Il a rept le difficult quil y a faire un portrait de marbre . . . Il a dit que MichelAnge nen avait jamais voulu faire. . . . Il a dit ensuite ces Messieurs la peine o il tait
toutes les fois quil tait oblig de faire un portrait; quil y avait dj du temps quil avait resolu dans son esprit de nen plus faire, mais que le Roi lui ayant fait lhonneur de lui demander le sien, il navait pas pu refuser un si grand prince . . . Chantelou 1885, 94 (August 12);
cf. Chantelou 1885, 111 (August 21).
24
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and shoulder width.28 Of course, he was obviously proud of what he did

accomplish, and his protestations of difficulty were certainly intended to
augment the appreciation of the result. Yet the sense of inadequacy, even
failure, evident in Berninis complaint is certainly also genuine indeed,
pathetic, considering that portraiture was, after all, a specialty of his, to say
the least. His aptitude for creating likenesses was the basis of his phenomenal reputation as a child prodigy, and contributed largely to the international renown he enjoyed throughout his career.29 The source of Berninis
ruefulness about an artistic genre for which he himself was responsible lay
rather in the other qualities mentioned in his letter to Francesco: spirit and
life. And his frustration in these respects was a fatal by-product of the way
he understood the art of portraiture.
Remarkable insights respecting this last point arise almost incidentally
from the Dukes original indecision whether to commission the work from
Bernini or his great rival, especially in the domain of portraiture, Alessandro
Algardi. The documents recording the negotiations also provide an extraordinary opportunity to compare and contrast the modi operandi of these two
giants of Italian Baroque sculpture. The Dukes brother, Cardinal Rinaldo,
writing from Rome on July 16, 1650, reported: Il Cav.re Algardi scultore
si f pagare i ritratti di marmo intendendo di busto, mezza figura centocinquanta scudi luno, oltre il marmo, che segli d, segli paga. ne daria
uno compito per tutto il mese pross.o dAgosto quando dovesse farlo, e
potr cavar, e formar il luto dalla Pittura, e lo perfezionar in presenza di chi
dovr sodisfarli, per farlo poi pi esattam.te in marmo. H due altre persone
sotto di s di condiz.e inferiore nel mestiere da quali s haverebbe lopra per
la met del sud.o prezo e forse meno. 30 In modest, businesslike fashion, in
a simple, straightforward reply, Algardi offered a fixed time schedule and a
fixed price of 150 scudi. He even offered to have the work executed by his
assistants, at half the cost or less. Not so Bernini, who refused to commit
himself on either time or compensation, emphasizing the great difficulty in
executing portraits under such circumstances.31 To offer less than the best,
28
The frontal view is mentioned in Docs. 10, 11, 12, 14, 16, 17, 20, 69, 73; the shoulder measurements in Docs. 20, 21.
29
On the early portraiture of Bernini, see Lavin 1968.
30
Doc. 5. On this episode, see also the discussion by Montagu 1985, I, 15762.
31
On time and compensation, see p. 779 and n. 47 below. On the difficulty, Docs. 10,
14, 20, 38, 42, 43. On difficolt as a norm of artistic achievement in the Renaissance, see
Summers 1981, 17785.
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and treat the DEste Duke as if he were bargain hunting would have been
beneath both their dignities. Ironically, in his reply of July 22, the Duke
suggested a gift of 100 doubloons to Bernini (worth 200 scudi), while
expressing his indifference as to whether Bernini or Algardi made his portrait.32 In the end, because he wished himself to be seen in a class with the
leading monarchs of his time, Francesco was happy to pay Bernini 3000
scudi for what he might have obtained from Algardi for 150 scudi and the
price of the marble! We shall consider the significance of Berninis attitude
presently. The important point here concerns the nature of the difficulty of
executing a portrait from painted prototypes alone, which seems to have
presented no extraordinary obstacle to Algardi,33 but which Bernini found
intimidating to the point of defeat.
The real reason for which he considered the task quasi impossible and
for which he could never be fully satisfied with the result, lay elsewhere than
in the matter of achieving likeness in the traditional and normal sense of
that term. The problem arose inevitably from the fundamental principles of
what might be called Berninis psycho-philosophy of portraiture, and his
method of creating portraits, as these may be gathered from his letters, his
various statements reported by his biographers, and especially from the
detailed account that has come down to us of his work on the bust of a
monarch, the last in the concatenated series of Berninis secular ruler portraits
to whom he did have ready and frequent access, Louis XIV (p. 923, Fig. 2).34
Chantelou records that the king sat for the artist on no less than seventeen
occasions, five for drawing the subject and twelve for working the marble.35
From this wealth of direct testimony concerning the artists working methods which is itself unprecedented in the history of art it is clear, first
of all, that the notion of likeness had for Bernini a very singular meaning.36
Bernini did not conceive of the sitter as a sitter at all. He insisted on sopping up the character and personality of the subject by sketching him end-
Doc. 6.
On this point, see also Tratz 1988, 466.
34
Berninis earlier portraits of royal heroes (for which concept, see Lavin 1998, 3352)
were specifically recalled in one of the poems on the bust of Louis (Chantelou 1885, 100,
August 16).
35
See Chantelou 1985, 38, n. 116.
36
For what follows, Wittkowers splendid study (1951) remains an inspiration.
32
33
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lessly in action moving, working, playing tennis, conversing37 because

one is never more like oneself than at those moments;38 he preferred to represent the subject as he started or finished speaking (the exquisitely subtle
psychological discrimination is paradoxical, since it focuses on the inher37
See the descriptions cited in the next note. Bernini himself described the purpose of
the sketches: Le Cavalier . . . a besoin prsent de voir le Roi pour le particulier du visage
de Sa Majest, nayant jusques ici travaill quau gnral; durant quoi il na mme presque
pas regard ses dessins, quaussi ne les avait-il faits que pour simprimer plus particulirement
limage du Roi dans lesprit et faire quelle y demeurt insuppata et rinvenuta, pour se servir
de ses propres termes; quautrement, sil avait travaill daprs sesdessins, au lieu din original il ne ferait quune copie; que mme, sil lui fallait copier le buste lorsquil laura achev,
il ne lui serait pas possible de le faire tout semblable; que la noblesse de lide ny serait plus
cause de la servitude de limitation . . . (Chantelou 1885, 75, July 30). The point Bernini
makes here about not repeating himself even in deliberate copies of the same bust was based
on no less than three instances in which replacements were required by imperfections in the
marble: Scipione Borghese, Urban VIII, Innocent X (see Johnston et al. 1986, No. 14;
Wittkower 1981, 221 f.). In each case, the second versions show subtle but significant
changes. No doubt because of the time limitations, to provide for just such an eventuality,
as Domenico Bernini reports, Bernini at the outset ordered two blocks to be prepared for the
bust of Louis. The time factor is mentioned in a letter of June 5 by Matteo deRossi (Mirot
1904, 207) and on June 11 by Chantelou (1885, 30). On the two blocks of marble, see
Chantelou 1885, 40 f., June 30, and Bernini 1713, 135.
Given Berninis repeated emphasis on the limitations of marble portraiture, especially
with respect to colour, it will be seen that more than flattery lay behind Berninis remarks in
the famous exchange between the artist and the King on one such occasion, reported by
Chantelou: . . . il a dessin daprs le Roi, sans que S. M. ait t assujettie de demeurer en
une place. Le Cavalier prenait son temps au mieux quil pouvait; aussi disait-il de temps
autre, quand le Roi le regardait: Sto rubando. Une foi le Roi lui repartit, et en italien mme:
Si, ma per restituire. Il rpliqua lors Sa Majest: Per per restituire meno del rubato. (1885,
40, June 28.)
38
Diceva egli che nel ritrarre alcuno al naturale consisteva il tutto in saper conoscere
quella qualit, che ciascheduno ha di proprio, e che non ha la natura dato ad altri che a lui,
ma che bisognava pigliare qualche particolarit non brutta, ma bella. A questeffetto tenne
un costume dal comune modo assai diverso, e fu: che nel ritrarre alcuno non voleva chegli
stesse fermo, ma che si si movesse, e che parlasse, perch, in tal lmodo, diceva egli, che
vedeva tutto il suo bellow e lo contrafaceva comegli era: asserendo, che nello starsi al naturale immobilmente fermo, egli non mai tanto simile a se stesso, quanto egli nel moto, in
cui quelle qualit consistono, che sono tutte sue e non daltri e che danno la comiglanza al
ritratto; ma lintero conoscer ci (dico io) non giuoco da fanciulli. (Baldinucci 1948, 144.)
Tenne un costume il Cavaliere, ben dal commune modo assai diverso, nel ritrarre altrui nel
Marmo, nel disegno: Non voleva che il figurato stasse fermo, m chei colla sua solita naturalezza si movesse, e parlasse, perche in tal modo, diceva, chei vedeva tutto il suo bello, el
contrafaceva, comegli era, asserendo, che nello starsi al naturale immobilmente fermo, egli
non mai tanto simile a s stesso, quanto nel moto, in cui consistono tutte quelle qualit,
che sono sue, e non di altri, e che danno la somiglianza al Ritratto. (Bernini 1713, 133 f.)
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ently unselfconscious phases of what is, after all, the rhetorical act par excellence, speaking).39 Algardi felt able to satisfy his patron (and himself ) by
preparing the sculpture from the painted models, and finishing it in the
presence and to the satisfaction of whoever was responsible for the work.
Such a procedure could never have satisfied Bernini, since only from the living model could he could observe and reproduce, not only the subjects features but also, and especially, his characteristic expression and movement
in a word, his spirit and life. A corollary of this definition and mode of creating a likeness was the equally unorthodox way Bernini put the final
touches on the bust of Louis. To the amazement of those who witnessed the
process, he deliberately discarded the preparatory studies and models he had
so laboriously produced, and completed the work not from memory but
directly from the living model, in the presence of the king in person
otherwise, he said, he would be copying himself, not Louis XIV.40
The central point, however, central also in Berninis list of the three
39
Le Cavalier, continuant de travailler la bouche, a dit que, pour russir dans un portrait, il faut prendre un acte et tcher le bien reprsenter; que la plus beau temps quon
cherche attraper ce moment. (Chantelou 1885, 133, September 4.) On the notion of the
speaking likeness, see important paper by Harris 1992.
40
See the passages in Chantelou cited in n. 34 above and n. 39 below. The procedure is
described by the biographers: Per fare il ritratto della maest del re di Francia, egli ne fece
prima alquanti modelli; nel metter poi mano allopera, alla presenza del re tutti se gli tolse
dattorno e a quel monarca che ammirando quel fatto, gli domand la cagione del non volersi valere delle sue fattiche, rispose che i modelli gli erano serviti per introdurre nella fantasia le fattezze di chi egli dovea ritrarre, ma quando gi le aveva concepite e dovea dar fuori il
parto, non gli erano pi necessari, anzi dannosi al suo fine, che era di darlo fuori non simile
amodelli, ma al vero. (Baldinucci 1948, 144); In oltre f suo costantissimo proposito in
somiglianti materie, far prima molti disegni, e molti della figura, chegli dovea rappresentare,
m quando poi nel Marmo metteva mano allopera, tutti se li toglieva dattorno, come se a
nulla gli servissero: E richiesto dal R, che prese maraviglia di questo fatto con domandargliene la cagione, del non volersi valere delle sue istesse fatiche, rispose, che i Modelli gli
erano serviti per introdurre nella fantasia le fattezze di ch egli doveva ritrarre, m quando
gi le haveva concepite, e doveva dar fuori il parto, non gli erano pi necessarii, anzi dannosi
al suo fine, che era di darlo fuori, non simile alli Modelli, m al Vero. (Bernini 1713, 134.)
See also the report of Berninis enemy in Paris, Charles Perrault: Il travailla dabord sur
le marbre, et ne fit point de modle de terre, comme les autres sculpteurs ont accoutum de
faire, il se contenta de dessiner en pastel deux ou trois profils du visage du Roi, non point,
ce quil disoit, pour les copier dans son buste, mais seulement pour rafrachir son ide de
temps en temps, ajoutant quil navoit garde de copier son pastel, parce qualors son buste
nauroit t quune copie, qui de sa nature est toujours moindre que son original. (Perrault
1909, 61 f.)
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essential qualities he sought in his portraits, lay beyond even the creation of
a living likeness. The point is already evident in another, complementary
peculiarity of Berninis portrait-working procedure: at the very outset, even
before working on the likeness, he sketched in clay the action he intended
to give the bust;41 he began, that is, with a concept, which he continued to
develop in the model, while studying the details of the kings features in life
drawings. And this idea of the subject is what preoccupied him when he
put aside the drawings to work on the marble. Bernini himself defined the
point in the explanation he gave of the relationship between his way of
working on a portrait and the meaning he wanted it to convey. The statement occurs in a passage where Bernini explains to Colbert the rapid
progress he was presently making in carving the bust of Louis XIV: until
now he had worked entirely from his imagination, looking only rarely at his
drawings; he had searched chiefly within, he said, tapping his forehead,
where there existed the idea of His Majesty; had he done otherwise his work
would have been a copy instead of an original. This method of his was
extremely difficult, and the King, in ordering a portrait, could not have
asked anything harder; he was striving to make it less bad than the others
that he had done; in this kind of head one must bring out the qualities of a
hero as well as make a good likeness.42 Here it is clear that the ultimate difficulty lay in Berninis ultimate goal, to realize his own idea of the monarch
his spirit by capturing the Kings heroic qualities while recording
Louiss likeness, as Bernini understood that notion. For Bernini a portrait
was a preternatural thing, a composite counterfeit of an idea and of vitality
41
. . . il a demand de la terre afine de faire des bauches de laction quil pourrait donner au buste, en attendant quil travaillt la ressemblance. Chantelou 1885, 30, June 11.
On the point see Wittkower 1951, 6. Giulio Mancini in the early seventeenth century made
the fundamental distinction btween the ritratto semplice, that of pure imitation, and the
ritratto dellattion et affetto (Mancini 19567, I, 115 f.; see the perspicacious note by Bauer
in Chantelou 1985, 85 f., n. 154).
42
M. Colbert Lui a tmoign tre tonne combien louvrage tit avanc, et quil le
trouvait si ressemblant quil ne jugewait pas quil ft besoin quil travaillt Saint-Germain.
Le Cavalier a reparti quil y avait toujours faire qui voulait faire bien; que jusqiici il avait
presque toujours travaill dimagination, et quil navait regard que rarement les dessins quil
a; quil ne regardait principalement que l dedans, montrant son front, o il a dit qutait.)
lide de Sa Majest; que autrement il naurait fait quune copie au lieu dun original, mais
que cela lui donnait une peine extrme et que le roi, lui demandant son portrait, ne pouvait
pas lui commander rien de plus pnible: quil tcherait que ce ft le moins mauvais de tous
ceux quil aura faits; que, dans ces sortes de portraits, il faut, outre la ressemblance, y mettre
ce qui doit tre dans des ttes de hros. (Chantelou 1885, 72 g., July 29.)
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itself. For this reason, above all, to carve a marble portrait of a living subject without seeing him in action was for Bernini not only difficult, but
quasi impossible; and, after the bust of Francesco, he kept his vow never to
do so again.
The second, sociological point I want to consider concerns Berninis
attitude toward the DEste commission. It is very clear that Bernini was not
anxious to undertake the portrait, and there may have been other reasons
than the difficulty of the task. Francesco I was, after all, not as important as
Charles I or Richelieu. There may also have been a political factor.
Francesco I was closely tied to France, most conspicuously in his capacity as
commander of the French troops in Italy. Bernini had been intimately associated with Urban VIII Barberini, who had also been a partisan of France.
When Urban VIII was succeeded by Innocent X Pamphili, the arch-enemy
of both the Barberini and the French, Bernini fell from favor and had only
recently redeemed himself with his invention for the Innocents pet project
for the fountain in the Piazza Navona, where the pope was building his new
family palace. Perhaps Bernini felt it unwise to work too closely with the
French faction. Even so, Berninis dealings with his noble patron must have
seemed even more remarkable then than they do today. He was so occupied
with other projects, notably the Piazza Navona fountain that he had no
time;43 he was so busy that it was difficult to reach him;44 he worked only
for friends and important patrons; he had to be frequently coaxed and
reminded, and sufficiently remunerated; he would never discuss time or
money,45 and specific terms only emerged indirectly, in relation to payments
and honoraria he had received from other grand patrons: 3000 scudi from
Innocent X for the Piazza Navona fountain,46 a diamond ring worth 6000
scudi from Charles I for his bust of the king.47
All this reflects the attitude, and acumen, of the most successful and
sought after image-maker of the day. But the attitude involved much more
than finances. The social status of the artist was involved. In so many words,
Docs. 9, 25.
Doc. 23.
45
Doc. 4.
46
Doc. 32, 40, 41, 68, 69.
47
Doc. 20 and n. 50 below. Other sources put the value at 4000 scudi (Lightbown 1981,
447 ff., who also compares the costs of other works by Bernini, e.g., 1000 scudi for the portrait of Scipione Borghese).
43
44
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Bernini was said to act independent (opera da s)48 and I suspect this was
precisely the point. Berninis attitude must indeed have seemed arrogant,
especially for an artist; but for this very reason it signified that he belonged,
and clearly thought of himself as belonging, in a long tradition reaching
back to antiquity and including in his own time the likes of Velasquez and
Rubens, of artists who sought to rise above the condition of servile artisan
to the level of an aristocracy of the spirit, a meritocracy of the intellect and
creativity. Nobility was not paid wages, and the proper, indeed only, form
of recognition among the aristocracy was the gift. It is symptomatic in this
context that throughout the correspondence the consideration for Bernini
is exclusively referred to as a gift (regalo), never as a payment or a fee.49 The
distinction is clear from the fact that for all three princely busts (Charles I,
Richelieu, Francesco I) Bernini received, or was offered in the case of
Francesco, gifts, whereas the messengers who delivered the sculptures were
given tips.50 The phraseology was significant when Francescos agent in
Rome reported that Mazarin had regalato nobilissimamente. 51 Francesco
resorted to a delicate subterfuge in deference to this principle of social disquesto opera da s, et vi vuole destrezza nel sollecitarlo (Doc. 23).
See the documents cited in n. 46 above; also Doc. 37. On the significance of the gift
as remuneration, see the section on Old and New Ways of Evaluating Works of Art in
Wittkower, R. and M., 1963, 2225, and recently Warwick 1997, 632 f. The Wittkowers
tended to see the gift in relation to the earlier, craft tradition of barter and payment in kind,
rather than in the tradition of noble courtesy. The main difference is that in the former case
the goods were generally of a practical nature, whereas in the latter they were conspicuously
luxury items. On the Nobility of the artists profession and related factors, see the
Wittkowerss chapter Between Famine and Fame, 25380. In one instance Bernini himself
uses the phrase mi f pagare (Doc. 76).
50
The gifts for the portraits are mentioned in a list of some of Berninis notable remunerations, among the Bernini papers in the Bibliothque National in Paris:
Aclune remunerazioni haute dal cav.re Bernino
Per il ritratto del R Carlo 2.o dInghilterra undiamante che portava in ditto, di valore
di sei mila scudi
Per il ritratto del Card.le Richelie una gioia di quattro mila scudi
Per il ritratto del Duca Fran.co di Modena tre mila scudi in tanti Argenti B.N. ms ital
2084, fol. 126 r.
Domenico Bernini mentions the generous mancia given to the assistants who accompanied to their destinations the busts of Charles I, . . . si cav dal dito un Diamante di sei
mila scudi di valore, e consegnatelo a Bonifazio disse, . . ..; in oltre mand al Cavaliere
copiosi regali di preziosissimi panni, & a Bonifazio f donare per mancia mille scudi
(Bernini 1713, 65 f.), and Richelieu (see n. 24 above).
51
See n. 24 above.
48
49
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tinction, instructing his emissary to tell Bernini that the Duke had sent
3000 scudi in order to purchase a suitable gift, but that the artist might take
the money, if he preferred.52 Bernini opted for the cash, because he was
already sufficiently provided with jewels and silver!53 People, including
Bernini, were saying that the size of the consideration, being equal to the
generosity of Innocent X for the Piazza Navona fountain, risked putting
even the pope to shame.54 Bernini described the value of the gift as the mark
of the more than regal generosity of the House of Este.55 It is important to
understand that the idea and value of a princely reward worked both ways:
the report that he had outclassed the pope was certainly intended to flatter
Francesco, who had himself remarked that by making Bernini happy he
would affirm his own status as a patron: col far restar contento il Bernino
penso di conservarmi il credito di stimar la virt et i virtuosi.56 The credit
Francesco earned by this grand gesture of magnanimity contributed to the
reputation that contemporary political theory required of the virtuousruler.57 For Bernini, indeed, the idea of a meritocracy also worked both
ways, as when years later he told Louis XIV he admired the king more for
his virt than for his noble birth (see Lavin, 1998, 47).
From a formal point of view the series inaugurates a new phase in the
history of European art. Two portraits of Charles I, very different from one
another, have good claim to reflect Berninis bust, which was lost in the
famous fire of Whitehall in 1698. Most frequently cited are a bust shown
in an engraving attributed to Robert Van Voerst and, with a different
pedestal, a sculpture attributed to Thomas Adey (Figs. 12, 13). A strong
argument against this work being a true copy after Berninis sculpture is that
everything about the image, including the pedestal shown in the engraving,
coincides with the conventional bust-type of Charles I developed by
Franois Dieussart before Berninis sculpture arrived in England58 everyThe Duke conceived the plot when he discovered that the German silver credenza he
had thought to acquire was exorbitant and not worth the price: Doc. 30. The 3000 scudi for
Bernini are mentioned in Docs. 66, 77, 79. Cf. also Docs. 86, 87, 88.
53
Doc. 69. On Berninis collection of jewels see n. 24 above.
54
Doc. 68.
55
Doc. 76.
56
Doc. 18; see also Doc. 85.
57
On reputation see Lavin 1998, 35, 37.
58
The engraving and the Windsor bust were first related to Berninis lost portrait, respectively by Cust 19089, and Esdaile 1938, 1949. The counterargument, based on the earlier
busts by Dieussart, was made by Vickers 1978.
52
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11. Attributed to Robert van Voerst, Charles I, engraving.

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12. Thomas Adey (?), Charles I. Windsor Castle.
783
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784
13. Louis-Franois Roubiliac (?), Charles I,

Courtauld Institute Galleries, London.
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thing, that is, except for one feature, the sideward and upward thrust of the
head the theme of the divinely inspired monarch which thereafter
became one of the signal features of Berninis ruler portraits. On the other
hand, there are strong reasons to find a reflection of Berninis bust in a terracotta portrait of Charles attributed to Roubiliac, notably the fact that,
unlike other busts of the King, this one includes both the order of St.
George as a pendant at the breast and the Star emblazoned on the cloak over
the heart as in Van Dycks portrait (Fig. 13);59 and the fact that the lower
torso is enveloped by the drapery in such as way as to dissimulate the
amputated edges an idiosyncratic illusionistic device that Bernini also
developed into a buoyant vehicle of apotheosis.
In any case, it seems clear that Bernini departed from Van Dycks model
in three essential ways, by showing the king in armor, by changing the disposition of the head, and by treating the drapery as a metaphorical adjunct
of the bust form. If we imagine the figure of the king heroicized by the military costume, the heads psychological expression of lofty inspiration, and
the uncanny, floating effect of the torso, we shall have some sense of what
must indeed have seemed a revolutionary and ideal way of portraying a
Christian head of state. Even the bust of Cardinal Richelieu, as quasi-head
of state, has an exalted, regal bearing that does not appear in Philippe de
Champaignes portrait, and has no counterpart in Berninis busts of other
ecclesiastics, including the popes.60
All these considerations lay behind the portrait of Francesco I, so that,
mirabile dictu, the very factors that made the bust an impresa quasi impossibile also made it the herald of a new epoch in the history of European
culture.
See Vickers 1978.

On the ancient precedents for this theme see LOrange 1982; in relation to Bernini,
Lavin 1993, pp. 161 ff., and Lavin, 1998, 41f. In Berninis work the type had its nearest
analogy in images of religious inspiration expressed in such portrayals as those of Roberto
Bellarmino, suor Maria Raggi, and Gabrielle Fonseca. It is important to note, however, that
with the exception of Richelieu, Bernini never used this type for his portraits of living ecclesiastics, including popes (for whom humility was the key), but returned to it at the end of
his life for his portrait of the Salvator Mundi (for which, in relation to the tradition of portrait-bust apotheosis, see Lavin 1972, 17784).
59
60
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Avery, C., Bernini. Genius of the Baroque, Boston, etc., 1997.
Baldinucci, F., Vita del cavaliere Gio. Lorenzo Bernino, Florence, 1682; ed.
S. S. Ludovici, Milan, 1948.
Bentini, J., and P. Curti, eds., Arredi, suppellettili e pitture famose: degli
Estensi. Inventari 1663, Modena, 1993.
Berger, Robert W., In the Garden of the Sun King. Studies on the Park of
Versailles under Louis XIV, Washington, DC, 1985.
Bernini, D., Vita del cavalier Gio. Lorenzo Bernino, Rome, 1713.
Bireley, R., The Counter-Reformation Prince, Raleigh, N.C., 1990
Borsi, F., et al., Gianlorenzo Bernini. Il testamento la casa la raccolta dei beni,
Florence, 1981.
Brown, C., Van Dyck, Oxford, 1982.
Brown, D. A., et al., Lorenzo Lotto. Rediscovered Master of the Renaissance,
exhib. cat., New Haven and London, 1997.
Chantelou, P. Frart de, Journal du voyage du Cavalier Bernin en France, ed.,
L. Lalanne, Paris, 1885.
Diary of the Cavaliere Berninis Visit to France, edited and with an introduction by Anthony Blunt, annotated by George C. Bauer, translated by
Margery Corbett, Princeton, 1985.
Cust, L., Notes on Pictures in the Royal Collections. The Triple Portrait of
Charles I by Van Dyck and the Bust of Bernini, The Burlington
Magazine, XIV, 19089, 33740.
Esdaile, K. A., Two Busts of Charles I and William III, The Burlington
Magazine, LXXII, 1938, 16471.
The busts and Statues of Charles I, The Burlington Magazine, XCI,
1949, 915.
Farago, C. J., Leonardo da Vincis Paragone. A Critical Interpretation with a
New Edition of the Text in the Codex Urbinas, Leiden, etc., 1992.
Fraschetti, S., Il Bernini. La sua vita, la sua opera, il suo tempo, Milano,
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1900.
Gaborit, J.-R., Le Bernin, Mocchi et le Buste de Richeliu du Muse du
Louvre. Un Probleme dattribution, Bulletin de la Socit de lHistoire de
lArt Francais, 1977, 8591.
Gould, C., Bernini in France. An Episode in Seventeenth-Century History,
Princeton, 1982.
Harris, A. S., Vouet, le Bernin, et la ressemblance parlante , Rencontres
de lcole du Louvre, 1992, 192206.
Humphrey, P., Lorenzo Lotto, New Haven and London, 1997.
Johnston, C., et. al., Vatican Splendour: Masterpieces of Baroque Art, exhib.
cat., Ottawa, 1986.
Keisch, C., Portraits in mehrfacher Ansicht. berlieferung und
Sinnwandel einer Bildidee, Staaliche Museen zu Berlin. Forschungen und
Berichte XVII, 1976, 20539.
Larsen, E., The paintings of Anthony Van Dyck, 2 Vols., Dsseldorf, 1988.
Laurain-Portemer, M., La Politique Artistique de Mazarin, in Il Cardinale
Mazzarino in Francia: colloquio italo-francese (Accademia nazionale dei
Lincei, Atti dei convegni lincei 35), Rome, 1977, 4176 (reprinted in
her tudes mazarines, Paris, 1981, 177235).
Fortuna e sfortuna di Bernini nella Francia di Mazzarino, Bernini e lunit
delle arti visive, Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome, 1985, 11329.
Chronology of his Early Works, The Art Bulletin, L, 1968, 22348.
Berninis Death, The Art Bulletin, LIV, 1972, 15886.
High and Low Before their Time: Bernini and the Art of Social Satire,
in K. Varnadoe and A. Gopnik, eds., Modern Art and Popular Culture.
Readings in High & Low, New York, 1990, 1850.
PastPresent. Essays on Historicism in Art from Donatello to Picasso,
Berkeley, CA, 1993.
Bernini e limmagine de principe cristiano ideale, Modena, 1998.
Lee, Rensselaer W., Name on Trees: Ariosto into Art, Princeton, 1977.
Lightbown, R. W., Berninis Busts of English Patrons, in M. Barasch and
L. F. Sandler, eds., Art the Ape of Nature, Studies in Honor of H. W.
Janson, ed., New York, 1981, 43976.
LOrange, H. P., Apotheosis in Ancient Portraiture, New Rochelle, N.Y., 1982.
Mancini, G., Considerazioni sulla pittura, eds. A. Marucchi and L. Salerno,
2 Vols. Rome, 19567.
Mendelsohn, L., Paragoni. Benedetton Varchis Due Lezzioni and
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Cinquecento Art Theory, Ann Arbor, Mich., 1982.

Millar, O., The Tudor, Stuart and Early Georgian Pictures in the Collection of
Her Majesty the Queen, London, 1963, 96 f.
Van Dyck in England, exhib. cat., London, 1982.
Mirot, L., Le Bernin en France. Les travaux du Louvre et les statues de
Louis XIV, Mmoires de la socite de lhistoire de Paris et de lIle de France,
1904, 161288.
Pedretti, C., Disegni di Leonardo da Vinci e della sua scuola alla biblioteca
reale di Torino, Florence, 1975.
Pepe, M., Il paragone tra pittura e scultura nella letteratura artistica rinascimentale, Cultura e scuola, XXX, 1968, pp. 12031.
Perrault, C., Mmoires de ma vie (1702); voyage a Bordeaux (1669), ed., Paul
Bonnefon, Paris, 1909.
Raatschen, G., Plaster casts of Berninis busts of Charles I, The Burlington
Magazine, XCCCVIII, 1996, 613816.*
Stone, N., The Note-Book and Account Book of Nicholas Stone, (ca. 1640),
transcribed and annotated by Walter L. Spiers, Walpole Society, VII, 1919.
Summers, D., Michelangelo and the Language of Art, Princeton, 1981.
Tratz, Helga, Werkstatt und Arbeitsweise Berninis, Rmisches Jahrbuch fr
Kunstgeschichte, XXIII/XXIV, 397485.*
Vertue, G., Note-Books) (c. 1713): Vol. I, Walpole Society, XVIII,
192930.
Vickers, M., Rupert of the Rhine, Apollo, CVII, 1978, 1619.
Warwick, G., Gift Exchange and Art Collecting: Padre Sebastiano Restas
Drawing Albums, The Art Bulletin, LXXIX, 1997, 63046.
Wheelock, A. K., et al., eds. Anthony van Dyck, exhib. cat., Washington, 1990.
Wittkower, R., Berninis Bust of Louis XIV, London, etc., 1951.
The Vicissitudes of a Dynastic Monument. Berninis Equestrian Statue
of Louix XIV, in M. Meiss, ed., De Artibus Opuscula XL. Essays in
Honor of Erwin Panofsky, New York, 1961, 497531 (reprinted in his
Studies in the Italian Baroque, London, 1975, 83102).
Wittkower, R. and M., Born Under Saturn. The Character and Conduct of
Artists: A Documented History from Antiquity to the French Revolution,
New York, 1963.
Gian Lorenzo Bernini. The Sculptor of the Roman Baroque, Oxford, 1981.
Zampetti, P., and V. Sgarbi, eds., Lorenzo Lotto. Atti del convegno internazionale di studi per il V centenario della nascita, Asolo 1821 settembre
1980, Treviso, 1981.
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XXI
Berninis Bust of the Medusa: An Awful Pun
S an intellectual discipline the history of art has labored under what

might be called an endemic disability when it comes to expressing
visual ideas in words. It is a well-known fact that antiquity left nothing for
the visual arts to compare with the vast body of classical theory and criticism centered upon the expressive and persuasive use of words, or rhetoric,
in various literary genres. A consequence of this discrepancy is that much of
the language of art that developed subsequently, notably in the Renaissance,
was borrowed from the domain of literature, especially poetry.1 The title of
the present paper adopts, faute de mieux, one of these loan concepts in two
forms, in name and in example, in order to convey the thought which, as I
believe, underlies one remarkable work of visual art. In English, the term
pun, meaning specifically the equivocal use of a single word with more
than one meaning, is itself singularly appropriate to its meaning because its
origin is quite mysterious the etymological equivalent, as it were, of the
uncanny, illuminating effect such plays on words can sometimes achieve.2
And awful is here meant to suggest both that which is reprehensible, and
that which is terrifying, stunning in the present case, indeed, petrifying.
*
1 The
2
point is made in the classic study by Lee 1967, 6f.

See Oxford 1961, VIII, 1594, center column.
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I take as my point of departure what seems to me one of the most startling

and least appreciated of the numerous obiter dicta by and attributed to
Bernini in the contemporary sources.3 The statement is recorded, in slightly
varying form, indirectly by his biographers, Baldinucci and his son
Domenico Bernini, and in Berninis own words in Chantelous diary of the
artists visit to Paris in 1665: He said that among the works of antiquity,
the Laocon and the Pasquino contain, in themselves, all the best of art,
since one sees in them all that is most perfect reproduced without the affectation of art (Figs. 14). The most beautiful statues existing in Rome were
those in the Belvedere and among those still whole the Laocon, for its
expression of emotion, and in particular for the intelligence it displays in
that leg which, already being affected by the poison, seems to be numb. He
said, however, that the Torso (Fig. 5) and the Pasquino seemed to him more
perfect stylistically than the Laocon itself, but that the latter was whole
while the others were not. The difference between the Pasquino and the
Torso is almost imperceptible, not to be discerned except by a great man,
and the Pasquino was rather better. He was the first in Rome to place the
Pasquino in the highest esteem, and it is said that he was once asked by
someone from beyond the Alps which was the most beautiful statue in
Rome, and that when he responded, the Pasquino, the foreigner thought he
was mocking him and was ready to come to blows. 4 Berninis assertion was
3 The basic studies of Berninis views on art and art theory remain those of Barton
19457 and Schudt 1949.
4 The texts concerning Bernini and the Pasquino, on which I have commented in
another context (Lavin 1990, 32), are as follows: M. le nonce, changeant de matire, a
demand au Cavalier laquelle des figures antiques il estimait devantage. Il a dit que ctait le
Pasquin, et quun cardinal lui ayant un jour fait la mme demande, il lui avait rpondu la
mme chose, ce quil avait pris pour une raillerie quil faisait de lui et sen tait fach; quil
fallait bien quil neut pas lu ce quon en avait crit, et que le Pasquin tait une figure de
Phidias ou de Praxitle et reprsentait le serviteur dAlexandre, le soutenant quand il reut
un coup de flche au sige de Tyr; qu la vrit, mutile et ruine comme est cette figure, le
reste de beaut qui y est nest connu que des savants dans le dessin. (Chantelou 1885, 25f.)
Diceva che il Laocoonte e il Pasquino nellantico avevano in s tutto il buono dellarte, perch vi si scorgeva imitato tutto il pi perfetto della natura, senza affettazione dellarte. Che
le pi belle statue che fussero in Roma eran quelle di Belvedere e fra quelle dico fra le intere,
il Laocoonte per lespressione dellaffetto, ed in particolare per lintelligenza che si scorge in
quella gamba, la quale per esserve gi arrivato il veleno, apparisce intirizzita; diceva per, che
il Torso ed il Pasquino gli parevano di pi perfetta maniera del Laocoonte stesso, ma che questo era intero e gli altri no. Fra il Pasquino ed il Torso esser la differenza quasi impercettibile,
n potersi ravvisare se non da uomo grande e pi tosto migliore essere il Pasquino. Fu il
primo il Bernino che mettesse questa statua in altissimo credito in Roma e raccontasi che
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the more provocative in that the Pasquino was the most notorious of the
speaking statues of Rome to which the common, and often the uncommon populous, like Aretino, Bembo, Francesco Berni, gave voice by affixing to the disfigured and disreputable sculpture acerbic, mocking diatribes
against the august and powerful, written in vulgar (in terms of content as
well language) prose and poetry (Fig. 6).
It should be said at once that Bernini was not the first to appreciate the
Pasquino; even the popular Rome guidebooks pointed out the high quality
of the group.5 But as far as I can discover, Bernini was indeed the first (and
perhaps also the last) to give it the highest rating among the statues of
Rome. That he meant the evaluation seriously is evident from the critical
compositional role the Pasquino played throughout the early series of heroic
male figures, Aeneas, Neptune, Pluto, and David; the theme reverberates
again years later in the centerpiece of the Fontana del Moro perhaps with
a particular significance, since the fountain is located in the Piazza Navona,
adjacent to the Piazza Pasquino (Figs. 711).6
essendogli una volta stato domandato da un oltramontano qual fusse la pi bella statua di
quella citt e respondendo che il Pasquino, il forestiero che si credette burlato fu per venir
con lui a cimento. (Baldinucci 1948 [1682], 146) Con uguale attenzione pose il suo studio
ancora in ammirar le parti di quei due celebri Torsi di Hercole, e di Pasquino, quegli riconosciuto per suo Maestro dal Buonarota, questi dal Bernino, che f il primo, che ponesse in
alto concetto in Roma questa nobilissima Statua; Anzi avvenne, che richiesto una volta da
un nobile forastiere Oltramontano. Quale fosse la Statua pi riguardevole in Roma? e rispostogli, Che il Pasquino, quello di s le furie, stimandosi burlato, e poco manc, che non ne
venisse a cimento con lui; E di questi due Torsi era solito dire, che contenevano in se tutto
il pi perfetto della Natura senza affettazione dellArte. (Bernini 1713, 13f.)
5 See Lavin 1990, 43 n. 51
6 It might be said that Berninis preoccupation with the Pasquino distinguishes the contrapostal action of his figures, which he developed from the serpentine movement he learned
from his father: compare Pietro Berninis St. John the Baptist in S. Andrea della Valle (Lavin
1968b, where the infusion of the spirit of antiquity generally in Berninis early work is
stressed). Nor was Bernnis interest in the Pasquino purely formal. He certainly appreciated
the tradition of anonymous public satire with which the sculpture was associated, since he
undoubtedly referred to it (rather than himself, as usually assumed) when he spoke of someone in Rome qui le public a toujours rendu la justice qui tait due son savoir, quelque
chose quon ait pu dire et faire contre lui; ce qui fait voir que si le particulier est injuste
Rome, enfin le public ne lest pas (Chantelou 1885, 59); Bernini may have linked this high
moral function with the noble style of the work. Although identifications varied, all understood the group as portraying an heroic action of salvation; see Haskell and Penny 1981,
192. DOnofrio 1986, 444, also notes the relation of the Moro to the Pasquino.
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Among the many points of interest in this anecdote, two concern me

here. The first arises from the fact, surprising to our modern sensibility, that
Bernini found in the Laocon and the Pasquino all the perfection of nature,
without the affectation of art. Conversely, Berninis esteem for the emotional content of the Laocon is hardly a surprise coming from the Italian
Baroque artist par excellence. It is important to learn, however, that the fullor indeed overblown visual rhetoric we tend to perceive in Hellenistic style,
Bernini regarded not even as a justifiable exaggeration but as the epitome of
naturalism. And we can only understand his emphasis on the Laocons
unaffected naturalness in the expression of emotions, in terms of an ideal or
heroic notion of beauty precisely the concept implicit in his view that
the sculpture comprised all the good in art because it reflected all the most
perfect in nature. Particularly moving in his eulogy and this is the second point in the passage I want to address is the fine subtlety with which
he singles out for praise the leg that rigidifies (intirizzata) at the first touch
of the serpents fangs. Virgil in his famous description of the event makes
no reference to such a process, and it seems clear that Bernini understood
this transformation as a metaphor for the miraculous paradox of the sculptors capacity to bring stone to life by portraying the onset of rigor mortis.7
In my view Bernini in this passage must have had in mind a modern
work he greatly admired and carefully studied, the Farnese Gallery, where
Annibale Carracci had manipulated the heritage of antiquity with grandiose
artificiality in order to demonstrate the power of art (the power of love, in
terms of the mythological narrative) to obliterate the distinction between
fact and fiction (Fig. 12).8 This artifice was patently evident in what might
be called the double paragone embedded in the complex imagery and formal illusionism of the frescoed ceiling: ut pictura poesis with respect to the
relationship between two temporal states, the past made present by words
(mainly in Ovids Metamorphoses itself, after all, a text about magical
transformations of reality) and their visual equivalents in paint and stone;
and ut pictura sculptura with respect to the relationship between two existential states, one polychrome but painted on a flat surface (that is, visually
7
Aeneid II, 199227; Virgil 1999, I, 330f..

The amatory theme of the gallery has been emphasized above all by Dempsey (most
recently, 1995). The vault bears the date 1600, evidently in reference to the marriage in that
year of Ranuccio Farnese to Margherita Aldobrandini; one of the scenes, The Rape of
Cephalus, corresponds to a play by Gabriello Chiabrera produced for another marriage in the
same year (Lavin 1954, 27884).
8
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793
true but physically false), the other monochrome but sculpted in the round
(that is, visually false but physically true).9
Specifically, Berninis observation concerning the Laocons leg
inevitably calls to mind what were perhaps the most conspicuous and portentous depictions of such a transformation, the pictures of Perseus rescuing Andromeda and slaying Phineus on the facing end walls of the Farnese
Gallery (Figs. 1315). In the first scene the pale coloration of the body
of Andromeda seems to allude to Ovids comparison of her nude body
chained to the rock as resembling a marble sculpture; and for the episode of
Perseus killing the sea monster, Carracci adopted a version of the story in
which Perseus dispatches the beast not with a sword, as in Ovid, but by petrifying it with the head of Medusa, a process that the stony color of the animal indicates has already begun. In the Phineus scene the competition
among the arts in the representation of nature is given an additional turn
through a specific reference to one of the acknowledged masterpieces of
antiquity. Perseus wields the Medusas head toward the enemy band, while
Phineus recoils in fear, his upper body undergoing the unholy transformation from flesh to stone metamorphosed proleptically into its obvious
sculptured prototype, the Belvedere Torso (Fig. 5). 10 Given the exalted reputation of the Torso, Carraccis reference to it here constitutes an ironic
thrust in the epic battle of the visual paragone. Having intruded in Perseus
wedding feast to abduct the bride, the defeated Phineus pleads for mercy.
Perseus responds ironically by sparing his cringing enemy a proper warriors
death by the sword, and using instead the Medusas head to turn him into
a monument of stone for permanent display in his father-in-laws house.11
The putatively heroic remnant of the classical sculptors art thus embodies
9 On the significance for Bernini of this aspect of the illusionism of the Farnese Gallery
see Lavin 1980, 425. On the Gallery in general in relation to the painting-sculpture
paragone see Scott 1988. The literary paragone of sculpture with poesis as metamorphosis has
not been extensively explored; references will be found in Preimesberger 1989, Barolsky
1996, Schmidt 1998, and especially Bolland 2000. On Dantes Medusa in this context, see
Freccero 1979.
10 On these transformations see Scott 1988, 252f., Dempsey 1995, 95f. Bellori carefully noted the color changes in these scenes (see n. 13 below). For repercussions of these
themes in Rubens, see Muller 19812.
11 Metamorphoses V, 2268; Ovid 1984, I, 254f.: nullo violabere ferro. quin etiam
mansura dabo monimenta per aevum, inque domo soceri semper spectabere nostri.
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one of antiquitys notorious cowards! 12 The conceit painting recreates

the transformation words can only describe and sculpture can only recall
is epitomized in the story of Perseus and the Medusa, which Carracci coopts as a metaphor for the virtue of the Farnese, and himself. 13
12 The
irony one is tempted to call it persiflage is augmented by the reference in

the pose of the figure as a whole to a famous ancient warrior type, the kneeling Persian;
see Marzik 1986, 113 n. 3, Scott 1988, 253 n. 15.
13 Belloris Christian-moralizing interpretation of the vault of the Farnese gallery has
been rejected by recent scholarship, but the significance of the Perseus scenes on the walls as
an allegory of Virtue cannot, and has not been doubted: Dempsey 1968, 365; Posner 1971,
123. A politicizing view of the Gallery has been offered by Marzik 1986, while the ethical
content of the wall scenes has been reconfirmed by Reckermann 1991, 98103.
In Belloris interpretation Perseus, representing reason, prudence, and honesty in the
defeat of vice, may be an allegory of the artist himself, who rescues beauty by his transformatory power, which Bellori likens to that of the poet. Ma, per toccare la moralit della
favola, Perseo viene inteso per la ragione dellanimo, la quale riguardando nello scudo di
Pallade e regolandosi con la prudenza, tronca il capo al vizio figurato in Medusa, mentre gli
uomini affissandosi in esso senza consiglio divengono stupidi e di sasso (Bellori 1976, 54);
. . . Perseo, cio la ragione, e lamor dellonesto .. . (77). Bellori emphasizes the intellectual
content of the Farnese gallery: dobbiamo avvertire che la loro forma richiede spettatore
attento ed ingegnoso, il cui giudicio non resta nella vista ma nellintelletto (56). For Bellori
the essence of Carraccis portrayals of the Perseus episodes are the material transformations,
not only of living beings but also of inanimate things into stone, thus equaling the poets
capacity to give life to objects by making them participants in human emotions: tiene per
li cappelli la formidabil testa di Medusa e loppone contro la balena, che gi impallidisce in
sasso e diviene immobile scoglio (73; and 54, as above); . . . Tessalo, il quale vibrando lasta ed opponendo lo scudo, in questatto in cui si muove resta immobile e cangiando in
bianca pietra (74); . . . e l compagno che lo segue di fianco, armato anchegli, sinridisce
in bianca pietra (74); . . . Fineo supplice e genuflesso, che avendo riguardato Medusa, in
quel punto allora sindurisce in sasso, serbando il senso stesso con cui si raccomanda, ed una
morte con laltra commuta. Questa figura tutta ignuda differente dallaltre nella sua trasformazione, vedendosi con tutto il petto di bianco marmo e l resto del corpo in varia
mistione tra l sangue vitale e la riggidezza della pietra, contaminate le coscie da pallida inarnazione (74); . . . In questa favola Annibale, alluso de poeti si serv dellimpossibilit per
iaccrescere la meraviglia, dando senso alle cose inanimate; poiche si rende impossibile per
natural che larmi e le vesti di gli assaltatori di Perseo restino impietrite da Medusa, non
avendo n vista n vita. Questa impossibilit e falsificazione di natura fu usato da poeti con
le virt varie attribuite allarmi favolose, alle pietre ed alli sassi, facendoli partecipi dumani
affetti (74). And he cites Ovid himself who refers to the defeated companions of Phineus
as armed statues: ed Ovidio stesso descrivendo questa favola chiama statue armate li trasformati assaltatori . . . (74f.). And to complete the paragone metaphor Bellori describes the
paintings as Annibales most noble poem, in which the artist was so elevated by his ingenuity
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I believe that Carraccis display of artifice in the service of truth was crucial to the genesis by a process of visual and conceptual inversion, a
sculptors paragone of one of Berninis most remarkable and least considered works. I refer to the Medusa in the Capitoline Museum (Figs. 16,
17, 18), which bears an enigmatic inscription on its pedestal recording that
it was donated by Marchese Francesco Bichi in 1731, and describing it as
the work of a most celebrated sculptor, who is not named. 14 Although the
sculpture is otherwise undocumented, its stunning (I use the word advisedly, as will become evident) quality the powerfully expressive physiognomy and the brilliant display of technical virtuosity in the fragile locks,
twisted, perforated and daringly suspended in space inevitably evoke
Berninis name, and the attribution to him has been generally accepted. 15
that he won immortal praise: Pose nel vero Annibale ogni pi esquisita industria nel ritrovare ed ordinare le favole con gli episodii di questo suo nobilissimo poema; cos pu chiamarsi tutto il componimento, nel quale egli prevalse tanto e tanto si elev con lingegno, che
acquistossi al nome suo unornatis simo lode immortale (75).
14 The image of Medusa once inscribed on the shields of the Romans to the terror of
their enemies, now shines in the Capitol, the glory of a most celebrated sculptor. The gift of
Marchese Francesco Bichi Consul in the month of March of the year of Our Lord 1771.
MEDUSAE IMAGO IN CLYPEIS/ ROMANORUM AD HOSTIUM/ TERROREM
OLIM INCISA/ NUNC CELEBERRIMI/ STATURARIJ GLORIA SPLENDET/ IN
CAPITOLIO/ MUNUS MARCH:/ FRANCISCI BICHI CONS:/ MENSE MARTIJ/
ANNO D/ MDCCXXXI (Forcella 186984, I, 78, No. 230). Bichi was elected Capitoline
Consul of Rome in 1731 and 1740 (Forcella 186984, XII, 13, 14).
The Bichi were an important old Sienese family. As we shall see, the most likely candidate as recipient of the sculpture would be Cardinal Alessandro Bichi (15961657), who
shares a splendid tomb with his brother Celio (16001657), including remarkably fine portrait busts of both, in the church of S. Sabina (Darsy 1961, 134f., 143; see the biographical
inscription in Forcella 186984, VII, 313, no. 640). Alessandro was a particular protg of
Berninis patrons Urban VIII and Alexander VII, Celio a notable jurist of the Roman Curia.
A portrait of Cardinal Antonio Bichi (16141691), nephew of Alexander VII, was made by
Berninis pupil Baciccio (Matitti, ed., 1994, 61, fig. 63). On Alessandro, Antonio and Celio
see Dizionario 1960ff., X, 33447). My search for documentation concerning the Medusa
bust in the Bichi family archive (Bichi Ruspoli 1980) were unsuccessful; see also the catalogue entry by Cirulli, 1999.
15 First published and attributed to Bernini by Fraschetti 1900, 405, who mentions two
bronze (recte marble) copies in the Louvre, and notes the attribution to Bernini by Nibby in
183841, II, 626; Wittkower 1981, 208f.; Nava Cellini at first doubted but later, 1988, 30,
emphatically affirmed the attribution (...inconfutabile e lopera dichiara, a chi lesamina
senza pregiudizio, tutta la sua suggestione ed anche la rarit del suo significato); Fagiolo
dellArco 1967, cat. no. 83; aspects of the iconography of the sculpture have been discussed
by Posq 1993. The extremities of the interlace of snakes have been broken off at many
points, so the sculptural pyrotechnics would have been even more spectacular originally.
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I want to discuss certain aspects of the sculpture that have not been commented upon, and which together help to define its distinctive character
and significance.
The physiognomy and expression are quite different from the riveting
repulsiveness frequently attributed to the Medusa, as in Caravaggios
famous version of Minervas shield (Figs. 1921), and Rubenss depiction of
her decapitated head (Figs. 22, 23). Berninis Medusa also seems to reflect
the tradition, exemplified by the dangerous beauty of the famous Medusa
mask from the Palazzo Rondinini (Fig. 24), that she was the most beautiful
of the three Gorgon sisters, and the only one who was mortal; her deadly
appearance was Minervas punishment for having defiled the temple of the
maiden goddess of truth and wisdom.16 This sort of maleficent vanity and
flirtation with beauty was actually focused on the venomous hair: Lucan
writes that Medusa was by nature evil, and that the snaky tresses actually
pleased her, like the stylish coiffeurs that women wore. 17 Moreover, rather
than screaming out her horrendous cry, Berninis Medusa seems to suffer
a kind of deep, moral pathos, a conscious, almost meditative anguish
16 Metamorphoses IV, 794803; Ovid 1984, I 234f. On the Rondanini Medusa, the
most famous of many examples of the beautiful Medusa type presumably invented by
Phidias, see Vierneisel-Schlrb 1979, 627; its history can be traced to the early seventeenth
century in Rome. On the humanization by Phidias of the grotesque Gorgoneion of early
Greek art, see classic study by Buschor 1958, whose brilliant insight is epitomized by his
phrase gefhrliche Schnheit. (p. 39). On the many permutations of the Medusa
Ronadanini, see Noelke 1993.
17The Civil War IX, 62837; Lucan 1928, 552f.: In her body, Malignant nature first
bred these cruel plagues; from her throat were born the snakes that poured forth shrill hissing with their forked tongues. It pleased Medusa, when snakes dangled close against he neck;
in the way that women dress their hair, the vipers hang loose over her back but rear erect
over her brow in front; and their poison wells out when the tresses are combed. These snakes
are the only part of ill-fated Medusa that all men may look upon and live.
Hoc primum natura nocens in corpore saevas
Eduxit pestes ; illis e faucibus angues
Stridula fuderunt vibratis sibila linguis.
Ipsa flagellabant gaudentis colla Medusae,
Femineae cui more comae per terga solutae
Surgunt adversa subrectae fronte colubrae,
Vipereumque fluit depexo crine venenum.
Hoc habet infelix, cunctis inpune, Medusa,
Quod spectare licet.
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of the soul; this affective passion is clearly related to, but also quite different from the utter abandon of Berninis bust of the Damned Soul, with
which the Medusa is often compared, conceived as the counterpiece to his
Blessed Soul (Figs. 25, 26). I think it no accident that in discussing the
Medusa, and affirming the attribution to Bernini, Antonia Nava Cellini,
with her wonted perspicuity, compared the head to the splendid rprise of
the head of Laocon in the Galleria Spada, which Italo Faldi had earlier
attributed to Bernini (Fig. 27).18 As we shall see presently, I suspect that the
peculiar expressive quality of the Capitoline head has a significance of its
own. Here I want to emphasize the irony that, in this sense, the sculpture,
in contrast to what might be called the hyper-realism of the paintings by
Caravaggio and Rubens, has the natural affectivity Bernini admired in the
ancient works.
The Capitoline sculpture owes much of its impact to the fact that it is
an independent, free-standing work of art. In the case of the Medusa, whose
raison dtre, as it were, consists in her severed head, this isolation and selfsufficiency constitutes a startlingly evocative visual pun. The nearest precedent for a Medusas head sculpted fully in the round also evocative of the
Rondanini Medusas dangerous beauty was brandished before the people of Florence by Cellinis great figure of Perseus in the Loggia dei Lanzi
(Figs. 28, 29). Despite the obvious differences both in form and context, I
doubt whether the Capitoline sculpture would have been conceived without Cellinis example, and not only for formal reasons. The Perseus was
endowed with an unequivocal ethical and political message, as a warning to
the actual and potential enemies of Duke Cosimo de Medici, liberator and
defender of the Florentine Andromeda.19 The bronze Perseus was also
18
Faldi 1977.
See Braunfels 1948, 37; further to the Medicean political symbolism of the sculpture in Mandel 1996, with intervening literature. I would add that the beaux gestes of
Perseus-Cosimo, brandishing head in one hand and sword in the other, seem to recreate the
explicit message of the emperor Commodus menacing the senators of Rome from the
amphitheater: And here is another thing that he did to us senators which gave us every reason to look for our death. Having killed an ostrich and cut off his head, he came up to where
we were sitting, holding the head in his left hand and in his right hand raising aloft his
bloody sword; and though he spoke not a word, yet he wagged his head with a grin, indicating that he would treat us in the same way. Dio, Roman History LXXIII, 21; Dio 1982,
IX, 1125.
19
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understood as a victorious paragon in relation to its petrified predecessors

placed nearby, the David of Michelangelo and especially the Hercules and
Cacus of Baccio Bandinelli, Cellinis hated rival.20 I suspect that the
paragone may also underlie the Medusa motif that appears at the end of the
sixteenth century in the famous fresco of the Apotheosis of the Artist by
Federico Zuccari in his Roman palace. There the Medusa shield painted
in color to suggest metal sculpture, which can be imitated in painting,
whereas in stone the reverse is impossible appears as a trophy at the feet
of the triumphantly enthroned artist who wields the pen of disegno and the
brush of painting (Fig. 30).21
In another respect the Capitoline sculpture differs from Cellinis, and
indeed from all previous depictions of the subject, as far as I can discover.
The work does not actually represent the head of Medusa, as normally conceived. Part of the essence of the myth involves the severed head alone, its
use as a physiognomical talisman with fascinating eyes and dripping blood
that engendered the myriad serpents of the Libyan desert.22 Berninis sculpture, however, does not represent the head alone, but a bust of the Medusa;
it is not a transfiguration of the mortal apotropaion as such, but a portrait
of the living monster. As a portrait bust Medusa herself has been metamorphosed into stone, and in this context the image seems to make still
another pun, this time on the traditional topos of the portrait as an analogue of the living subject. One of the most celebrated instances is in fact
another anecdote recounted by Bernini himself and his biographers about
his portrait of Monsignor Pedro de Foix Montoya (Fig. 31). Cardinal
Maffeo Barberini, the future Urban VIII, with various other prelates, visited
Berninis studio and saw the bust, just as the sitter himself entered the room.
By way of introduction, one of the visitors said of the portrait, This is
Montoya turned to stone; to which Cardinal Barberini added, addressing
the sitter, This is the portrait of Monsignor Montoya, and, turning to the
sculpture, and this is Monsignor Montoya.23 The anecdote, and the
One also wonders whether Cellinis conception, which is based on Etruscan bronze statuettes (Braunfels 1948), might have engendered the other familiar traditions of heroic victors displaying the repugnant heads of defeated monsters: David with the head of Goliath,
Judith with the head of Holofernes.
20 See Shearman 1992, 4657, 2000.
21 Acidini Luchinat 19989, II, 2079; Hermann Fiore 1979, 60f., identifies the shield
as an attribute of Hercules
22 Metamorphoses IV, 61820; Ovid 1984, I, 222f.
23 Baldinucci 1948, 76; cf. Bernini 1713, 16; Chantelou 1885, 17.
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phraseology as well, are redolent of the story of the Medusa, except that in
the Capitoline bust the conceit, or rather the wizardry of the artist, is turned
against the Medusa herself.
To make a free-standing portrait bust of the Medusa is a stunning idea,
comparable indeed to Berninis equally unprecedented depictions of human
souls as portrait busts: independent, self-contained images of extreme psycho-theological states.24 But whereas in the soul portraits the bust form
served to evoke the disembodied human spirit, in this case the mezzo
busto, as the type was frequently termed in contemporary sources, was a
kind of existential metaphor for the fact that the Medusa was indeed only
half-human, part woman part bestial. I suspect, however, that here the bust
form also had an affective significance, alluding to the power of the sculptor, and the sculptor alone, physically to mimic human nature in its most
terrifying, and terrified, aspect.
Bernini must have been familiar with the famous madrigal written by
Giambattista Marino to celebrate Caravaggios Medusa shield, then in the
collection of Grand Duke Ferdinando de Medici, to whom it had been presented as a wedding gift.25 The poem, which is included in the section
devoted to painting in Marinos collection of poetic evocations of works of
visual art, La Galeria, is significant in our present context because it makes
two important inversions of the classical story. Perseus had avoided being
petrified by looking at the Medusa only as a reflection in Minervas polished
shield. Mirror imagery was thus inherent in the classical Medusa story.26
But Marinos poem begins by referring to the enemies who will be turned
to stone by looking upon the Grand Dukes painted shield: Now what enemies would not be quickly turned to cold stone regarding that fearsome and
cruel Gorgon in your shield...? 27 Caravaggios image, which in the classical story can only be a mirror, has instead the wondrous power of reality
24 On Berninis soul portraits see Lavin 1993; on the evocative nature of the bust
form, Lavin 1970, and Lavin1975.
25 See the rich discussion of the Caravaggio-Marino relationship and its implications
for the poetry-painting paragone, by Cropper 1991. Caravaggios picture has inspired a large
bibliography recent years, including much new iconographical material: Marini 2001, 178f,
180f., 4147; Caneva 2002, Caravaggio 2004
26 On the mirror motif in the classical Medusa story, see the many astute observations
in Ziegler 1926, and Vernant 1991, 95111 (In the Mirror of Medusa).
27 Or quai nemici fian, che freddi marmi/ non divengan repente/ in mirando, Signor,
nel vostro scudo/ quel fier Gorgone, e crudo...? (Marino 1979, I, 31).
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itself: like the actual Medusa, it can turn the Dukes adversaries to stone.
The poem concludes by transferring the Medusas power to the Duke,
declaring that Ferdinandos real defense, his true Medusa, is his own valor:
But yet! That formidable monster is of little use among your weapons,
since the true Medusa is your valor. 28 Marinos association of personal
virtue with the power of the Medusa was, following the leads of Cellini and
Carracci, a critical step in transforming the image into a sort of reverse
reflection of personal rectitude. A further step occurs in two, less wellknown poems, a madrigal and a sonnet, which Marino included in the section of La Galeria called Statue. Here portrayals of the Medusa are indeed
treated as independent, sculptured images. Both poems are based on the
conceit that, unlike Caravaggios picture, the Medusa, which turns viewers
into stone, is itself here turned to stone. In the madrigal the image speaks:
I know not if I was sculpted by mortal chisel, or if by gazing into a clear
glass my own glance made me so. 29 In the sonnet, the poet speaks: Still
alive one admires the Medusa in living stone; and whoever turns his eyes
toward her is by stupor stoned. Wise sculptor, you so vivify marble that
beside the marble the living are marble. 30 Although to my knowledge there
is no classical warrant for the idea that the Medusa was turned to stone, it
was not Marinos invention.31 He was preceded and no doubt inspired by a
poem by the Andrian poet Luigi Groto, entitled, significantly, Scoltura di
Medusa: This is not a sculpture by him who changed it into stone, but
28
Ma che! Poco fra larmi/ a voi fia duopo il formidabil mostro:/ ch la vera Medusa
il valor vostro (Marino 1979, I, 32).
29 Non so se mi scolp scarpel mortale,/ o specchiando me stessa in chiaro vetro/ la
propria vista mia mi fece tale (Marino 1979, I, 272).
30 Ancor viva si mira/ Medusa in viva pietra;/ e chi gli occhi in lei gira,/ pur di stupore
imptra./ Saggio Scultor, tu cos l marmo avivi,/ che son di marmo a lato al marmo i vivi
(Marino 1979, I, 272).
31 Curiously, in his essays dealing with Caravaggio and Medusa imagery, Marin 1995,
118 (cited by Cropper 1991, 204), imagines a Medusa who petrifies herself by looking at
her image reflected in the shield; and he gives no source for the idea. A variant on the theme
occurs in a madrigal by Marino on a sculpture of Andromeda, in which the monster is turned
to stone, obviously based on the same version of the story adopted by Carracci, and the poet
does not know whether it is the work of the Medusa or of Love or of Art: Ma che resti di
marmo,/ non so sopra sia questa/ (veggendo ch scolpita ogni sua parte)/ di Medusa,
dAmore, o pur de lArte (Marino 1979, I, 271; cited in connection with the Farnese
Gallery by Dempsey 1995, 33).
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Medusa herself. ... Looking into a mirror to regard herself, she turned to
stone.32 Grotos poem on the transformatory power of vision becomes
especially poignant when one recalls that he was blind and was famously
known as il Cieco dHadria. Caravaggio himself may have had something
of this kind of self-reflexive metamorphosis in mind as his Medusa looks
down in horror to perceive the pale underside of the head of one of her
snaky locks as a presagement of her stony fate (Fig. 20). These are the only
instances I have found of the conceit that clearly inspired the Capitoline
sculpture: the Medusa is herself turned to stone by gazing into the reflexive
chisel of the sculptor, whose virtue lies in mirroring the truth in stone with
all the vividness of life, in portrait-bust form.
For a contemporary viewer the Medusa would have had two, contradictory moral associations, which in the Capitoline sculpture have become
complementary. Partly no doubt owing to her association with Minerva, the
Medusa was an emblem of wisdom and reason: according to Lomazzo, just
as the Medusa turned men who looked upon her into stones, so wisdom
silences those who do not understand.33 For Cesare Ripa, the head of
Medusa shows the victory attained by reason over the enemies of virtue,
rendering them dumb, even as the head of Medusa rendered dumb those
who looked at her.34 In the Ovide moralis, on the other hand, the serpents
engendered by the blood flowing from Medusas head are interpreted as the
evil thoughts that spring from evil hearts.35 It is noteworthy in our context
that the same attribute is taken up by Ripa in his description of Envy, which
might well be identified with the Medusa: Her head is full of serpents,
32 Non scolptura di colui, chen sasso/ Cangiava questa, ma Medusa stessa./ Pero
tien, chi qua giungi, il viso basso!/ ... Che poi, che gli occhi in uno specchio tenne,/ Per stessa
mirar, sasso diviene (cited by Fumaroli 1988, 173f.).
33 Lo scudo, sotto la tutela di Minerva, sigificava riparo, e con la testa di Medusa in
mezzo, sapienza; percioch, s come quella faceva diventar gluomini che la guardavano sassi,
cos la sapienza ammutisse quelli che non sanno (Lomazzo 19734, II, 406).
34 ...testa di Medusa ... dimostra la vittoria, che h la ragione de gli inimici contrarij
alla virt, quale gli rende stupidi, come la testa di Medusa, che faceva restare medesimamente
stupidi quelli, che la guardavano (Ripa 1603, 426). Cited also by Posq 1993, 20, who,
although in a different sense, also stresses the moral nature of the Capitoline sculpture in
relation to the libido.
35 Derechief par les serpens qui furent engendrs du sang cheant du chief de la Meduse
sont entendues les mauvaises penses qui procedent de mauvais couraiges (De Boer 1954,
162).
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instead of hair, to signify evil thoughts.36 In the context of Berninis

demonstration of the prevalence of sculpture over painting in the art of petrification, a reference to this professional deadly sin was not inappropriate:
a kind of riposte to Zuccaris use of the Medusa shield in his Apotheosis of the
Artist.
The Medusa image started life in the archaic period as a monstrous,
deformed figure with a halo of decoratively stylized, curly snakes for hair,
enormous eyes, tongue protruding from a toothy mouth stretched into a
ghoulish grimace, calculated to instill fear of the petrifying death the slightest
glance would provoke (Figs. 32, 33).37 The emphasis was on the figures
grotesquely menacing and therefore protective apotropaic effect. Thereafter,
in company with the evolution of Greek art generally, the image became ever
more human and, apart from narrative scenes, curtailed to the severed head.
In the classical period, the face acquired the perfectly regular features of an
ideal beauty. The emphasis had shifted from Medusa as a stultifying monster
to Medusa as a maiden whose beauty was the fatal attraction that induced
Neptune to possess her in the temple of Minerva, the chaste and austere goddess of Wisdom. The classic example of this beautiful Medusa type is the
famous Medusa Rondanini, now in Munich, which came from Rome, where
Bernini may have seen it. Only a few snakes and other demonic features
remain, and the apotropaic effect is conveyed in an uncanny way by her chillingly expressionless, one might well say stony face her dangerous beauty,
as it has been perspicaciously described. This classical process of humanization through the Hellenistic period culminated in what has been called the
pathetic mask of Medusa, a veritable persona in theatrical terms. The face is
once again contorted, but now with furrowed brow, open lips and upward
glance that matched the suffering of the Laocon (Figs. 34, 35). Emphasis
shifted from the magical, apotropaic, terrific power of the monstrosity, to the
beautiful maiden whose mortal human nature unique among the three
36 Ha pieno il capo di serpi, in vece di capelli, per significatione demali pensieri....
(Ripa 1603, 242). On Envy with the snake hair of the Medusa, see De Tervarent 195864,
I, cols. 1678.
37 The development of ancient portrayals of the Medusa was first traced in a remarkable, pioneering study by Konrad Levezow 1833, who understood that the progressive
humanization of the demonic monster offered a fundamental insight into the development
of Greek art generally. Levezow provided the basic structure for the classic treatise of Adolf
Furtwngler 188690, which has been the basis for all subsequent discussion. The largest
collection of material will be found in Lexicon 198199, IV, 1, 285362.
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Gorgon sisters had not been destroyed by the divine retribution but now
suffered, physically from the pain of decapitation, and psychologically from
the awareness of its own misfortune. This understanding of the event as a
specifically human tragedy had been expressed by Hesiod in terms of
pathos: speaking of the three Gorgon sisters he says that Medusa suffered
woes [ ]. She was mortal, but the others
are immortal, the two of them.38
The new image reflects, in effect, a new focus on the origin of Medusas
viperous transformation, namely that her beauty had induced Neptune to
ravish her in the temple of Minerva, a desecration of her sanctuary for
which the goddess exacted retribution by turning Medusas hair into snakes
and applying the horrendous decapitated visage to her shield to frighten
future violators of her sanctity. Crucial to the significance of the story was
the nature and reason for Minervas punishment as recounted by Ovid: the
attraction and the stimulus for Neptunes lechery, was precisely Medusas
hair, the most beautiful of all her attractive features:
The hero [Perseus] further told of his long journeys
and perils passed, all true, what seas, what lands he had
beheld from his high flight, what stars he had touched on
beating wings. He ceased, while they waited still to hear
more. But one of the princes asked him why Medusa only
of the sisters wore serpents mingled with her hair. The
guest replied: Since what you ask is a tale well worth the
telling, hear then the cause. She was.once most beautiful
in form, and the jealous hope of many suitors. Of all her
beauties, her hair was the most beautiful for so I
learned from one who said he had seen her. Tis said that
in Minervas temple Neptune, lord of the Ocean, ravished
her. Joves daughter turned away and hid her chaste eyes
behind her aegis. And, that the deed might be punished as
was due, she changed the Gorgons locks to ugly snakes.
And now to frighten her fear-numbed foes, she still wears
upon her breast the snakes which she has made. 39
38 Theogony,
39
2768; Hesiod, 2006, 24f.

Metamorphoses IV. 787803; Ovid 1938, I, 234f.:
Addidit et longi non falsa pericula cursus,
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Hence the object of Minervas retribution, Medusas hair, was appropriate to the cause of the offense. And, quite apart from the formal and physiological significance, the nature of the punishment, turning the hair into
snakes, was equally appropriate. For in antiquity snakes were above all
emblematic of lust, and specifically of its dire, indeed mortal, consequences
for men: according to Pliny, the serpents having intertwined their bodies
during copulation, the male thrusts his head into the mouth of his mate who
bites it off as the couple reaches the climax of their orgy (Figs. 36, 37).40
In essence the tale is one of illicit, carnal lust and just retribution, and
so the story came to be interpreted ever after by moralizing Christian interpreters in the Christian tradition Medusa, carnal vice, Minerva-Perseus
righteousness and justice. In the Ovide moralise, of the three Gorgon sisters, Medusa embodied delectacion charnelle.41 For Natale Conti, To
demonstrate how constant we must remain in our confrontation with pleasquae freta, quas terras sub se vidisset ab alto
et quae iactatis tetigisset sidera pennis;
ante exspectatum tacuit tamen. excipit unus
ex numero procerum quaerens, cur sola sororum
gesserit alternis inmixtos crinibus angues.
hospes ait: quoniam scitaris digna relatu,
accipe quaesiti causam. clarissima forma
multorumque fuit spes invidiosa procorum
illa, nec in tota conspectior ulla capillis
pars fuit: inveni, qui se vidisse referret.
hanc pelagi rector templo vitiasse Minervae
dicitur: aversa est et castos aegide vultus
nata Iovis texit, neve hoc inpune fuisset,
Gorgoneum crinem turpes mutavit in hydros.
nunc quoque, ut attonitos formidine terreat hostes,
pectore in adverso, quos fecit, sustinet angues.
40 Snakes mate by embracing, intertwining so closely that they could be taken to be a
single animal with two heads. The male viper inserts its head into the female vipers mouth,
and the female is so enraptured with pleasure that she gnaws it off. Natural History X, 169;
Pliny 193863, III, 398401. Rursus in terrestribus ova pariunt serpentes, de quibus nondum dictum est. coeunt complexu, adeo circumvolutae sibi ipsae ut una / existimari biceps
possit. viperae mas caput inserit in os, quod illa abrodit voluptatis dulcedine. Plinys text and
the emblem of Camerarius 15901604, f. 92r, were cited by Koslow 1995, 147, in connection with Rubenss Medusa. I have argued in another context that Caravaggio was deeply
conversant with Capaccios theological texts, especially as concerns light and penitence,
Lavin 2001..
41 De Boer 1954, 162.
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805
ures, the sages depicted Medusa as the most beautiful of women, on

account of her appearance and charm that allured others, but all who saw
her the ancients said were changed into stone by her, Minerva having given
her this damnable power to make her odious to everyone after she had polluted Minervas temple with Neptune. . . . So did the ancients warn that
lust, boldness and arrogance must be restrained because God is the most
exacting avenger of these flaws. For not only did Medusa lose her hair,
Perseus through the counsel and support of the Gods having been sent to
destroy her utterly. 42 Perseus slew Medusa because reason is that which
breaks in upon or circumvents all illicit pleasures, and it can do so only with
the help of God, through divine intervention, no one good unless God
bestows upon her the blessing which is always sought.43 For Ludovico
Dolce, the gift of Caravaggios Medusa would denote that he to whom it
was sent should be armed against the seductions of the world, which make
men into stones, that is, deprive him of human senses and harden him to
virtuous actions, so that he can perform none.44
Evidently in the wake of a lost painting of the Medusa by Leonardo, a
new conception emerged around 1500. The formula seems to combine the
electrifying distortion of the archaic Gorgoneion with the emotional intensity of the Hellenistic pathos formula: the ugly grimace of the one and the
heroic suffering of the other are now merged in a wide-open-mouthed
scream of anguish (Figs. 38, 39). Caravaggio and Rubens followed this lead:
their gory, exophthalmic, gaping displays of thoroughly monstrous all
snakes, no hair still living, quintessentially human body-fragments,
recapture in personal terms the frightful, petrifying horror of the original
apotropeion.45
Bernini, on the contrary, evinces the pathetic catharsis Aristotle attributed to Tragedy.46 In contrast to the classical humanizing tradition, Bernini
42
Natale Conti, Mythologies: DiMatteo 1994, 374f.

DiMatteo 1994, 377.
44 denoterebbe che colui a cui si mandasse dovesse stare armato contro le lascivie del
mondo che fanno gli uomini divenir sassi, cio gli priva dei sensi umani e glidurisce alle operazioni virtuose in guisa che niuna ne possono fare. Dolce 1565 [1913], 104; cited by Posq
1993, 18f., after Battisti 1960, 214 n.
45 On the lost Leonardo painting as the model for subsequent images of the Medusa,
see Posq 1989, 172; Varriano1997.
46 Wittkower 1981,209, likened the Medusa to the ancient tragic mask. I have discussed Berninis relationship to antiquity, especially in relation to his theatricality, in Lavin
1989.
43
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806
follows his immediate predecessors in transforming virtually all of Medusas

hair into snakes, and in displaying the cannibalistic agony of viperous concupiscence prominently beside Medusas cheek (Figs. 18, 21, 23). Following
Caravaggio and his own Damned Soul Berninis Medusa turns her head
affectively to the side and downward, not aghast at the gory sight, as with
Caravaggio and Rubens, but in a baleful glimpse of her own shadow in the
underworld (according to Apollodorus and Virgil, Medusa was actually
seen as a shade in Hades).47 Quite apart from her serpentine hair, Berninis
Medusa, shown as a classical bust portrait, but in abbreviated form like the
Dammed and Blessed Souls, and wearing the one-shouldered chiton of an
Amazon, is finally not, or is no longer altogether human; and in fact, she
was accorded a kind of anti-heroic immortality when Minerva affixed the
decapitated head to her shield.
So far as I know, Bernini was the first to understand the ancient pathetic
Medusa in light of this Christian moralizing tradition: in his unprecedented
portrayal of Medusa as a portrait bust, rather than a decapitated head, she
is, as it were, not still living but still alive, and her anguish is spiritual, not
physical. The lamenting image does indeed evoke a cathartic cleansing of
the soul in the Aristotelian sense, and Berninis empathetic response to a real
human being provides finally an ulterior motive for the singular format and
a key to the personal significance of the work.
Speaking of Berninis portraits in his biography of his father, Domenico
Bernini recounts a singular, infamously scandalous episode that took place in
1638 when the artist was turning forty. Bernini fell madly in love and had
an evidently torrid affair with the wife, Costanza, of the sculptor Matteo
Bonarelli who was working under his direction at St. Peters.48 When he dis47 Apollodorus (The Library II, 12; 1921, I, 2327 ) and Virgil (Aeneid VI, 28994;
1999, I, 526f.) report that when Hercules and Aeneas descended into Hades they saw and
drew their swords against Medusa, until they learned she was but a harmless shadow.
48 e sopra tutti rimangano famosi due Ritratti di sua persona, e di sua mano, luno de
quali si conserva in Casa Bernini, laltro in pi degno Theatro, cio nella rinomata Stanza de
Ritratti del Gran Duca, fatti tutti dalle proprie mani depi insigni Pittori: Quello tanto
decantato di una.Costanza si vede collocato in Casa Bernin, & il Busto, e Testa in Marmo
della medesima nella Galleria del Gran Duca, luno, e laltro di cos buon gusto, e di cos viva
maniera, che nelle Copie istesse diede a divedere il Cavaliere, quanto fosse innammorato
dellOriginale Donna era questa, di cui egli allora era vago, e per cui se si rese in parte colpevole, ne riport ancora il vanto di essere dichiarato un grand huomo, & eccellente
nellArte; Poiche ingelosito di lei, da altra che ci fosse cagione trasportato, come che cieco
lamore, impose ad un suo servo il farle non s quale affronto, come segu, che per essere
Lavin XXI:Layout 1
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1. Laocon. Cortile del Belvedere, Vatican, Rome.
807
Lavin XXI:Layout 1
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19:46
808
2. Laocon,
heads of Laocons sons.
Cortile del Belvedere,
Vatican, Rome.
Page 20
Lavin XXI:Layout 1
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Page 21
3. Pasquino. Piazza del

Pasquino, Rome.
4. Menelaos carrying the

body of Patroclus. Loggia
dei Lanzi, Florence.
809
Lavin XXI:Layout 1
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810
5. Torso Belvedere. Cortile del Belvedere, Vatican, Rome.
Lavin XXI:Layout 1
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Page 23
6. Antonio Lafreri, Pasquino. 1550. Engraving.
811
Lavin XXI:Layout 1
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Page 24
812
7. Bernini,
Aeneas and
Anchises.
Galleria Borghese,
Rome.
Lavin XXI:Layout 1
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Page 25
8. Bernini, Neptune (reversed). Victoria and Albert Museum, London
813
Lavin XXI:Layout 1
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Page 26
814
9. Bernini, Pluto and Proserpine. Galleria Borghese, Rome.
Lavin XXI:Layout 1
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Page 27
10. Bernini, David (reversed). Galleria Borghese, Rome.
815
Lavin XXI:Layout 1
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Page 28
816
11. Bernini, Fontana del Moro. Piazza Navona, Rome.
Lavin XXI:Layout 1
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Page 29
12. Annibale Carracci, Galleria Farnese. Palazzo Farnese, Rome.
817
Lavin XXI:Layout 1
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Page 30
818
13. Annibale Carracci, Perseus and Androme.da, Galleria Farnese. Palazzo Farnese, Rome.
14. Annibale Carracci, Perseus and Phineus, Galleria Farnese. Palazzo Farnese, Rome.
15. Annibale Carracci,

Perseus and Phineus,
Galleria Farnese, detail.
Palazzo Farnese, Rome.
Lavin XXI:Layout 1
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Page 31
16. Bernini, Medusa. Museo Capitolino, Rome.
819
Lavin XXI:Layout 1
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Page 32
820
17. Bernini, Medusa. Museo Capitolino, Rome.
Lavin XXI:Layout 1
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Page 33
18. Bernini, Medusa, detail.

Museo Capitolino, Rome.
19. Caravaggio, Medusa.

Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence
821
Lavin XXI:Layout 1
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Page 34
822
20. Caravaggio,
Medusa, detail.
Galleria degli Uffizi,
Florence.
21. Caravaggio,
Medusa, detail.
Galleria degli Uffizi,
Florence.
Lavin XXI:Layout 1
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22. Rubens, Medusa. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.
23. Rubens, Medusa,

detail. Kunsthistorisches
Museum, Vienna.
823
Lavin XXI:Layout 1
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824
24. Medusa Rondanini. Glyptothek, Munich.
Lavin XXI:Layout 1
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Page 37
25. Bernini,
Anima Dannata.
Palazzo di Spagna,
Rome.
26. Bernini,
Anima Beata.
Palazzo di Spagna,
Rome.
825
Lavin XXI:Layout 1
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Page 38
826
27. Bernini (?), head of Laocon. Palazzo Spada, Rome.
Lavin XXI:Layout 1
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Page 39
28. Benvenuto Cellini, Perseus. Loggia dei Lanzi, Florence.
827
Lavin XXI:Layout 1
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Page 40
828
29. Benvenuto Cellini,

head of Medusa.
Loggia dei Lanzi,
Florence.
30. Federico Zuccari, Apotheosis of the

Artist. Palazzo Zuccari, Rome.
Lavin XXI:Layout 1
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31. Bernini, bust of Monsignor Pedro de Foix Montoya.

S. Maria di Monserrato, Rome.
829
Lavin XXI:Layout 1
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Page 42
830
32. Archaic
Gorgoneion.
Syracuse,
Museo Regionale
"Paolo Orsi".
33. Archaic
Gorgoneion,
antefix, from
Taranto.
Antikenmuseum,
Heidelberg
University.
Lavin XXI:Layout 1
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Page 43
34. Emperor Hadrian. Palazzo dei Conservatori, Rome.
831
Lavin XXI:Layout 1
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Page 44
832
35. Emperor Hadrian, detail. Palazzo dei Conservatori, Rome.
36. Vipers in coitus, engraving. Capaccio 1592, fol. 9r.
Lavin XXI:Layout 1
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Page 45
37. Venus improba, engraving. Camerarius 15901604, f. 92r.
833
Lavin XXI:Layout 1
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Page 46
834
38. Medusa,
plate from Cafaggiolo.
Victoria and Albert
Museum, London
39. Shield with the

head of Medusa.
Museo nazionale del
Bargello, Florence
Lavin XXI:Layout 1
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Page 47
40. Bernini, bust of Costanza Bonarelli.

Museo nazionale del Bargello, Florence.
835
Lavin XXI:Layout 1
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04:25
Page 48
836
41. Bernini, bust of

Costanza Bonarelli, detail.
Museo nazionale del
Bargello, Florence.
42. Bernini,
Medusa, detail.
Palazzo dei Conservatori,
Rome.
Lavin XXI:Layout 1
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Page 49
43. Bernini, tomb of Urban VIII, detail.

St. Peters, Rome.
837
Lavin XXI:Layout 1
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Page 50
838
44. Bernini, tomb of

Urban VIII, detail.
St. Peters, Rome.
45. Bernini, Truth,

detail.
Galleria Borghese,
Rome.
Lavin XXI:Layout 1
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839
covered that his younger brother, and invaluable assistant, Luigi was also
trysting with the woman, in a fit of rage he attacked and wounded Luigi and
ordered a servant to cut Costanza with a razor. Berninis exasperated mother
wrote a desperate letter to Cardinal Francesco Barberini recounting the event
(but without explaining the motivation) and imploring him to control her
arrogant elder son, who was behaving as if he were Padron del mondo.
Luigi and the servant were sent into exile and Bernini was fined three thousand scudi. In the end Urban VIII himself issued an official document
absolving him, for no other reason, as Domenico says, than that he was
excellent in art and a rare man, sublime genius, and born by Divine inspiration and for the glory of Rome, to bring light to that century.
Bernini was, in effect, an inordinately gifted, indispensabile, and
divinely ordained national treasure. The popes absolution was evidently
accompanied by an urgent recommendation that Bernini mend his ways
and marry. Bernini at first resisted the idea but soon acquiesced and on 15
May 1639 married Caterina Tezio, reputed la pi bella giovane che habbia
Roma, by whom he had nine children and with whom he lived so far
as we know faithfully ever after. (It may not be coincidental in our present context that he appreciatively described for the pope Caterinas many
perfections which included her Beauty without affectation in terms
of a portrait of his own making.49)
The tangible results of Berninis fulminary affair with Costanza were a
painted double portrait of himself and this unconventional woman, now
stato pubblico, e dannevole, doveva con non dispregievole pena punirsi. Il Papa assicurato
del fatto, diede ordine, che allesilio fosse condennato il servo, & al Cavaliere mand per un
suo Cameriere lassoluzione del delitto scritta in Pergamena, in cui appariva un Elogio della
sua Virt degno da tramandarsi alla memoria de Posteri: Poiche in essa veniva assoluto non
con altro motivo, che, perche era Eccellente nellarte, n con altri Titoli era quivi nominato,
che con quelli di Huomo raro, Ingegno sublime, e nato per Disposzione Divina, e per gloria di
Roma a portar luce a quel Secolo. (Bernini 1713, 27)
The story is retold with relish by DOnofrio 1967, 1308; and by Avery, as in n. 52
below. The full documentation is conveniently summarized by Oreste Ferrari in Bernardini
and Fagiolo dellArco 1999, 307f. Much new light will be shed on the subject in a monograph on Costanza currently in preparation by Sarah McPhee.
49 Bernini 1723, 51: che gli venne fatto trovarla, quale appunto, comegli poi disse al
medesimo Urbano, non averebbe potuto da se medesimo farsela meglio, se convenuto gli
fosse lavorarla a suo gusto nella cera: Docile senza biasimo, Prudente senza raggiri, Bella
senza affettazione, e con una tal mistura di gravit, e di piacevolezza, di bont, e di applicazione, che potea benella dirsi dono conservato dal Cielo per un qualche grandhuomo.
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lost, which he cut in two but which remained in his house, and the hauntingly seductive sculptured portrait bust of his mistress, itself unconventional in the sense that it was made without a commission, to fill a personal
need literally for love (Figs. 40, 41). Costanza Bonarelli is depicted,
equally unconventionally, in a disheveled negligee that seems to evoke the
intimate, revelatory state in which Bernini saw her during their assignations. It embodies in a personal and private domain the conversational
warmth, intimacy, and informality Bernini had vested in the open-lipped,
unbuttoned, cocked hat, motion-filled busts of Cardinal Scipione Borghese
and Pope Urban himself (1633).50 The bust must have been made sometime between October 1636, when Matteo Bonarelli started working at St.
Peters, and March 22, 1638, when Luigis regular payments as overseer of
the works there ceased. Luigi worked on a Bernini project in Bologna during his exile, and returned to work at St Peters, having been absolved in
October 1639 by Cardinal Francesco at Berninis instigation.51
Shortly after his marriage, in companion gestures signfying his change
of heart, Bernini gave the sculpture away, and, so I am convinced, created
its moral counterpart in the bust of the Medusa, also for purely personal
reasons, and also, I suspect, to be given away.52 Taken together, the two
sculptures may be understood as companion-counterpieces contrapposti was the term Bernini used to describe such mutually dependent,
complementary contrasts that were fundamental to his conception of his art
in this case personalized lineal descendents of his portraits of the blessed
and damned souls (Fig. 42).53 It is worth noting, finally, that the circumstances of the Medusas creation discussed here coincide with the dating on
stylistic grounds generally agreed upon in recent years. Wittkower perceived
that the Medusa is not an early work. He assigned it rather to what he
regarded as a deliberately classicizing period of Berninis development,
50 On the informal urbanity of these portraits, including the unbuttoned ecclesiastical mozzetta, see Lavin (2004) in course of publication.
51 Curiously, the payments to Luigi resume in August 1639; DOnofrio1967, 132, 138.
Years later (1670) Luigi committed a violent act of pederasty, from which Bernini again
redeemed him with great difficulty; the records were retrieved and discussed by Martinelli
1959 (1994).
52 After I realized that the busts of Bonarelli and Medusa were related, I discovered that
Charles Avery had offered the very same hypothesis (1997, 91f., 274f.). I am glad to
acknowledge Averys precedence.
53 On Berninis concept of the contrapposti see Lavin 1980, 9f.
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841
about 1635.54 Maurizio and Marcello Fagiolo dellArco then made bold to
place it still later, in the mid-1640s, relating it stylistically to elements of
the tomb of Urban VIII (Figs. 43, 44).55 Another remarkable insight of
Nava Cellini was to recognize the extravagant forms and expressivity that
linked the Medusa to the figure of Truth, made in the same period (Fig. 45).
The name of Cardinal Alessandro Bichi appears in Chantelous diary, in
an amusing passage that follows a curious thread through a conversation at
dinner, which was interrupted by a message that some ladies were asking to
be allowed to see the bust of Louis XIV, then in the making. The subject of
women must have stuck in Berninis mind when the subject then turned to
purchases Bernini planned to make. Bernini quoted the adage, who decries
wants to buy (chi sprezza vuolcomprar), to which Chantelou replied that he
had heard the phrase used by Cardinal Bichi. Bernini remarked that he had
once made use of the proverb in one of his comedies, in which the servant
of a painter was told by his employer not to admit to the studio any young
men who might not be interested in buying but in cajoling his pretty daughter. He obeyed zealously, refusing to admit some young men who came praising the paintings. The painter rebuked the servant who defended himself by
saying that he had remembered the proverb and assumed that their real purpose was to flirt with the daughter. The servant told a young suitor who
wanted to gain favor with the girl that he did not know how, that he kept
speaking of past things, that with women one must deal neither in the past
nor in the future, but stay on top in the present (con le donne non bisognava
trattar di cose passate, neanche delle future; ma star sopra il presente).56 It has
been aptly suggested that this play was identical with one mentioned by
Baldinucci and Domenico Bernini entitled How to give women in a com54
Wittkower 1980, 209. In a review of Wittkowers book I argued that this formal reference to antiquity was as much thematically as stylistically motivated, since other, contemporary works were more Baroque. (Lavin 1956, 258; also Lavin 1968b, 38f.). The juxtaposition and contemporaneity of Bonarelli and the Medusa support this view.
55 For a summary chronology of the Urban VIII tomb see Wittkower 1981, 198f.
56 Chantelou 1885, 195f.: A lissue de table, discourant ensemble de quelques achats
quil devait faire, il ma allgu le proverbe qui dit : chi sprezza, vuol comprar. Je lui ai dit que
je lavais autrefois appris de M.le cardinal Bichi. II ma cont sur cela, quil sen tait une fois
servi dans une de ses comdies o il avait introduit un peintre, dont la fille tait fort belle,
que le Raguet, valet du peintre, tant demeur une fois la maison, le matre lui avait dit qu
il ne ret point chez lui ces Zerbins qui ne venaient pas pour acheter, mais pour cajoler sa
fille. Apres quoi, quelques jeunes galants tant venus et louant les tableaux quil avait mis
ltalage, dabord il leur ferma la porte au nez et ne voulut jamais les laisser entrer quelques
instances qu ils fissent; de quoi s tant plaints au peintre et dit quils taient cavaliers et gens
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edy (Modo di regalar le Dame in Commedia).57 The word regalar in the

title of the comedy is curious, and it has been taken as a misprint for regolar, manage, except that both Baldinucci and Domenico give the same
spelling.58 Perhaps the title was deliberately ambiguous, referring both to the
management of women and Berninis gifts of both the Bonarelli and Medusa
busts after that chapter in his life had closed. In any case, it seems unlikely
that these cross references were coincidental more likely that Cardinal
Bichi had heard the phrase from Bernini himself, or his comedy, and that it
was through the Cardinal that the Medusa passed to the Bichi family, and
hence, a century later, to the Palazzo dei Conservatori. Bichi had been
appointed papal nunzio in Paris, then Bishop of Carpentras, then cardinal,
by Urban VIII. He played a major political role, and his long presences in
Paris and close associations with the French court may also explain the twin
copies of the Medusa now in the Louvre. As one of Urban VIIIs closest associates, and well-acquainted with the artist, Bichi, hence also his family, was
surely aware of the scandalous circumstance in which the bust was created.
And hence also a century later, Francesco Bichi, recording his conspicuous
gift to the city, thought it best to identify the sculptor not by his name but,
equally unmistakably, by his unrivalled celebrity.
In the end, it might be said that Berninis Medusa is a kind of ironic,
metaphorical self-portrait: the demonstration of the transformative power
of his art embodied not only the visual inversion of the point of the myth,
and his contempt for affectation, but also his exercise of that power in the
service of a higher moral purpose, expiating the anguish of his own fallibility. The bust embodies the noble victory of virtue over vice, the engaging
witticism of a stony image of petrifaction, and the disturbing expression of
tragic suffering.
dhonneur et ntre point traits de la sorte, et le peintre faisant rprimande de cela au

Raguet, il rpondit que comme il avait vu quils avaient commenc par louer si fort ses
tableaux, il avait jug qu ils ne venaient pas pour acheter, mais pour cajoler sa fille, pour ce
que quoiquil ne ft pas habile, il nignorait pas le proverbe qui dit: chi sprezza, vuol comprar,
qui fut une application qui plut assez. Ce mme Raguet dit un qui voulait gagner les
bonnes grces de cette fille, quil ny entendait rien, qu il lui contait toujours des histoires
du temps pass, che con le donne non bisognava trattar di cose passate, ne anche delle future; ma
star sopra il presente.
57 Fagiolo dellArco 1967, Scheda no. 168.
58 Ibid.
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XXII
Berninis Bust of the Savior and the Problem of

the Homeless in Seventeenth-century Rome*
N preparing for death Bernini followed a long and glorious tradition in

which artists since the Renaissance strove to outdo themselves (and their
predecessors) by creating tours de force of their craft as ultimate testaments
to their ability and devotion.1 While he followed his tradition, Bernini reinterpreted it in a fundamental way, as if in fulfillment of his famous dictum
that in his art he had succeeded in breaking the rules, without ever violating them.2 For although he amassed great wealth and international prestige
during a long and almost uniformly successful career, unlike many artists of
his means and stature and notably his great prototype Michelangelo
he planned no tomb or other monument for himself 3 It emerges now more
clearly than ever that if Berninis expiatory creations were self justificatory
in origin, they were not self-centered in destination; they were directed not
inward but outward, in a spirit of what today might be called social consciousness.
* * *
* This paper is in the nature of a sequel to my study of Berninis Art of Dying and the
works he created in pursuit of the good death (Lavin 1972, 1973, 1978). These essays have
been published together in Italian, Lavin 1998b.
1
I have outlined this tradition for Italian sculptors of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, in Lavin 19789, and 1998. The Italian Renaissance artists tomb generally has been
studied by Schutz-Rautenberg 1978.
2
For a discussion of this principle and its implications for Berninis conception of his art,
see Lavin 1980, 6 ff.
3
See p.239 above.
850
Homo sapiens has been defined as the only animal that knows it is going
to die. This paradox of a living creatures self-conscious awareness of and
preoccupation with its own death was a prominent theme in European culture from antiquity on. The process of intellectualization of this fatal aspect
of human nature culminated toward the end of the middle ages in a coherent and logically conceived system, a veritable theory of dying. The technique was entitled, significantly, Ars moriendi, The Art (crafte or cunnynge, as it was often called in early English) of Dying. To achieve a good
death (bona mors) the first prerequisite was precisely that the individual
acknowledge his knowledge of his own demise and face death deliberately
meditate upon it, remind himself constantly that I might die today,
recall his past life, examine his conscience, affirm his faith in Gods ultimate
judgment, and practice the cardinal virtues, Faith, Hope and, the highest of
all, Charity. In this last respect, especially, the model to be followed for a
good death was Christ, whose sacrifice on the cross was the supreme act of
charity. Many such pious medieval traditions were revived in the zealous
religious spirit of the Counter Reformation, the Ars moriendi among them.
In this context, it should come as no surprise although it did to me when
I became aware of it that unmistakable echoes of the medieval Ars
moriendi may be discerned in the extensive accounts of Berninis last illness
and death in the early biographies of the artist.
What emerges from these descriptions is that Bernini not only practiced
the art of dying in the technical sense, he actually conceived of his own death
as a kind of artwork, which he prepared and calculated to the last detail, with
the same kind of care and devotion he lavished on the buildings, sculptures
and theatrical productions for which he was famous. In point of fact,
Berninis death involved three great creative acts. One was the death itself,
or rather the procedures he followed in preparing for the end, which were
those of the Ars moriendi. The recipe for attaining salvation called for frequent colloquies with a spiritual advisor, in Berninis case his nephew,
Francesco Marchese, a priest of the order of the Oratory. The dying man,
Moriens, is also instructed to contemplate constantly holy images, especially
the crucified Christ and the Virgin, and to invoke Christs sacrifice in appealing to the vengeful Father for redemption. To fulfill these injunctions
Bernini made two other art works more conventional in kind but no less
remarkable in form. All three together constitute Berninis art of dying.
His last work in sculpture was the bust of the Savior, which he gave to
his close friend Queen Christina of Sweden; it is mentioned in the collec-
BERNINIS BUST OF THE SAVIOR
851
tion of her heir in an inventory of 1713. Known previously from a preparatory drawing (Fig. 1), the original was lost until it reappeared some years
ago in the collection of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr., and it is now to be seen in
the Chrysler Museum at Norfolk, Va. (Fig. 2). We also have a drawing by
Bernini for the elaborate pedestal (Fig. 3), which corresponds to the
description given in the sources. The bust rested on a base that was held in
the draped hands of two angels who knelt on a high platform. It is important to bear in mind that the bust is heroic in scale, well over three feet high,
and on the pedestal it was placed at human-proportional height; the whole
image was more than ten feet tall. Held aloft by the angels, the bust was perceived as a superhuman vision, a miraculous apparition presented to the
viewer by a pair of divine messengers. It is no accident that the nearest analogy for this mode of presentation is a design by Bernini for the display of
the Holy Eucharist (Fig. 4).
The bust itself is also extraordinary in a number of ways. So far as I can
discover, it is the first monumental sculpture of this kind since antiquity in
which both hands are included, a milestone in the history of the bust as an
independent art form. The drapery is treated in an unprecedented way,
wrinkled and folded so that no cut edges appear at the bottom. The drapery functions like a proscenium, creating the illusion that the figure is not
amputated but appears complete in the minds eye. Jesus does not act as he
normally does in bust-length portraits of the two-handed type, that is, in a
rigid pose staring at the spectator with right hand extended in blessing and
holding in his left a cross-surmounted orb as the emblem of his universal
dominion (Fig. 5).4 Berninis Christ is not the usual austere, autonomous,
triumphant Savior. Instead, in a complex, dynamic action he looks up
imploringly to his right, indicating his chest wound with his left hand; he
reaches across his chest with his right hand, which he turns palm outward
to ward off the evil he abhors at his lower left. What Bernini did was amalgamate this tradition of the two-armed, bust-length Savior with two quite
different, interrelated themes in which Christ alludes to his place in Gods
scheme by pointing to the chest wound with his left hand. In the Last
Judgment Christ often raises the blessed to heaven at his upper right, the
auspicious side, and condemns the sinner to hell at his sinister lower left
4
The example illustrated here follows a famous lost composition by Leonardo, for which
see Heydenreich 1988, 10112.
852
(Fig. 6). The second tradition comprises intercessory themes that illustrate
Christs plea with his wrathful Father on behalf of mankind (Fig. 7).5
Evidently, Bernini created his unprecedented image of the Savior to illustrate Christs role as judge in the process of salvation, and as protector in the
artists personal Art of Dying. The Art of Dying specifically enjoins the
moribund to affirm his belief in the just retribution of the Father and his
trust in the infinite mercy of the Son. These proclamations of faith and
hope are the ultimate act of charity toward God, which the good Christian
offers in death in exchange for Christs ultimate act of charity toward
mankind on the cross. Indeed, the dying man was instructed to offer the
following prayer to God: I put the death of our Lord Jesus Christ between
me and your wrath. What is important here is that Christs charity serves
as the model for human charity as well.
Berninis third work of eschatological art made in connection with his
own death was an equally powerful graphic image that came to be known
as the Sangue di Cristo, the Blood of Christ. He kept a painted version
before his sickbed, and also had it engraved for wider distribution (Fig. 8).6
Christ is shown crucified, with blood gushing from his wounds; the Virgin,
identified as always with the church, kneels below him washing her hands
in his blood while God the Father flies up above with outstretched arms
presenting the dramatic event to the spectator like some great, cosmic
impresario. This design, too, is deeply indebted to the Ars moriendi, which
suggested that moriens from his deathbed contemplate an image of the
Crucifixion while imploring Christ and the Virgin to intercede on his
behalf. The subject was illustrated, as in a sixteenth century stained glass
window in Switzerland (Fig. 9), by a portrayal of the dying man expiring on
his deathbed while in the clouds above appear the crucified Christ looking
up toward God the Father and pointing toward his chest wound, and the
Virgin who kneels on a cloud and appeals for mercy. Although the elements
of Berninis design are traditional, the fundamental conception is radically
new. He eliminated moriens but retained the view at an angle from below.
As a result, the image is perceived as a miraculous apparition to the spectator, who thus replaces the man on his deathbed. The angle and elevation
Ronen 1988; Marshall 1994, 527. The formula is based on the tradition of the
Speculum humanae salvationis, for which see Lavin 1972, 169.
6
On the painted and engraved versions of the composition, see now the catalogue
entries in Contardi et al., eds., 1988, 26770.
5
853
here perform the same visionary function as the form of the torso of the
bust of the Savior and the supporting angels of the pedestal.
The Sangue di Cristo composition is an independent vision, the full
meaning of which we shall see presently. The print is also monumental in
scale (10 x 18), considering that, folded into quarters, it retained a physical connection with the Art of Dying as the frontispiece to a small book
published by Berninis nephew, the same Father Francesco Marchese the
biographers describe as the artists close companion and counselor in death.
Born in 1623, the son of Berninis older sister, Marchese was a remarkable
man, active, learned and devout. He is best known as a dedicated opponent
of the Quietist leader Miguel de Molinos, whose downfall he helped bring
about during Molinoss trial by the Inquisition in the 1680s. By the time he
died in 1697 Marchese had published twenty-one books, including a fourvolume history of heresies, a treatise on the Peace of the Pyrenees and its
political implications, as well as many hagiographies and devotional works.7
Marchese wrote several tracts in the tradition of the Ars moriendi, one of
which, published in 1670, was illustrated by the Sangue di Cristo engraving.
In the preface to this work Father Marchese urges those who seek salvation
either to contemplate the image or read the text. Entitled The Only Hope
of the Sinner Consists in the Blood of Our Father Jesus Christ (Unica speranza del peccatore consiste nel sangue di N S. Gies Cristo), it is a modernized,
mystical Ars moriendi focused on a single theme, the blood of Christ, which
is conceived as the universal key to salvation. The text explains Berninis
spectacular vision of the crucified Christ suspended in the air, his blood
pouring down through the Virgins upturned hands to form a limitless
ocean in which all sins will be washed away. Christs sacrifice is the second
universal flood, after that of Noah, in which the sins of the old dispensation
are cleansed to reveal the immaculateness of the new; the blood of Christ
inundates the world with salvation. The intercessory role of the Virgin who
offers her sons sacrifice is explained by a passage from the writings of the
great Florentine mystic, Maria Maddalena dei Pazzi; echoing the Ars
moriendis invocation of Christs sacrifice as protection against the wrath of
the Lord, this prayer is cited in the text and as the subtitle to the engraving:
I offer you, Eternal Father, the blood of the incarnate word . . . and if anyThe fullest account of Francesco Marchese is that by Lattanzi in Contardi et al., eds.,
1988, 27283. For the relevance of Marcheses tract on the Peace of the Pyrenees to Berninis
work for Louis XIV, see Lavin 1993, 182, and 1999, 4607.
7
854
thing is wanting in me I offer it to you, Mary, that you may present it to

the eternal Trinity.
Two points are especially important here. First, it is clear that the bust
of the Savior and the Sangue di Cristo were conceived as parallel visions
illustrating complementary aspects of Berninis Art of Dying, one emphasizing the terrible process of judgment in which Christ intervenes, the other
the promise of infinite grace offered through the church by Christs sacrifice. The second point is that both images transform the traditional Ars
moriendi in a fundamental way. Almost by definition, the Ars moriendi was
a private enterprise, specifically intended for the individual conscience.
With Bernini the individual is merged, sublimated might be a better word,
into the corporate body of all mankind. The personal acts of Christian charity that were the essence of the Ars moriendi are universalized.
***
The implications of this conceptual transformation had very practical
counterparts through which the Sangue di Cristo and the bust of the Savior
were related, as it now appears, in extraordinary and wholly unexpected
ways, not only to each other but also to Rome and its people. The relationship involved two of the signal projects of architectural, religious and social
reform in the history of the city, with which Bernini was closely associated.
In the case of the Sangue di Cristo a hint of this wider relevance is provided
by a curious contemporary report linking the creation of the composition
to one of the great architectural projects of Berninis career, and one of the
notorious failures: the reconstruction of the tribune of the basilica of Santa
Maria Maggiore, the mother church of all Marian devotions, reputed to
have been designed by the Virgin herself in a miraculous appearance. The
basilica had long posed a problem of architectural decorum because of its
doubly anomalous disposition: the apse was in the west, the opposite of
normal liturgical orientation, while the principal, entrance faade faced
east, away from the urban center of the city. Ceremonial events involving
processions and other devotional approaches from Rome might even use
the back door, as it were (Fig. 10). The problem became acute in the early
seventeenth century after the two great modern reliquary and funerary
chapels had been built by Sixtus V and Paul V, flanking the medieval apse
(Fig. 11). The challenge of transforming the apsidal end into a proper monumental entrance to the church was taken up in 1669 by Pope Clement IX
855
(166769), who commissioned Bernini to design a maestosa facciata that

would also include tombs for the pope and his predecessor, Alexander VII
(165567).
Berninis design in its final form is known from several verbal descriptions, from a drawing, commemorative medals, and an engraving published
early in the eighteenth century (Figs. 12, 13).8 His proposal was astonishing in many respects: he would have dismantled the medieval tribune,
rebuilt the apse farther west, presumably to provide space for the tomb, and
surrounded it by a magnificent colonnade raised on a much higher flight of
stairs than heretofore. In effect, the portico provided a covered, annular
platform raised above the city, joining the entrances to the side aisles. The
sources make it abundantly clear that the project ultimately came to grief
partly for financial reasons: the costs greatly exceeded the estimates and it
was intimated that the manipulator Bernini should be held accountable;
and partly because there was strong opposition to the idea of replacing the
medieval apse with its venerable mosaics, exactly the same kind of objection
that had been raised against Borrominis renovation of St. Johns of the
Lateran, the Cathedral of Rome, undertaken by Innocent X (164455)
twenty-five years before.9 We first hear of the idea of redoing the tribune of
S. Maria Maggiore toward the end of 1667, and a good deal of work was
done during the remaining year of Clement IXs life (1667December 9,
1669) and early in the reign of Clement X (167076).10 Bernini was in fact
dismissed in May 1670, to be replaced three years later by Carlo Rainaldi,
who executed the outer sheathing of the medieval apse we know today (Fig.
14).11
But already on September 13, 1669, it was reported that Bernini was to
be replaced by Rainaldi, and the report adds the provocative observation
8
For a general survey of S. Maria Maggiore and its history, see Pietrangeli 1988. The
vicissitudes of the project have been dealt with by Borsi 1980, 1389, 340; Anselmi 19923;
Zollikofer 1994, 1420. The medals are discussed in Witman 1983, 125 f. There is no record
of Berninis ideas for the tombs, if ever they took shape.
9
November 2, 1669: Havendo inteso N. Signore lantifona, che di gi si siano spesi 60
mila scudi ne soli fondamenti della nuova Tribuna a Santa Maria Maggiore non fu poco non
prorompesse la Santit S. in escandescenze contro il Bernini che sofferse da principio darla
finita per 100 mila, s per vedersi deluso da questo reggiratore; Mercati 1944, 21, n. 11. See
also the documents cited by Fraschetti 1900, 380 n. 3, 381 n. 1.
10
For the earliest reference to the project, see Barozzi and Berchet 18778, II, 329 (cf.
315 for the date); cited by Pastor 192353, XXXI, 336 f, n. 5.
11
For the date, see Fraschetti 1900, 382 n. 1.
856
1.. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Study for the Bust of the Savior, drawing. Rome, Gabinetto
Nazionale delle Stampe.
3. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Study for the upper part of the pedestal of the Bust of the Savior,
drawing. Leipzig, Museum der bildenden Kunste, Graphische Sammlung.
2. Gianlorenzo Bernini.
Bust of the Savior.
Norfolk, Va., Chrysler Museum
(photo: R. Thornton.
Providence. R.I.).
4. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Study for a

Monstrance, drawing.
Leipzig, Museum der bildenden
Kunste, Graphische Sammlung.
857
858
5. Attributed to Giampetrino, Salvator Mundi.

Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit.
6. Michelangelo,
The Last Judgement,
detail of Christ.
The Sistine Chapel,
Vatican City
859
860
7. Filippino Lippi, The Intercession of Christ and the Virgin.

Munich, Alte Pinakothek.
8. Gianlorenzo Bemini, Sangue di Cristo, engraving by F. Spierre,

473 x 290mm, frontispiece of F. Marchese, Unica speranza dell peccatore.
Rome, 1670, Vatican Library.
861
862
9. The Death of Moriens and Intercession of Christ and the Virgin,

stained-glass votive window. Wettingen. Switzerland
(photo: Die Kunstdenkmaler des Kantons Aargau).
10. Transport of the

body of St. Pius V to
S. Maria Maggiore.
Biblioteca Vaticana,
Vatican City
(photo: Musei
Vaticani 111.6.11).
863
11. Medieval apse of

S. Maria Maggiore
(after De Angelis
1621, ill. following
p. 66).
864
12. Workshop of
Bemini, project for
the apse of S. Maria
Maggiore, drawing.
Formerly in the
Archive of the
Chapter of S. Maria
Maggiore
(after Brauer and
Wittkower 193 1
, pl. 182).
865
13. Apse of S. Maria

Maggiore showing
Berninis project (light
shading) and as executed by Carlo
Rainaldi
(after De Rossi
170211, 111, l. 16).
866
14. Carlo Rainaldi,

apse of S. Maria
Maggiore showing
obelisk erected by
Sixtus V (photo:
Anderson 126).
867
868
15. Salus populi romani, Cappella Paolina. Rome, S. Maria Maggiore

16. Cappella Paolina, high altar. Rome, S. Maria Maggiore

(photo: ICCD C9587).
869
870
17. Francesco Borromini, nave of S. Giovanni in Laterano (photo: postcard).
18. Medieval facade of S. Maria Maggiore, showing column of the Virgin erected
by Paul V, engraving by Israel Silvestre (after Silvestre [1641461, pl. 5).
19. Gianlorenzo Bemini, project for the east facade of the Louvre, drawing.
Paris, Muse du Louvre (photo: SPRMN P8027).
20. Anonymous, Piazza S. Pietro, Corpus Domini procession of Innocent X.
Rome, Museo di Roma (photo: ICCD E38783).
871
21. Reconstruction
of the tomb of
Hadrian (after
Lauro 1642, pl.
116).
872
22. Reconstruction
of the temple of
Vesta
(after Lauro
1642, pl. 39).
873
874
23. Pietro da Cortona, facade of S. Maria delta Pace. Rome

(photo: Brogi 18600).
24. Fresco of Christ and saints with inserted image of the Madonna and Child.
Rome, Temple of Vesta (S. Maria del Sole)
(photo: Deutsches Archaeologisches Institut, Rome, 63.15161.
875
876
that Bernini, confronted with this prospect, made the Sangue di Cristo composition in order to demonstrate his incomparable virtue (impareggiabile
nella sua virtt).12 The connection between the engraving and the architectural project would seem at first glance gratuitous, and yet it offers the key
to an understanding of an important aspect of both works. Virt can mean
something like prowess, and since Bernini was then 71 years old he may
have felt it necessary to demonstrate that his professional capacity was undiminished. But virt also has an ethical significance, and in this sense the
print is relevant to the S. Maria Maggiore project in a deeper, thematic way.
The nature of this relationship can only be fully grasped through an exploration of what was evidently a deliberate effort by Bernini to synthesize a
wide range of visual and ideological references, modern as well as ancient,
Christian as well as classical, into a kind of epitome of the citys architectural and religious life.
The concept begins to emerge when one recalls that the great popularity of S. Maria Maggiore is due largely to its being the center of what can
only be described as the cult of the Assumption of the Virgin, celebrated
there each August 15 for at least 1000 years. Throughout the middle ages,
the event was celebrated by an immensely popular procession in which a
miraculous image of the Savior (cf. Fig. 40) was carried from the Lateran
through the city to S. Maria Maggiore, where it was met by an equally
miraculous image of the Madonna whose status as the virtual embodiment
of the people of the city came to be denoted by the sobriquet Salus populi
romani (Fig. 15).13 The icon forms the centerpiece of the altar display in
Paul Vs chapel that opens off the south aisle of the church just inside the
western entrance to that aisle (Fig. 16). Placed side by side, the two icons
both of which were acheropita, not made by hand became the protagonists of a reenactment of the marriage of Christ and the Church and
the assumption of the Virgin, when she joined him, her son and her spouse,
on the throne of heaven. By the mid-sixteenth century the procession,
which took place by torchlight throughout the night of the 14th, had
become the occasion for unruly behavior and in 1566 it was abolished by
12
Vedendosi il cavaliere Bernini scartato dallopera che al presente serge della scalinata
nella basilica Liberiana ed in sua vece subentrato il cavaliere Rainaldi si posto ad intagliare
in rame componendovi sopra una figura di un Christo con una gloria che poscia improntandolo in carta dar a vedere essere impareggiabile nella sua virt (Claretta 1885, 520).
13
Recent studies of the icons and the procession are: Ingersoll 1985, 22452, Tronzo,
ed., 1989, Wolf 1990.
877
the reforming Pope Pius V. However, Alexander VII determined to revive

the celebration a completely overlooked but, as I believe, critically
important fact.14 Although Alexander died before carrying out his purpose,
the design Bernini proposed to Alexanders successor seems to reflect the
idea of reinstating the procession. The idea to replace the tribune with an
annular portico conjoining the side aisles may have been intended to create
a counterpart to a comparable project by Borromini for the interior of the
Lateran tribune, which was later taken up again in the next century by
Piranesi.15 Berninis intention was to use for his portico the remainder of the
hallowed ancient columns of rare green marble (verde antico) that had
formed the original side aisles of the Constantinian basilica of the Lateran,
some of which Borromini had appropriated for the niches containing statues of the apostles and symbolizing the twelve gates of the Heavenly
Jerusalem (Fig. 17); others had been transferred to Siena by Alexander VII
for his family chapel dedicated to the Virgin in the cathedral.16
Incorporating the series of hallowed columns, Berninis colonnade would
14
The idea of renewing the procession is reported in Benedetto Millinos monograph on
the Sancta Sanctorum, dedicated to Alexander VII, which he wrote partly to rinouar la
memoria quasi estinta della solennelissima festa, che si faceua in questa citt, portandosi ogni
anno processionalmente lImagine suddeta del Saluatore, nel giorno dellAssunta, alla
Basilica di S. Maria Maggiore; processione, sicome la pi famosa, e la pi antica di quante
ne habbia vedite Roma: cos, quando si rinouasse, si potrebbe sperare nel Popolo Romano
accrescimento grande di pia liberalit e di deuotione, versa essa santa Imagine (italics mine;
Millino 1656, unpaginated dedication). Millino says that he had written the tract a decade
earlier, when it had met with the popes approval. Alexanders intention, thwarted by his
death, is reported by Soresino 1675, 88: Praefatam autem processionem annualem ex nostra Basilica ad Sancta Sanctorum in peruigilio Assumptionis gloriosissimae Deipare Virginis
Mariae, Alexander VII. summus Pontifex restituere decreuerat, vt Benadictus Millinus decebat, maxime supplicibus exhortationibus eiusdem, sed ipsius Romani Pontificis obitus est in
causa, quod res ad exitum perducta non sit. On this episode see DellAddolorata 1919,
288 f.
15
See Wilton-Ely and Connors, in Piranesi, 1992, 21, 103 f.
16
On the reused Constantinian columns, see Krautheimer 1977, 45. The plan to transfer the remaining columns to Santa Maria Maggiore, strongly opposed by the canons of the
Lateran, is reporrted by Fraschetti 1900, 379 f, n. 3: . . . Per ordine della Santit Sua i.
Cerioli suo ministro di Casa andato a vedere a San Giovanni in Laterano le bellissime
Colonne di Verde antico per servirsene nella suddetta fabrica, il che sar di Sparmio di alcune
migliaia di scudi, con gran disgusto per del Capitolo di detta Basilica che non vorrebe privarsene, e cos si va facendo studio di ritrovare altri marmi, e Colonne per sparmiare le grosse
spese, a sollecitudine del Lavoro (September 7, 1669). on the symbolism of Borrominis
Lateran, see Fagiolo 1971.
878
have performed an architectural wedding that conjoined the Marian basilica to the Lateran by a ring of precious stones.
It might be said in the first instance simply that the colonnaded portico
provided a modern equivalent facing the city of the medieval narthex at the
front of the church (Fig. 18). At the same time, however, screening the
semi-dome of the apse behind a horizontal balustrade with statues contributed to the effect of a festive and truly regal majestic was the contemporary word facade. This was surely Berninis reason for interpolating
here the famous early project he had worked out a few years before for the
faade of Louis XIVs Louvre. The design featured a ring of attached
columns that supported a balustrade with sculptures suggestive of a regal
crown (Fig. 19);17 at S. Maria Maggiore, the motif becomes a diadem for
the Queen of Heaven. The colonnade also could not fail to recall, in form
as no doubt in function, the other great work Bernini had conceived under
Alexander, the colonnaded porticos before St. Peters. The pope himself
described the porticos as a crown for that royal edifice where they provided a worthy canopy for the citys other great religious procession, that of
the Corpus Domini (Fig. 20).18 At S. Maria Maggiore, one can readily imagine the Madonna icon similarly paraded, from the Cappella Paolina to the
nearby side aisle portal and through the colonnade to the center of the apse,
where it would be met by its counterpart from the Lateran; the images
would then proceed together through the other half of the portico into the
church for the remainder of the ceremony. The two monumental, curving
porticoes at St. Peters and S. Maria Maggiore would thus have complemented each other, visually as well as ceremonially, across the papal city.
17
Architectural crowns, both secular and religious, were common in ephemeral works,
and Carlo Rainaldi had actually surmounted the three pavillions of his louvre project with
royal crown motifs. See Fagiolo dellArco 1997, 78 (Rainaldi), and passim.
18
The popes observation is quoted by Krautheimer 1985, 72. The editio princeps of
the motif, which I have discussed as a royal theme in connection with Berninis Louvre projects (Lavin 1993, 187, 191), were Michelangelos palaces on the Campidoglio. The relevance for the conception of the St Peters colonnades of the papal Corpus Domini procestion, for which long temporary canopies were erected before the colonnades were built, has
been noted, but not fully appreciated; I hope to return to this theme on another occasion.
See Pastor 192353, XXXI, 296; Kitao 1974, 131 n. 254 f; and Fagiolo 1982, 119; Fagiolo
and Madonna, eds., 1985, 13840; Krautheimer 1985, 65.
In a sense, the project at S. Maria Maggiore might also be said to have fulfilled the veritable program of colonnades carried out or planned under Alexander VII throughout the
city, which included a vast network of treelined avenues; see Krautheimer 1985, 109 ff, 120,
190.
879
The form of Berninis project has two other, quintessentially Roman

connotations that must be taken into account. He evidently merged two
heretofore distinct but complementary classical traditions of architectural
signification, with which Alexander VII had also been concerned. Both
involved circular or semicircular peripteral colonnades associated with particular ideals of permanence, universality and perfection. It has been
pointed out that aspects of the design the semicircular ring of columns,
the crown of statues recall contemporary reconstructions of the grandest
and most famous of Roman tombs, that of the emperor Hadrian, which
became the medieval stronghold of the popes, Castel SantAngelo;19 the
illustration given by Giacomo Lauro, whose repertory of ancient monuments Bernini exploited on other occasions at this period, seems particularly relevant (Fig. 21).20 An evocation of the imperial mausoleum par excellence was appropriate to a project at S. Maria Maggiore intended to add the
tombs of two more popes to those already commemorated there. The idea
was wholly in keeping with the attitude of Alexander VII, for whom
Bernini had converted the ancient Aelian bridge leading across the Tiber to
the Castel SantAngelo into a kind of via crucis with statues of angels carrying the instruments of the Passion.
The annular colonnade was also a common formula for ancient temples,
doubtless known to Bernini as a type of the Temple of Peace, and of structures sacred to virgin deities.21 In the early seventeenth century one of the
most familiar Roman structures of this type, the Temple of Vesta beside the
Tiber, was rededicated to the Madonna del Sole, in reference to a miraculously radiant image of the Virgin and Child reportedly found in the river.22
In Lauros compendium the temple is portrayed against a structure with
pavilions at either end, in a manner that anticipates the faade by Pietro da
Cortona of the church Alexander VII commissioned and dedicated to
The relationship to the ancient imperial tombs (including that of Augustus, which was
preceded by two obelisks) was suggested by Fagiolo dellArco 1967, 242, and developed in
an excellent thesis at the University of Rome by Anselmi 19923. on the bridge, see Weil
1974; DOnofrio 1981.
20
On the importance of Lauros work see Del Pesco 1984; Lavin 1993, 15760, 180.
21
On the circular, colonnaded Temple of Peace, see Ost 1971, 26979. There was, of
course, a long-standing tradition of centrally planned churches dedicated to the Virgin
(Krautheimer 1950, Wittkower 1975, 13740, Sinding-Larsen 1965, 2207).
22
See Rakob and Heilmeyer 1973, 14 f, and the bibliography cited there, esp. Cecchelli
193851, I, 12967.
19
880
peace, S. Maria della Pace (Figs. 22, 23).23 Even more striking is the anticipation of the arrangement Bernini envisaged at S. Maria Maggiore, with the
colonnaded apse between the domed Sistine and Pauline chapels. Two factors in particular made the reference singularly appropriate at Maria
Maggiore. The type of the image of the Madonna and Child in the Tiber
temple clearly reflected that of the Salus Populi Romani and its discovery
must have reflected and greatly reinforced the citys millenial popular devotion to the Virgin and that image (Fig. 24). The association of the Virgin
with peace came through the birth of her son; the Prince of Peace, and
Berninis architectural evocation of Peace and the Virgin in the apse corresponded on precisely these terms to the famous Egyptian obelisk that Sixtus
V had raised before the apse of the church (1587), where it would have
become the focal point of Berninis design (cf. Fig. 14). Sixtus had transferred the obelisk, rededicated to the victorious Christ, from the other great
circular, imperial tomb in Rome, the mausoleum of Augustus, under whose
peace, as one of the inscriptions on the pedestal proclaims, the Prince of
Peace was born.24 This grandiose conversion of antiquity expressed at the
western end of the church facing the city in turn had its correspondent
before the eastern entrance faade in the colossal column, reputedly the
largest in Rome, erected there in 1615 by Paul V (Fig. 18). Paul had
removed the column from another building, thought to have been the
ancient Temple of Peace, and dedicated it to the Immaculate Virgin on the
feast of the Assumption.25 Approaching the church from the city, the routes
to Christ and the Virgin, triumph and peace, thus converged at S. Maria
Maggiore, and would have culminated in Berninis apse.
It has long been known that, beside the Salus Populi Romani, one particular class of Madonna images was associated with the feast of the
Assumption; this is the type of intercessory Virgin who lifts both hands
upward in a gesture that suggests both an appeal and an offering to heaven.
The type was familiar from the classic Byzantine Crucifixion type in which
the Virgin standing beneath the cross gestures in this way (Fig. 25). The
motif had been isolated in an icon formula known as the Madonna
23
The analogy between Berninis apse and S. Maria della Pace has also been noted by
Marder 1990, 123. Gijsbers 1996, 31923, notes the relationship in this tradition between
Cortonas portico (16578) and that of Berninis S. Andrea al Quirinale (begun 1648).
24
On Sixtuss obelisk see DOnofrio 1965, 1549.
25
On the Basilica of Constantine/Temple of Peace and the Marian column, See Ost
1971, 26979; Wolf 19912, 3148.
881
Avvocata that was common in Rome, notably in an image at which the icon
of the Savior traditionally stopped along its way in the procession from the
Lateran to S. Maria Maggiore (Fig. 26).26 Perhaps for this reason it was followed toward the end of the thirteenth century by Jacopo Torriti for the figure of the Virgin in his mosaic of the coronation in the apse of S. Maria
Maggiore itself (Fig. 27). Adopting the same gesture for the kneeling,
cloud-borne Virgin in his Sangue di Cristo composition, Bernini recalled the
imagery of S. Maria Maggiore and the famous procession, and linked it to
the Ars moriendi tradition. The tertium quid in this relationship is Maria
Maddalena dei Pazzis invocation of the Blood of Christ offered by the
Virgin on behalf of mankind. It might well be relevant that the words
quoted on the engraving were spoken on the occasion of the saints vision
in which Christ took her as his spouse, as he had her namesake, his mother,
on the day of her assumption.27 This reference to Maria Maddalena dei
Pazzi might be said to complete the sense of the Sangue di Cristo engraving,
which was evidently a public appeal for clemency in tacit allusion to the
personal and public crisis of the S. Maria Maggiore tribune; Berninis design
invokes the saint, whom Clement IX had canonized only a few months
before, in April of 1669, who in turn invokes the universal charity of
Christs sacrifice and implores the intercession of the Virgin.28
The idea of reviving the procession of the Assumption with its conjunction of miraculous images, the canonization of Maria Maddalena dei Pazzi,
26
On the Madonna Avvocata-Deesis see Tronzo 1989, 173 f, 180 ff also Belting, in
Tronzo, ed., 1989, esp. 30 ff, and Wolf 1990, 161 ff.
27
The marriage vision is described by Puccini 1609, 238 f.
28
DOnofrio 1973, 48, also relates Berninis print to the canonization. Following a suggestion of Blunt 1978, Beltramme 1994 identifies the kneeling figure in the composition as
Maria Maddalena dei Pazzi, rather than the Virgin. Apart from other considerations, Blunt
and Beltramme simply disregard the fact that all contemporary sources, including Bernini
himself, his own son, his nephew, and Baldinucci, refer to the figure as Mary (see the dispatch quoting Bernini cited in Lavin 1972, 164 n. 17, and the biographies and Marcheses
introduction quoted in Lavin 1972, 160, 167 n. 23). However, one point, not mentioned
by Beltramme or Blunt, leads me to suspect that Bernini may have intended to conflate the
two Marys: the figure is shown barefoot, repeating the motif of Berninis portrayal of St.
Teresa; both saints were Discalzed Carmelites. As Blunt noted, an allusion may also have
been intended to the biblical Mary Madgalene, who is often shown at the foot of the cross
gathering Christs blood. In any case, neither the identification of the figure nor the evident
indebtedness of the concept and Father Marcheses text to the writings of the saint, mitigates
the importance of intercession and the Ars moriendi tradition to the design, content, and
function of the image, including Berninis own use of it at his deathbed.
882
the tribulated project for rebuilding the apse of S. Maria Maggiore, the creation of the Sangue di Cristo composition, and the publication of Father
Marchesels book, are like interlocking pieces of a vast historical jigsaw puzzle of which Berninis incomparable virtue forms the centerpiece.
* * *
A few years ago, while preparing a catalogue of the collections of the
museum of the city of Rome, the Museo di Roma, a young curator found
in the basement repository two relief sculptures that she recognized as
closely related to Berninis bust of the Savior Figs. 28, 29).29 The reliefs were
clearly complementary and each bore the inscription Hospitii Apostolici
Pauperum Invalidorum (Of the Apostolic Hospice of the Invalid Poor). The
reliefs were recorded in an earlier inventory of the museum as having been
removed from the old land customs, as distinct from marine customs,
building in Rome. The old Dogana della Terra is a famous structure that
today houses the Rome stock exchange. Originally built in the second century A.D. as the temple of the Emperor Hadrian, it survived into modern
times and in the year 1695 the great reforming pope Innocent XII
(16911700), as one of his many benefactions for Rome, converted it into
the customs house for overland imports. The reliefs appear in early depictions of the building, and the places where they were attached to the walls
flanking the entrance are still visible (Figs. 30, 31). When the customs
building was converted into the stock exchange in the 1880s the reliefs were
removed, stored in the basement of the Museo di Roma, and forgotten. Two
similar reliefs were already known (Figs. 32, 33) and upon full investigation
a total of seven reliefs, all dependent on Berninis bust, were recovered from
buildings, some still extant, others demolished, in various parts of the city
(Figs. 34, 35, 36). Some bear the same inscription as the two from the customs house, and all can be identified with the Apostolic Hospice of the
Invalid Poor. The archives of the Hospice still exist and its documents
revealed that all the reliefs were executed by several different artists in one
campaign in 169495, fifteen years after Berninis death in 1680. The
newly discovered relationship between Berninis bust of the Savior and the
group of reliefs that pertained to the Apostolic Hospice for the Poor makes
29
The story is told in the splendid study and catalogue entries by Di Gioia in Contardi
et al., eds., 1988, 285344.
883
it possible to reconstruct one of the most remarkable episodes in the

modern artistic and social history of Rome, and, I venture to say, of Europe
generally.
It has been a familiar fact since Michel Foucault wrote his famous chapter on the Le grand renfermement (the great incarceration) in his Folie et
draison of 1961, that the seventeenth century witnessed a great increase in
the number and kinds of institutions devoted to the care of socially undesirable people. Whether there was an actual increase in the destitute population, or a greater awareness of its existence, or both, the chronicles of the
period are filled with laments about the terrible conditions in the cities and
bitter complaints about the fact that citizens cannot walk the streets without being accosted by poor people begging or trying to steal. One cannot
even go to church because the doors are blocked by men, women and children in dirty rags, many more or less horribly and more or less authentically
disabled, seeking to exploit the compassionate Christians obligation of
charity. Such conditions were not only annoying and dangerous in the
criminal sense, and an impediment to religion, they were also dangerous in
the political sense because they fomented civic unrest. Efforts to counter
these developments proliferated from the latter part of the sixteenth century
and the seventeenth century witnessed a veritable flood of Counterreformatory charitable enterprises that sought to deal with the poor, along
with other kinds of unfortunate or unwelcome social deviants such as criminals and the mentally and physically incapacitated, by getting them off the
streets and providing for them properly. In many cities throughout Europe
there were created for the first time general hospices, which were often
attached to prisons and often included the insane and other undesirables.
They might be called hospitals, but not in the modern sense since the treatment of illness was only an incidental function, if it existed at all. A crucial
element of all these measures was that the beneficiaries were reduced to a
state of urban non-existence, as it were. They were required to leave the
streets and enter the hospices where they would be provided for with all due
charity. They would be washed, fed, given clothing and decent accommodation, and put to work in some gainful employment. But if they refused
or evaded the provision, they were condemned. Hence, it became legally
forbidden to beg in the streets or public places, on pain of corporal punishment, imprisonment, or even banishment from the city. In Rome, these
developments culminated in 1692 when Innocent XII announced a great,
new, and imaginative war on poverty. Elected by the party known as the
884
Zealous (Zelanti), Innocent was a passionate reformer. He is remembered

mainly for having decreed an end to the millennial papal prerogative of
nepotism, but he was responsible for many other improvements as well. In
the fall of 1692 he issued a dramatic edict requiring that all the poor of
Rome, including their families, report to a central place where they would
be interviewed and given clothing, and whence they would then proceed to
their new home. There all their needs would be provided for and they
would participate in a highly structured regime of daily activities that
included training and work in useful trades, and religious instruction and
devotions of all sorts. Family members who could not physically transport
themselves to the hospice, were allowed to remain in their own homes, if
they had them, where they would receive comparable care and give comparable service and devotions to the limit of their abilities. The edict was carried out on Sunday, November 30, 1692, with a great procession of the
poor to their new quarters.
Much of the program enacted in Rome was based on similar programs
in other cities, notably Amsterdam, Paris, Lyon, Florence and Genoa. But
in some important respects Rome was special and different. To begin with,
the idea of ministering to the poor developed from a quite different context
in Rome than elsewhere. The initial driving force in Rome was not the
perennial urban social problem presented by the indigent. Rather, it was
related to the spectacular development during the Counterreformatory
period of the Holy Year celebrations.30 The first hospices in Rome were created in order to provide for the many needy pilgrims who came during
Holy Years to pay their devotions at the sacred sites of the city. In Rome,
the movement was connected in a very specific way with Christian charity.
Innocent XIIs program, moreover, devoted much more attention than
did others to instruction, both sacred and artisanal; and religious devotions
and productive labor were conceived as benefits, not punishments for the
poor.31 The program was thus not simply a remedy for social ill but had a
specific spiritual and ethical content, as well.
The seminal importance of the jubilee pilgrimages in the development of charities for
the poor in Italy, and especially Rome, has been recognized by Pullan 1978, 10015, and
Simoncelli 19734, 123. On the poorhouses of Genoa, Palermo and Naples, see Guerra, et
al. 1995. Marder 1980, 43 f., noted the importance of social programs in the architectural
projects of late seventeenth-century Rome, including the Lateran hospice.
31
On this point see Contardi in Contardi et al., eds., 1988, 23.
30
885
Thirdly, the Roman program embraced all the poor, including the wives
and children of family men, who might be cared for at home if the move to
the hospice was impracticable. The hospice was also exclusively for the poor,
who were not combined with criminals and the insane.32 The program
might well be described as a universal Christian charity.
Fourthly, Rome was extraordinary by virtue of the building that was
given over to the hospice (Fig. 37). It was an enormous palace built by Pope
Sixtus V at the end of the sixteenth century adjoining the church of St.
Johns in the Lateran, which is the cathedral of the city and thus the
Episcopal seat of the successor to St. Peter as Bishop of the diocese of Rome.
Sixtus had built the Lateran palace as his summer residence, but it remained
vacant and abandoned after his successor built another, more convenient
retreat. Rome was thus confronted with the wondrous spectacle of the poorest of the poor occupying one of the greatest, noblest and most luxurious
palaces in the world (Fig. 38). In a sense, the measure was a prophetic piece
of urban renewal, like the re-use of old railway stations and industrial buildings for civic purposes in our time. But there was a deeper significance, as
well. The Catholic church is traditionally conceived as devoted to poverty,
and when Innocent was criticized for this extravagant folly, his reply was
that he was only giving to the poor, whom he called my true nephews,
what was properly theirs in this case, the palace of the popes, no less.33
The fifth great difference of the Roman program from its predecessors
was organizational, or rather administrative. It was meant to be permanent,
and toward this end it was supposed to be financially self-sustaining. The
funding was to come from several kinds of sources, beginning with a major
endowment from the papal treasury itself. In addition, gifts by individuals
to other welfare institutions were forbidden; private benefactions were
henceforth channeled to the Apostolic Hospice. All Christian charity was
thus devoted to this single, new, global enterprise. In addition, the employment of the inmates was conceived in a new way. In other cases the
sequestered poor were put to work for the state, or, in effect, leased to private entrepreneurs, who thus exploited the cheap labor. Here, instead, the
goods and labor were sold and the profits were used to support the hospice
itself. And finally, income from taxes and rents was assigned to the hospice
for example, a tax on playing cards; taxes on goods imported into the
city, levied at the land and sea customs houses; and rental income on a
32
33
Contardi in Contardi et al., eds., 1988, 24.

Contardi in Contardi et al., eds., 1988, 19.
886
number of buildings that were given to the hospice by the pope or other
donors. The sculptured reliefs were made as signs for one and all to see that
the buildings they adorned belonged to the hospice at the Lateran and were
dedicated to its mission of charity in imitation of Christ.34 And of course,
with the suppression of the other, private charities, it was unique as a public institution having its insignia, the descendants of Berninis bust of the
Savior, displayed throughout the city. It is important to observe that all the
derivatives from Berninis Savior follow the conception of the work
recorded in Berninis preparatory drawing (cf. Fig. 1), rather than the final
version, in two essential ways: Christ looks forward, not up, and the gesture
of the right hand is benedictory, not protective. The differences embody a
different expressive emphasis: not judgment and intercession, but charity,
pure and simple; and a different function: not the personal appeal of Ars
moriendi eschatology, but the social context of public welfare.35 At its height
the hospice housed some 1600 people and provided for some 250 families
in their homes.
I am convinced that the unique character of this institution could only
have been defined in Rome under the papacy, with its unique, cosmopolitan fusion of church and state, religious and civic consciousness, moral
ideals and practical necessities. Indeed, to think of Innocent XIIs project
simply as charity misses a crucial point. It seems to me that the Lateran hospice signals the development of a new social as well as political awareness in
Europe. It is often said that the modern notion of statehood as a coherent
political and, indeed, moral entity developed under the aegis of the absolute
34
Di Gioia (in Contardi et al., eds., 1988, 326) notes that the reliefs were placed only
on the income-producing buildings, not where the poor were actually housed. The buildings
related to the hospice are discussed in Contardi et al., eds., 1988, 103201. The idea of identifying the buildings in this way was surely based on the Confraternity of the Saviors use of
its emblem (see p.239 above).
35
Di Gioia (in Contardi et al., eds., 1988, 325 ff ) comments perceptively on these differences and, following my suggestion concerning the bust at Ses (Lavin 1973), also concludes that the copies reflect the stage recorded in the Corsini drawing. If my hypothesis is
correct, that Bernini sent the drawing to Paris for his friend Cureau de la Chambre to have
copied in marble, then a comparable work must have been available in Rome, which the
artists there followed in preference to Berninis own sculpture, then in the collection of
Innocent XIs nephew, Livio Odescalchi. The obvious solution was offered by Di Giola, who
refers to the copy of the Savior painted by Berninis protege Baciccio (lost, but clearly
reflected in another work by him), which Bernini left to Innocent XI (as recorded by
Domenico Bernini, see Lavin 1973, 162), and which was also in the Odescalchi collection
when the reliefs were made.
887
monarchies of the seventeenth century; and the papacy, in its special way,
was certainly among them. Within this context, what we are witnessing
here is nothing less than the birth of a modern notion of the poor as a distinct class, and of welfare as an abstract, global concept. And this new level
of consciousness is, in turn, an essential component of the new conception
of the social body itself as an organic whole embracing all its members,
including even the undesirable. I use the word embrace advisedly
because the poor are not only recognized as a group, they are also the subject of universal concern, a challenge not only to the personal conscience of
the individual but to the collective conscience of government and the governed. It might be said that indigent people are no longer dependent on private Christian charity, and instead the poor become a collective social
responsibility.
The man who formulated the idea of the hospice adopted by Innocent
XII as the solution to the problem of the homeless in Rome, who helped
work out its organization and administration, and who was assigned an
important role in carrying it out, was none other than Berninis beloved
nephew, the Oratorian priest Francesco Marchese. After the artists death
Marchese became an increasingly important figure in the intellectual religious life of the city and deeply concerned with its social problems. He was
appointed Apostolic Preacher by Innocent XI (167689) in 1689.36 The
tract he wrote in 1691 describing his proposal which was only part of a
much wider program of reform is still preserved.37 It was obviously
Father Marchese who saw the appropriateness of Berninis portrait of the
Savior as the emblem of the hospice. He was not simply promoting the
fame of his uncles art there was certainly no need for that. He understood that Berninis image and the apostolic hospice were in fact profoundly
related: both were motivated by essentially the same, in the end quite
unprecedented ideal of a truly universal charity.
I suspect there was more to this relationship than meets the eye; more,
that is, than merely a happy inspiration on Father Marcheses part.
Marcheses project, in fact, was a development and elaboration into a coherent program of a scheme for the same kind of hospice that had been outlined by one of his older confreres at the Oratory, Father Mariano Sozzini,
Marchese was named Apostolic Preacher to succeed Bonaventura da Recanati; see
Bonadonna Russo 1979, 258 n. 14; Lippi 1889, 2734; for the date, See Dictionnaire
1912 ff, IX, cols. 8089.
37
On the date See Contardi in Contardi et al., eds., 1988, 34 n. 6.
36
888
many years before. Sozzini had originally sketched out his ideas on the
deplorable conditions in Rome in 1670, the very year in which Berninis
visual meditation on the blood of Christ appeared, accompanied by
Marcheses explanatory booklet. Sozzini made a more developed proposal
for reform soon after Innocent XI became pope in September 1676, and
later that same year we hear that Bernini himself had been asked to refurbish the Lateran palace for a hospice for the poor.38 Proposals to use the
Lateran palace for this purpose had already been made twice before in
Berninis time, in the reign of Alexander VII, and again early in that of
Clement IX.39 None of these projects was carried out but the coincidences
can scarcely have been fortuitous and I cannot help thinking that Bernini
himself might have been the common denominator.
Certainly, the Oratorians and particularly Sozzini and Marchese were
the prime movers of the whole enterprise, and it has been suggested that
Marchese may have proposed his uncle for the restoration of the palace.40 I
wonder, however, whether the underlying notion of universal charity
expressed nowhere more succinctly than in the Sangue di Cristo composition and in the bust of the Savior might really have been Berninis, stemming ultimately from his own interpretation and application of the Art of
Dying. It is worth recalling in this connection that in his tract on the maladies of the church, composed in 1670, the year Marcheses treatise illustrated by Berninis Sangue di Cristo was published, Sozzini argued that
Rome had a special moral obligation to the poor: in the papal city luxury
was more pernicious than elsewhere because it was purchased with the
Blood of Christ (that is, the donations of the faithful) and the patrimony of
On the dating of Sozzinis project for Innocent XI see Bonadonna Russo 1979, 260,
265 n. 42, 273 f; Contardi in Contardi et al., eds., 1988, 18.
The report of Innocents charge to Bernini to refurbish the Lateran palace is dated
November 21, 1676: Ha fatta Sua Santit chiamare il Cau.r Bernini, et impostoli di douere
ristaurare il Palazzo Lateranense uolendo porui lArti, uero farlo habitatione de poueri
(Fraschetti 1900, 398 n, 1). A written discussion of the restoration project is preserved:
Calcolo e riflessione sopra al palazzo apostolico in S. Giovanni in Laterano per il premeditato
hospedale (Bibl. Vall., G. 62, fols. 32533; cf. Bonadonna Russo 1979, 273 n. 58; Contardi
in Contardi et al., eds., 1988, 34 n. 22).
39
In an interesting social critique of the city at that period, discussed by Krautheimer
1985, 126ff, 191 f.
40
Innocents close ties to the Oratorians were emphasized by Bonadonna Russo 1979,
258 f. The suggestion was made by Contardi in Contardi et al., eds., 1988, 34 n. 24.
38
889
the poor (the goods of the Church).41 The possibility of Berninis conceptual contribution may be enhanced by another circumstance that can hardly
be fortuitous. The two most famous and popular of all bust-length images
of Christ were associated with the Lateran, whose original and primary dedication is to the Savior.42 In the center of the apse of the church (Fig. 39) is
a cloudborne bust of Christ that was reputed to have appeared in the sky,
reciting the blessing Pax vobis to the people, on November 9, 324 A.D., the
day the basilica was consecrated by Pope Sylvester I, at the behest of the
emperor Constantine the Great, as the cathedral of Rome. The second
image (Fig. 40) is housed next to the Lateran in the Scala Santa, a structure
containing the relic of the steps from the palace of Pilate where Christ was
judged. This portrait of Christ not made by hand was the icon that on the
feast of the Assumption was carried through the streets of Rome to S. Maria
Maggiore, where it was met by the Salus populi romani. The two Lateran
images were linked, so to speak, through the Venerable Company of the
Most Sacred Image of the Most Holy Savior at the Sancta Sanctorum. This
noble confraternity, one of the oldest in Rome, was charged with guarding
the Sanctum Sanctorum icon, and also with administering the great hospital for the poor and infirm that had been attached to the church of the
Lateran since the late middle ages. The emblem of that confraternity was a
bust of Christ that recalls the apse image, but appears above a parapet-like,
ornamented base, so as to suggest also the elaborately framed, full-length
icon Figs. 41, 42).43 The emblem was displayed on the confraternitys doc. . . il lusso in Roma pi pernicioso che nelle altre citt . . . perch si fa col sangue
di Cristo e col patrimonio de poveri, Dllinger 1882, 472; cited by Bonadonna Russo
1979, 261.
42
The Lateran icon of the Savior has been discussed recently by Wolf 1990, 605; on its
monumental mosaic counterpart in the apse of the Lateran, See Warland 1986, 3141, 212;
DOnofrio 1990, 2269. I am indebted at this point to William Tronzo, who reminded me
of the Lateran icon in connection with Berninis bust of the Savior.
43
On the hospital, the confraternity and its emblem and the Lateran images see De
Angelis 1958; Lumbroso and Martini 1963, 394 ff; Pavan 1978, 1984; DOnofrio 1990,
212 ff; Freiberg 1995, 1135. Freiberg 1988, 352 n. 168, aptly suggested that the two angels
shown below and flanking the Savior image in Fig. 42 (in the form of the confraternity
emblem) allude to the pair of angels that flank the ark of the covenant in Exodus 25:123;
Berninis angels might make the same point. Grisar 1908, 49, interpreted the Confraternitys
emblem illusionistically as reflecting the view of the icon protruding above the altar of the
Sancta Sanctorum. The silver frame of the icon covers all but the face, whereas in the apse
mosaic Christ is represented in the form of a bust. DOnofrio is therefore undoubtedly correct in relating the emblem to the Lateran apparition; the Confraternity, linked both to the
41
890
uments and, in the form of reliefs, on the buildings that served the hospital; these reliefs clearly inspired the use of Berninis image for the Hospice
of Innocent XII. Indeed, they may even have inspired Berninis image
itself.44
The revival of interest in the great procession, or rather the icons
involved in it, may have had another significance for Bernini, as well. At
several points along the way the cortege stopped, the Christ icon was introduced to other images of the Virgin and a particularly noteworthy part
of the ritual from our point of view the feet at the bottom of the image
were anointed.45 Although most of the figure was hidden by the reliquary
cover, the image was conceived as a spiritual whole, whose full, mystical significance was conveyed by the very partiality of the material presence
very much the effect of Berninis unamputated bust.
I have little doubt, though I certainly cannot prove it, that Bernini chose
to make a bust of the Savior in the first place in allusion to the Christ
images at the Lateran, including that of the venerable confraternity of the
Lateran hospital, because the project for the new hospice was in the offing,
and even because he thought his own image might be used in precisely the
way it was used twenty years later as a model of charity. This hypothesis, in turn, may shed light on a problem inherent in the biographers
account of the origin of the bust as having been executed in the last year of
the artists life, although he had begun preparing for death some time
before, and destined for Queen Christina of Sweden: mounted on its base
the grandiose scale of the work seems better suited for a public monument
than a private devotional image, even one intended for a queen. There is no
Sanctum Sanctorum and to the basilica, evidently fused the two images by adopting the bust
form from the apparition, but providing it with an ornamented base that recalls the elaborate frame of the icon.
44
Di Gioia in Contardi et al., eds., 1988, 324, 326 f, has also associated Berninis bust
and the Lateran hospice images to the emblem of the confraternity. An interesting appreciation of the special, mystical qualities of the Lateran icon, and especially its visage, is found
in Francisco de Hollandas mid-sixtenteeth-century dialogues with Michelangelo: Ora giacch Dio Padre voile, che fosse cosi ben guarnita e dipinta larca delle sue leggi, con quanto
pi studio e seriet vorr, che sia imitata la Sua faccia divina e quella di Suo figlio Signor
Nostro, e la purezza, la castit, la bellezza della gloriosa Vergine Maria, che fu solo dipinta
da S. Luca Evangelista, come il volto del Salvatore, che nel Santo Sanctorum a S. Giovanni
in Laterano . . . lImmagine con quella severa semplicit che ha lantica pittura e quei divini
e soprannaturali occhi, ispiranti tema, come conviene al Salvatore (Bessone Aurelj 1953,
137 f ).
45
On this ritual, see Wolf 1990, 54 f.
891
evidence that Bernini ever planned a funerary monument for himself. His
testament stipulates simply that he be interred in his family vault in S.
Maria Maggiore he grew up in a house across the street from the
Cappella Paolina, where he had worked as a boy alongside his father, the
leading sculptor in Rome of his generation.46 It is tempting to suppose that
Bernini thought of the bust in 1676, with a view to installing it in the proposed new hospice at the Lateran palace, to be refurbished according to his
design. This was the context for which the conception recorded in the
Corsini drawing and the subsequent copies was intended. Innocent XIs
failure to follow through with the project may have been among the motivations that lay behind Berninis devastating caricature of the crabbed and
austere hypochondriac, whose popular nick-name was the No-Pope (Fig.
43).47 And the disappointment may have contributed to the change in attitude that resulted in the final version of the work.
46
The relevant passage in Berninis testament reads as follows: Il mio corpo voglio che
sia seppellito nella sacrosanta basilica di S. Maria Maggiore, dove oltrhavere la sepoltura di
casa mia, servir a monsignor Pietro Filippo mio figlio canonico della mede.ma basilica per
una quotidiana memoria di raccordarsi dellanima mia. Li funerali rimetto ad arbitrio
dellinfrascritti miei heredi alli quali raccordo, chapoveri defunti sono pi necessarii li suffragi di messe et orationi che di apparenze dellesequie (Borsi et al., eds., 1981, 60). He was
buried in a lead casket, with an inscription giving his name and the date of his death. On
Berninis testament, burial and paternal house see Lavin 1972, 159, 162, 183; DOnofrio
1967, 144; Borsi et al., eds., 1981, 138, 35 f.
We might add, incidentally, that Berninis self-portraits are also distinctly modest and
unassuming compared to those of his illustrious contemporaries, Rubens, Rembrandt,
Velasquez.
It is interesting to note that, although Bernini referred to all of his works as his children,
one in particular evidently had special significance for him but personal and private, not
as a tomb or other public memorial. His biographers mention that only one work by his own
chisel was left in his house at his death, the figure of Truth discovered by Time, now in the
Galleria Borghese, which in his testament he enjoined his heirs from ever alienating, intending that it serve as a permanent reminder to his descendants that the most beautiful virtue
in the world consists in the truth, because in the end it is discovered by time (Borsi et al.,
eds., 1981, 71 f. See the discussion of this work in Lavin 1980, 704.
47
Innocent XI was from early on one of the skeptics as to the bureaucratic feasibility and
ethical propriety of such a project in Rome; he found especially repugnant the idea of reclusion of the poor, like prisoners in a jail. In his view, it was reported, if one were to establish
un ospizio chiuso allora, come accade in tutti glaltri, sarebbe necessario che il povero prima
di potervi entrare andasse con il memoriale tre o quattro giorni supplichevole alli deputati,
e cos finisse di morire di stento, oltre che sarebbe necessario che il povero restasse ivi come
prigioniero in una carcere, nella guisa che si costuma in Amsterdam, cosa che gli pareva che
diamentralmente si opponesse alla libert che devono avere li poveri cattolici, massime
892
If Bernini did indeed conceive the bust for the Lateran hospice, it was
not simply an act of private devotion, but was also intended from the beginning, like the Sangue di Cristo composition, as a public, indeed reproducible
appeal for redemption. I can offer one more partial, but reassuring bit of
comfort for the admittedly hazardous hypothesis that Berninis ideas
might have played a significant role in the formulation of this papal institution of universal public charity. Innocent XII issued a number of medals
commemorating various aspects of the enterprise, including one in
169293 to celebrate the opening of the Lateran palace to the poor, which
showed the building and the adjacent transept faade in the familiar diagonal view across the piazza (Fig. 44).48 Another medal, issued the following
year, illustrated the act of charity itself by an extraordinary variation on the
familiar allegory of Christs sacrifice, the pelican feeding its young its own
blood by piercing its own breast (Fig. 45). Ordinarily, the bird and its offspring are shown in isolation, but here the pelican stands on a huge box that
must allude to the papal coffer, while its young are shown below in a wide
landscape. From the huge birds breast a great cascade of blood gushes forth
in such abundance as to feed the young and inundate the earth to provide
sustenance for all its creatures. The accompanying legend, Sinum suum aperuit egenis puns ingeniously on the word sinus, which means both purse or
coffer and breast or heart the Church opens her purse and breast not
only to her own but to all the poor. The idea clearly reflects Berninis Sangue
di Cristo composition and thus closes the circle surrounding Berninis art of
dying and two of the major religious and social enterprises of his last years
at S. Maria Maggiore and the Lateran;49 had the projects been carried out
they would, together with his work at St. Peters have given Berninis stamp
to the three greatest centers of popular devotion in Rome.
The possibility that a mere artist might have influenced the development of such grand ideas may seem less farfetched if one recalls that Bernini
was a close friend of a whole series of popes and conversant with the most
pellegrini (Bonadonna Russo 1979, 264, 271, 272; Contardi in Contardi et al., eds, 1988,
19, 34f n. 24). On this point see p. 244 above.
On Berninis caricature of Innocent XI and his particular problems with that pope, see
Lavin 1990, 326.
48
The medals of Innocent XII are listed and discussed by M. Mercali in Contardi et al.,
eds.,1988, 4558.
49
The analogy between the medal and Berninis composition was noted in Witman
1983, 155.
893
powerful people in Rome. He certainly thought big, in death as in every

other way: he said he believed that when he came to settle his account with
God he would be dealing with a lord who did not count half-pennies.50
While not properly an intellectual, Bernini was a gifted and thoughtful
intellect who wrote and produced brilliant satirical comedies, and could discuss spiritual and theological issues like a professional that was the
phrase used by another of his close friends, the great General of the Jesuit
order, Giovanni Paolo Oliva.51 Nor should the gestation of such grandiose
social ideas be surprising in an artist whose great public squares, fountains
and monuments, gave Rome the modern aspect by which it is still conspicuously defined. In a remarkable document defending his proposals for the
Piazza S. Pietro Bernini specifically addressed the problem of the poor and
homeless under the aspect of Charity; eulogizing Alexander VII, he emphasized the utility of public works, rather than outright dole, which encouraged idleness and vice.52 Indeed, it seems appropriate in this context that he
Cf. Lavin 1972, 160 f.
Cf. Lavin 1972, 160 f.
52
Applic subito a i mali glopportuni remedii, e compassionando la povert, che non
solo priva dimpiego errava vagabondo per la Citt, ma languiva oppressa da una carestia che
quanto pi affligeva il Popolo, tanto maggiormente doveva far spiccare la sua piet, si volse
a distribuire grand.ma quantit doro, bench la scarsezza dellerario fosse unargine opposto
al torrente di questa devota munificenza. Portato il nostro liberalissimo Prencipe dalla piena
Carit ben providde, che laprire semplicemente a beneficio comune i Tesori era un
fomentare otio, et un nudrire i vitii. Onde quellistesso antidoto che s applicava per la salute
poteva essere un tossico pi potente per avvelenarla. Cos dunque represse quella fiamma di
Carit, non per estinguerla, ma acci maggiormente pr di suoi sudditi si dilatasse, quindi
pens dar principio ad una gran fabbrica, mediante la quale sieccitasse limpigeo nei
vagabondi, e si sovvenisse con il giro di grossa somma di denaro alle correnti necessit. (He
quickly applied opportune remedies to the evils, and, compassionate with poverty which
not only wandered unemployed about the city, but languished under the oppression of a
famine that increasingly elicited his pity the more it afflicted the people he turned to distributing large quantities of gold, although the poor harvest limited the torrent of this
devout munificence. Moved by whole hearted Charity, this most generous pope saw clearly
that simply to open the Treasury for the common good was to promote idleness and nourish vice. Whence the very antidote one applied to restore health could be the most potent
toxin to poison it. He therefore repressed that flame of Charity, not to extinguish it but so
that it might be more greatly dispersed to the benefit of his subjects, whence he thought to
begin a great construction, through which to encourage labor among the homeless, and by
the expenditure of a large sum of money alleviate the immediate need.) Rome, Biblioteca
Vaticana MS Chigi H II 22, fols. 1059v, transcribed and dated 165960 by Brauer and
Wittkower 1931, 70, n. 1; dated 16578 by Krautheimer 1985, 174. Further to this subject in Lavin 1997.
50
51
894
25. Apse mosaic. Rome, S. Clemente (photo: Alinari 7177a).
26. Madonna di S. Sisto. Rome, S. Maria del Rosario

(photo: ICCD E55673).
895
896
27. Jacopo Torriti, Coronation ofthe Virgin. Rome, S. Maria Maggiore

28. Relief of the Savior, formerly

Dogana della Terra.
Rome, Museo di Roma
(photo: MNCSA 27099).
29. Relief of the Savior, formerly

Dogana della Terra.
Rome, Museo di Roma
897
898
30. Dogana della Terra

(Temple of Hadrian). Rome
31. Dogana della Terra

(Temple of Hadrian),
detail of entrance wall. Rome
(photo: Museo di Roma).
32. Relief of the Savior.

Rome, Palazzo di Montecitorio

Rome, Palazzo di Montecitorio
899
900
34. Relief of the Savior,

formerly Dogana di Ripa.
Present wherabouts unknown.
35. Relief of the Savior,

formerly Palazzetto
del Vicegerente.
Museo Nazionale di
Castel S. Angelo, Rome
(photo: MNCSA26435).
36. Relief of the Savior, formerly Monastero delle Filippine.

Complesso monumentale di S. Michele, Rome
901
902
37. Lateran Palace, Rome (photo: Anderson 97).

39. Apse mosaic. S. Giovanni in Laterano, Rome (photo: Alinari 7149).
903
38 The Lateran palace as hospice for the poor, engraved frontispiece by P. S. Bartoli
inscribed with Isaiah 58.7: egenos vagosque induc in domum tuam
(thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house) (after Piazza 1693).
904
40. Icon of the Savior. Chapel of the Sancta Sanctorum,

Scala Santa, Rome (photo: Anderson 2338).
905
41. Emblem of the Confraternity of

the SS. Salvatore ad Sancta
Sanctorum. Hospital
of S. Giovanni in Laterano, Rome
(photo: MNCSA).
42. Emblem of the Confraternity of

the SS. Salvatore ad Sancta
Sanctorum, detail of an engraving
by Giovanni Maggi and Matthieas
Greuter, ca. 1610
(photo: Biblioteca Hertziana,
Rome H D8550).
906
43. Gianlorenzo
Bernini, caricature of
Innocent XI.
Kunst, Leipzig.
44. Medal of
Innocent XII.
Rome.
45. Medal of Innocent XII. Biblioteca Vaticana, Rome.
907
46. Gianlorenzo
Bernini.
Piazza S. Pietro,
Rome
(photo: Alinari
41228a).
908
47. Gianlorenzo
Bernini,
fountain of the
Four Rivers.
Piazza Navona,
Rome
(photo:
Alinari 6700).
909
910
conceived the colonnades that bounded the vast space in front of St. Peters
as a colossal pair of arms embracing all mankind (Fig. 46) to express, as
he said in the same document, the Churchs act of maternally receiving in
her open arms Catholics to be confirmed in faith, heretics to be reunited
with the Church, and unbelievers to be enlightened by the true faith.53 Nor
should such radical social ideas be surprising in an artist who, in the sphere
of public art, introduced into the urban center rustic, natural forms previously thought fit only for gardens, theatrical landscapes and portrayals of
the underworld (Fig. 47). Privately, while Bernini frequented the high and
mighty, he was far from obsequious in their regard. He lampooned them
mercilessly in his comedies; and he created the modern caricature, in which
the sublime is deliberately reduced to the ridiculous a stylistic and social
revolution he inaugurated precisely by raising socially popular and stylistically impoverished graphic traditions like graffiti and childrens drawings to
the level of high class satire.54
* * *
For better or worse, Innocent XIIs great social adventure was a dismal
and almost immediate failure. The foundation was established in 1692 and
only four years later, in 1696, recruitment was halted. The hospice itself
continued for some time in ever diminishing conditions, to be replaced
later in the century by an even more ambitious welfare institution in Rome;
and of course the idea of a universal charity for the poor as a public responsibility continued to evolve in one form or another ever after. The original
experiment ended with the abandonment of one key provision, which
totally transformed the basic concept, namely the forced internment of the
poor. Residence in the hospice was no longer obligatory, and the homeless
returned to their homelessness. Contemporary sources make it both
. . . essendo la Chiesa di S. Pietro quasi matrice di tutte le altre doveva haverun portico che per lappunto dimostrasse di ricevere braccia aperte maternamente i Cattolici per
confermarli nella credenza, glHeretici per riunirli alla Chiesa, e glInfedeli per illuminarli
alla vera fede. Brauer and Wittkower 1931, 70, n. 1; see Kitao 1974, 14, and index s.v. arms
of the church, image of.
54
1t is worth recalling in this connection that Bernini was notorious for lampooning in
his plays and caricatures people who ranked high in the social order, even the pope (Fig. 43),
whereas the subjects of the ritrattini carichi by his predecessors, the Carracci, were characteristically undistinguished. On Berninis satirical plays and caricatures, see Lavin 1980,
14657; 1990.
53
911
painfully and ironically clear that this sublime social edifice collapsed for
three main reasons. From the benefactors point of view it was too expensive. The income from all the sources of funding never even approached the
costs. The concept of self-sufficiency proved unrealistic and the state could
not cover the enormous deficit. On the other hand, the beneficiaries themselves were unhappy with their new found security; they did not wish to be
confined, however comfortably, and came to regard the popes palace as a
gilded cage from which they longed to escape. Some admitted that they
actually liked the vagabond life of a poor mendicant, for the very freedom
from constraints, including financial ones, it afforded. One of the
refuseniks is recorded as explaining, This way of living in freedom, a bit
here, a bit there, we like it too much. And someone who tastes the joys of
knavery cannot easily do without it.55
Finally, and perhaps most prophetically, there were those who objected
on principle. They defended the indigent by arguing that to incarcerate
people merely because they are poor is unjust; it made poverty into a kind
of crime, punishable by isolation from the rest of society. And this point had
a corollary in another, even more radical notion some critics espoused, that
to beg for a living is, after all, a God-given right. A man must be free to
make his own way, even by mooching, if he wants to.
Questo modo di vivere in libert, mo qua, mo l, a scrocco senza fare fatica, piace
troppo a noi altri, e . . . chi gusta una volta della furfanteria, non pu poi cos facilmente
ritirarsi (testimony of 1595; Simoncelli 19734, 148).
55
912
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De Angelis, P., Larciospedale del Salvatore ad S.S. a S. Giovanni in Laterano.

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914
Kitao, T. K., Circle and Oval in the Square of Saint Peters. Berninis Art of Planning,
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916
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Lavin XXIII. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap XI
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XXIII
Berninis Image of the Ideal Christian Monarch*
Y purpose in this paper is to consider three celebrated ruler portraits

by Bernini in a context to which they have never been referred but
which, in my view, is essential to an understanding of their form and meaning. While following traditional types, in each case Bernini introduced fundamental changes that resulted in three of the most powerful and innovative images of secular leadership in the history of European art.1 The works
in question are the bust of Francesco I dEste, duke of Modena, executed
16501 after two painted profile portraits by Sustermans (Fig. 1); the bust
of Louis XIV executed during Berninis visit to Paris in the summer of 1665
Except for a few added references, this paper was first presented at the Ignatian year colloquium Les jsuites et la civilisation du baroque (15401640), organized by Louis de
Vaucelles, S.J., and held at Les Fontaines, Chantilly, in June 1991. I am grateful to Father
Vaucelles for allowing me to publish my contribution elsewhere, in order to he able to
include the requisite illustrations. An Italian version, accompanied by an essay and complete
documentation on the creation of the bust of Francesco I dEste, has been published: Bernini
e limmagine del principe cristiano ideale: Appendice documentaria a cura di Giorgia Mancini
(Modena, 1998).
1
This essay belongs, in part, to a series of attempts I have made to describe the nature,
meaning, and development of illusionism in the Italian sculptured bust since the
Renaissance: Irving Lavin, Five Youthful Sculptures by Gianlorenzo Bernini and a Revised
Chronology of His Early Works, Art Bulletin 50 (1968): 22348; On the Sources and
Meaning of the Renaissance Portrait Bust, Art Quarterly 33 (1970): 20726; Berninis
Death, Art Bulletin 54 (1972): 15886; On Illusion and Allusion in Italian SixteenthCentury Portrait Busts, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 119 (1975):
35362; On the Pedestal of Berninis Bust of the Savior, Art Bulletin 60 (1978): 547. Some
of the material is incorporated in a chapter entitled Berninis Image of the Sun King in my
book PastPresent: essays on Historicism in Art from Donatello to Picasso (Berkeley, 1993), pp.
139202, where full references to the sources will be found.
*
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918
to redesign the Louvre (Fig. 2); and the equestrian monument of Louis conceived in Paris but executed after Berninis return to Rome (Fig. 3). The
equestrian group was sent to Paris years after Berninis death, when it met
with very hostile response; finally, transformed into a portrayal of Marcus
Curtius hurling himself into a fiery abyss to save his people, it was installed
in the garden of Versailles.2 (There it remained until, in 1980, the tricentennial of Berninis death, it was brutally mutilated in an act of cultural terrorism. Cleaned and restored, it has now been installed in a new sculpture
museum in the Grandes Ecuries at Versailles.)
The context in which I believe these works should be understood is the
great tradition of early modern political theory and practice which since the
pioneering studies of Friedrich Meinecke and Rodolfo De Mattei has come
to be known as anti-Machiavellianism.3 The movement began towards the
middle of the sixteenth century in response to Machiavellis devastating critique of traditional Christian political theory. The intent was to counter
Machiavellis drastically amoral realpolitik with a kind of ideal realpolitik
retaining, often even reviving essential elements of Scholastic ideology, but
revised so as to make allowances for the sometimes unpleasant necessities of
practical political action on which Machiavelli had insisted. Among the
main proponents, particularly in Spain, were the Jesuits, who sought to provide an alternative to Machiavellis model of cynical unscrupulousness in
the worldly arena of statecraft. From the latter part of the sixteenth century
For summary accounts of the three works, see Rudolf Wittkower, Gian Lorenzo
Bernini: The Sculptor of the Roman Baroque (Oxford, 1981), pp. 224, 2467, 254 ff.
3
Friedrich Meinecke, Machiavellianism: The Doctrine of Raison dEtat and Its Place in
Modern History (1927; New York, 1957); Rodolfo De Mattei, Il pensiero politico italiano nellet della controriforma, 2 vols. (Milan and Naples, 19824); see also A. Dempf, Christliche
Staatsphilosophie in Spanien (Salzburg, 1937); H. Lutz, Ragione di stato und christliche
Staatsethik im 16. Jahrhundert (Mnster, 1961); M. Viroli, Dalla politica alla ragion di stato:
La scienza del governo tra XIII e XVII secolo (Rome, 1994), pp. 15584. The views of some
of the major writers of the school, including the Jesuits Giovanni Botero, Pedro de
Ribadeneira, Adam Contzen, and Carlo Scribani (also Justus Lipsius, who had close connections to the Jesuits), have recently been outlined by Robert Bireley, The CounterReformation Prince (Raleigh, N.C., 1990); although I deal with different authors and focus
on a different theme, I am greatly indebted to Bireleys work. Further to the theme, see J. L.
Colomer, Trait politique, exercise spirituel: Lart de la mditation chez Virgilio Malvezzi,
Rivista di letterature moderne e comparate 45 (1992): 24561, and Esplicar los grandes
hechos de vuestra magestad: Virgilio Malvezzi, historien di Philippe IV, in Repubblica e
virt: Pensiero politico e monarchia cattolica fra XVI e XVII secolo, ed. C. Continisio and C.
Mozzarelli (Rome, 1995), pp. 4575, and some of the other essays therein.
2
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BERNINIS IMAGE OF THE IDEAL CHRISTIAN MONARCH
919
on, a veritable flood of anti-Machiavellian literature defended the relevance

of Christian moral principles not only to utopian visions of domestic rule
and foreign diplomacy but also to practical and successful statesmanship.
The key argument in this new reason of state was that the best form of
government, monarchy, while responsible ultimately to God, was based on
the consent of the people; that the power of the ruler derived practically
from his reputation; and that his reputation in turn depended on his exercise of virtue.4
I am concerned here with a particular current within this river of
counter-reformatory Christian political thought, which I should call the
theory of the prince-hero.5 The theory defined the relation between morality and political power in such a way as to create a new, modern version of
the old notion of the ideal Christian ruler. The Jesuits were also important,
if not exclusive, tributaries to this current, and I suspect that, although
Bernini modified it in a subtle but portentous way, the theory of the princehero was the tertium quid that linked the artist to the Jesuits in the secular
sphere.6
The bust of Francesco dEste (Fig. 1) follows a typology the
armoured military figure with the torso enveloped by drapery that had
been developed from ancient models in the sixteenth and was quite comOn this concept of reputation, see Bireley, Counter-Reformation.
The idea of the monarch as hero was singled out by De Mattei, Il pensiero, I 222, II
223, and by S. Skalweit, Das Herrscherbild des 17. Jahrhunderts, Historische Zeitschrift
184 (1957): 712.
6
Berninis relations with the Jesuits have often been stressed, sometimes overstressed, as
a major factor in the development of his art in the religious sphere; see Walter Weibel,
Jesuitismus und Barockskulptur in Rom (Strasbourg, 1909); Rudolf Kuhn, Gian Paolo Oliva
und Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Rmische Quartalschrift fr christliche Altertumskunde und
Kirchengeschichte 64 (1969): 22933; Hask. Patr., pp. 85 ff; Hask. Role, pp. 56 ff; Witt.
Prob., pp. 11 ff; Lavin, Berninis Death, and PastPresent (the chapter on Berninis busts
of the Anima Beata and Dannata); Anthony Blunt, Gianlorenzo Bernini: Illusionism and
Mysticism, Art History 1 (1978): 6789; Joseph Connors, Berninis S. Andrea al Quirinale:
Payments and Planning, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 41 (1982): 1537;
C. Frommel, S. Andrea al Quirinale: Genesi e struttura, in Gian Lorenzo Bernini architetto
e larchitettura europea del SeiSettecento, ed. G. Spagnesi and M. Fagiolo (Rome, 1983),
pp. 21153; I have suggested some connections with Jesuit theatre in Bernini and
Antiquity: The Baroque Paradox A Poetical View, in Antikenrezeption im Hochbarock, ed.
H. Beck and S. Schulze (Berlin, 1989), pp. 936. It will become evident that a major point
of this paper is to suggest that the distinction between secular and religious is obscure precisely in the context of rulership.
4
5
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920
mon by the mid-seventeenth century (Fig. 4).7 With respect to such predecessors, however, the proportions of the bust have been broadened to the
point that the width actually exceeds the height. The head is relatively small
so that the ample, tightly curled tresses of hair and the huge torso give an
impression of overwhelming mass and grandeur. The head is turned
markedly to the right while the body is turned in the opposite direction,
with the right shoulder forward and the left back. The sitters attention
seems to have been caught by some distant vision, towards which he turns
in a pervasive and spontaneous movement. Of special concern here is the
treatment of the drapery, which envelops the body and creates an uncanny
illusion, or rather series of illusions. No cut edges, only folds are visible
along the lower silhouette, and from the right shoulder down across the
chest, the drapery is pulled tight and knotted at the lower left; as a result,
the body does not appear cut off but wrapped, Christo-like, as a self-sufficient object. The folds are shaped in such a way, however, that one senses
beneath the drapery the familiar form of a bust portrait with arms amputated above the elbow and torso rounded at the bottom. Finally, at the left
arm and shoulder the drapery edge flares up as if caught by a rising draft of
air. We are confronted not by Francesco dEste but by a bust of Francesco,
wafted aloft in and by a protective mantle. An eighteenth-century French
visitor to Modena aptly described the bust as seeming to float in the air (il
semble flotter en lair).8
Bernini has, in fact, assimilated the traditionally draped torso to an
entirely different, specifically honorific tradition associated with Roman
bust portraiture. The figure is placed against a cloth of honour, the so-called
parapetasma, often held up by personifications of victory or winged putti
(Fig. 5).9 The device served in the ancient ancestor cult to suggest the heav-
7
Algardis bust of Lelio Frangipane, illustrated here by way of example, is dated to the
mid-1630s by J. Montagu, Alessandro Algardi, 2 vols. (New Haven and London, 1985), II
427.
8
J. J. L. F de Lalande, Voyage dun franois en Italie, fait dons les annes 1765 & 1766, 8
vols. (Yverdon, 176990), 1452.
9
On Berninis early use of the motifs of the parapetasma and the image held by winged
figures, see Irving Lavin, Bernini and the Unity of the Visual Arts (New York and London,
1980), pp. 52, 6970. His use of the latter device for a bust portrait culminated in his last
work, the bust of the Saviour, which rested on a pedestal consisting of two kneeling angels;
see Lavin, Berninis Death, pp. 171 ff; Irving Lavin, Afterthoughts on Berninis Death,
Art Bulletin 55 (1973): 42936; Lavin, On the Pedestal. Berninis memorials of this type
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921
enly sublimation of the soul of the deceased. Bernini had adapted this motif
in the 1630s and 1640s for a number of memorials, activating the hanging
cloth into a billowing emblem of transience (Fig. 6).
Bernini thus revived the classical imagery of apotheosis, but in the dEste
portrait he gave both the bust and the drapery a physical substance and
function they had never had before. Nor are the bust and drapery separate
and distinct elements; instead, they are bound together literally, it seems
as one coherent form that conveys in a single dramatic act the exalted
status of the sitter. The portrait of Francesco presents the ancient theme of
deification in a new guise; it ennobles the individual, raising him not only
to a higher level of significance but to a higher level of existence. It represents the idea of a hero, in the original, classical sense of the term. Explicitly
acknowledging that it is the simulacrum of a man, the bust proclaims that
the man portrayed partakes of the divine.
It is in this context that the anti-Machiavellian concept of the princehero becomes relevant to our subject. The concept arose, I believe, in
response to a dilemma posed by the two fundamental yet seemingly incompatible political tenets of Catholicism: the spiritual power of the absolute
monarch derived ultimately from God, but his effective power derived ultimately from the consent of his subjects. The key to the reconciliation of
these opposing claims lay in the practice of virtue, which had been central
to Machiavellis philosophy as well. The anti-Machiavellians, however,
transformed his interpretation from something approaching virtuosity, or
cleverness, into a politicized equivalent of the traditional Christian virtues,
especially the cardinal virtues of prudence, fortitude, justice, and temperance. By practising the virtues the ruler acquired the reputation that earned
for him popular support; and it was through his exercise of the virtues that
his contact with the divine was established and maintained. The paradoxical merger of the human and divine was embodied in the prince-hero. This
hybrid indeed, it was sometimes hyphenated concept was a specific
revival and adaptation of the classical demigod, half human, half divine,
whose superhuman virtues merited the noble name of hero. The development in the secular sphere had a close and surely related religious corollary
in the theological principle of heroic virtue, an essential factor in the process
have been studied more extensively by J. Bernstock, Berninis Memorial to Maria Raggi, Art
Bulletin 62 (1980): 24355, and Berninis Memorials to Ippolito Merenda and Alessandro
Valtrini, Art Bulletin 63 (1981): 21032.
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922
1. Bernini, bust of Francesco I dEste.

Galleria Estense, Modena
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Page 7
2. Bernini, bust of Louis XIV.

Muse National du Chteau de Versailles
923
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Page 8
924
3. Bernini, equestrian monument of Louis XIV, altered by

Giraudon to portray Marcus Curtius. Versailles
(photo: Documentation photographique de la
Runion des muses nationaux 58 EN 1681).
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Page 9
4. Alessandro Algardi, bust of Lelio Frangipane. San Marcello, Rome

(photo: Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione, Rome E97580).
925
11/12/08
18:35
5. Roman sarcophagus with portrait

busts before a
parapetasma held by
winged genii.
Camposanto, Pisa
(photo: Deutsches
Archologisches
Institut, Rome
34-700).

Page 10
926
18:35
7. Berninis bust of Francesco I dEste, engraving

(from Gamberti, Lidea, 1659, frontispiece).
11/12/08
6. Bernini, Cenotaph of Suor Maria Raggi. Santa Maria

sopra Minerva, Rome (photo: Istituto Centrale per il
Catalogo et la Documentazione, Rome E54086).

Page 11
927
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Page 12
928
8. Catafalque of Francesco I dEste, engraving detail

(from Gamberti, Lidea, 1659, opp. p. 190).
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Page 13
9. Helios, denarius of Vespasian. British

Museum, London.
10. Giulio Romano, Alexander the

Great. Muse dArt et dHistoire,
Geneva.
929
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Page 14
930
11. The Colonna Claudius, engraving by Giovanni Battista Galesturzzi, 1657.
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Page 15
12. Medal of Louis XIV,

1663.
American Numismatic
Society, New York.
13. Peter Paul Rubens,

device of Jan van
Keerbergen, engraving
(from Biblia sacra, 1617).
931
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Page 16
932
14. Etienne Delaune, suit of armor for Henry II.

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Page 17
15. Bernini, study for the equestrian monument of Louis XIV, drawing.
Museo Civico, Bassano.
933
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Page 18
934
16. Georg Wilhelm Vestner, medal of Charles VI, 1717.

American Numismatic Society, New York.
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Page 19
17. Allegory of the Peace of the Pyrenees, engraving

(from Menestrier, Devise du roy, 1660, opp. p. 54).
935
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Page 20
936

medal of Louis XIV.
Rome.

medal of Louis XIV.
Rome.
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Page 21
19. Erasmus Quellinus, SIC ITUR AD ASTRA, engraved frontispiece

(from Saavedra Fajardo, Idea, 1649).
937
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of canonizing saints, first introduced in 1602 and elaborately formulated

later in the century.10
The theory of the prince-hero seems first to have been articulated in a
clear and deliberate way around the middle of the sixteenth century by the
well-known Ferrarese poet, historian, and political theorist, Giovanni
Battista Pigna. Pigna was secretary to Prince Alfonso II dEste, duke of
Ferrara, professor at the university of Ferrara, and official historian of the
dEste family. Pigna was virtually possessed by the idea of the hero, about
which he published two works in 1561, a treatise, Il principe, dedicated to
Duke Emanuele Filiberto of Savoy but written for Alfonso II of Ferrara, and
an epic poem entitled Gli heroici, dedicated to Alfonso; and in 1570 a massive history of the dEste princes.11 In effect, Pigna combined two distinct
but related traditions, that of the divine right of kings, one of many aspects
of medieval thought revived in the Counter Reformation, and that of the
sacral rulership of antiquity enshrined in the hero as a demigod.
Pigna brought about this merger through a series of arguments that were
equally novel. Among the hosts of angels those that served as guardians of
princes belong to a higher order than those that guide ordinary men.12 The
heroic prince is so plainly blessed with the theological virtues that he may
more properly be called divine than others who possess these virtues.
Princes are given more divine guidance than ordinary men because they are
See R. Hofmann, Die heroische Tugend: Geschichte und Inhalt eines theologischen
Begriffes (Munich, 1933); Enciclopedia cattolica, 13 vols. (Vatican City, 194854), under
Canonizzazione, III, cols. 5956, 6056.
11
Giovanni Battista Pigna, Il principe (Venice, 1561), Gli heroici (Venice, 1561), and
Historia de principi di Este (Ferrara, 1570). On Pigna, see De Mattei, Il pensiero, I334, II
21 ff, whose summary of Pignas ideas I have adopted here, and the literature cited in T.
Bozza, Scrittori politici italiani dal 1550 al 1650 (Rome, 1949), pp. 389.
12
However it may have reached him, Bernini seems to have echoed this teaching specifically when he attributed the correspondence between nobility of mind and of bearing in
Louis XIV to the work of those two angels who according to the theologians were the guides
of kings: Le Cavalier a dit quiI avait trouv ce que lui avait rapport M. le cardinal lgat,
quiI reconnaitrait le roi, sans lavoir jamais vu, entre cent seigneurs, tant sa faon et son visage avaient de majest et portaient de recommandation. Il a dit ensuite que ce ntait encore
rien; ma, che il cervello, pour user du mot, rpondait admirablement cet air et cette
noblesse, ne parlant jamais quiI ne dit des chose dignes dtre notes et les plus propos du
monde . . . Le Cavalier a dit que cela venait sans doute de ce que les thologiens tiennent
que les rois ont deux anges pour les conduire; Paul Frart de Chantelou, Diary of the
Cavaliere Berninis Visit to France (Princeton, 1985), p. 235, and Journal du voyage du
Cavalier Bernini en France, ed. L. Lalanne (Paris, 1885), p. 187, 28 September.
10
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more important, as they are more important because others depend on

them. This last point is the key to Pignas position: the divine nature of the
prince derives from his duty and purpose, namely, to reach perfection and
to enable his subjects to reach perfection, through participation in the political life. The prince is given sovereignty over others in order that he may be
able to dedicate himself completely eradicating evil and introducing goodness among the people. In the ideal prince the heroic nature surpasses the
human. The goal of the prince is not to enlarge the state but to ensure that
his people live virtuously. The sacral nature of sovereignty was thus adapted
to the moral and religious justification of the active life.
It should be emphasized that the issue was not merely one of abstract
speculation or literary metaphor, but one with immediate, concrete significance for Pigna. His history of the dEste, which gave rise to a veritable orgy
of genealogical portraiture in the ducal palace at Ferrara illustrating the
antiquity of the ancestral line, was specifically intended to establish the familys claim to dynastic precedence over the Medici a dispute of serious
contemporary political importance.13 The subject also had broad implications for European political theory because the question of the role of the
papacy in the affairs of state was involved. If the kings power derived
directly from God, then the pope had no role as intermediary between the
terrestrial and the celestial realms. If, instead the king governs by the consent of the people, then his powers are only indirectly ordained and he is
answerable to the higher authority of Christs vicar on earth.
Although Pigna was not himself a Jesuit, he was important in our context because his views were taken up and developed by a Modenese member of the order named Domenico Gamberti, who published a massive
account of a huge catafalque erected in the church of SantAgostino in
13
On dEste genealogy and portraiture, see Gli Estensi: Prima parte, ed. R. Iotti
(Modena, 1997), especially pp. 789. On the series of two hundred dEste portraits executed
in fresco during the 1570s in the couryard of the Castello at Ferrara, see D. Coffin, Pirro
Ligorio and Decorations of the Late Sixteenth Century at Ferrara, Art Bulletin 37 (1955):
16785, who also gives an account of the political issues, and L. Lodi, Immagini della
genealogia estense, in Limpresa di Alfonso II: Saggi e documenti sulla produzione artistica a
Ferrara nel secondo Cinquecento, ed. J. Bentini and L. Spezzaferro (Bologna. 1986).
pp. 15162; on the dispute over precedence, see especially V. Santi, La precedenza tra gli
Estensi e i Medici e listoria de principi dEste di G. Battista Pigna, Atti della deputazione
ferrarese di storia patria 9 (1897): 37122. and G. Mondaini, La questione di precedenza tra
il duca Cosimo I de Medici e Alfonso dEste (Florence. 1898).
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Modena for the funeral on 2 April 1659 of Duke Francesco.14 Gamberti

used Pignas history of the dEste for the elaborate and comprehensive
genealogy of the family to which much of the decoration of the catafalque
was devoted, as well as for the eulogy of Francesco. Gamberti was intent
upon applying Pignas generalized definition of the heroic prince to
Francesco, and in doing so he also specified and developed the theory itself.
The idea of the heroic prince, which is incidental to Pignas main argument,
becomes Gambertis central theme, as his books title itself proclaims: Lidea
di un prencipe et eroe christiano in Francesco I. dEste di Modona, e Reggio
Duca VIII. Generalissimo dellarme reali di Francia in Italia, &c.
Gamberti develops at some length the traditional metaphor identifying
the hero, and hence the ruler, with the sun. The prince-hero is repeatedly
likened to the sun, his nobility with regard to his subjects resembling the
nobility of the sun with respect to the planets. Gamberti also uses other suggestive metaphors such as that of a simulacrum resembling its divine sculptor and that of a small world.15 He takes idea very seriously, following Platos
definition of it as a divine model, and the prince is indeed a model to all
others.16 Gamberti is also careful to define the hero, citing Lucians apodeictic formulation, as one who is neither man nor god, but both at once
(Heros est qui neque homo est, neque Deus, et simul utrumque est).17 The
idea of a perfect prince-hero is fulfilled in Francesco because he unites all
Domenico Gamberti, Lidea di un prencipe et eroe christiano in Francesco I. dEste di
Modona, e Reggio Duca VIII. Generalissimo dellarme reali di Francia in Italia, &c. effigiata co
profili delle virt da prencipi suoi maggiori ereditate. Rappresentata alla publica luce co l
funerale apparato sposto nelle solenne esequie dallaltezza serenissima di Alfonso IV suo primogenito alla gloriosa, edimmoratale sua memoria lanno M. DC. LIX. alli 11. di Aprile in
Modona celebrate (Modena, 1659); Gamberti also describes the decorations for the occasion
in his Corona funerale dedicta alla gloriosa, ed immortale memoria del serenissimo prencipe
Francesco I. dEste Duca di Modona, e Reggio VIII. Generalissimo dellarme reali di Francia in
Italia, etc. nelle solenni esequie celebrategli dalla pia magnificenza dellaltezza serenissima di
Alfonso IV Duca IX. suo primogenito (Modena, 1659). Gambertis definition of the hero is
cited by De Mattei, Il pensiero, 11 23 n26.
The decorations for Francescos funeral were reproduced in the complete restoration of
SantAgostino that followed the funeral see C. Conforti, Il funeral teatro a Modena nel
Seicento, in Barocco romano e barocco italiano: Il teatro, leffimero, lallegoria, ed. M. Fagiolo
and M. L. Madonna (Rome. 1985), p. 227 a unique instance, as far as I am aware, of
such a direct perpetuation, in loco, of an ephemeral installation.
15
Gamberti, Lidea, pp. 32, 33, 42.44.
16
Ibid., pp. 66 ff, 1001.
17
Ibid., p. 102; Gamberti cites Lucian, Dialogues 3.
14
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the requisite virtues in a harmonious chorus.18 Basing himself on Thomas

Aquinas (the most important of the Scholastic sources to which the antiMachiavellian thinkers of the Counter Reformation returned), Gamberti
divides the competencies of the prince-hero into two spheres, the civil and
the military, in both of which the primary virtues are the four cardinal
virtues, prudence, fortitude, justice, and temperance.19 Gamberti is particularly interesting for the way in which he effectively reconciles the hereditary
rights of the prince with the definition of the status of the prince-hero in
terms of virtue. Especially significant is Gambertis understanding of nobility, which, while based on family lineage, is also intimately bound to virtue.
He argues that nobility derives not merely from ancient ancestry, as is popularly imagined, but also from virtue.20 He alone is noble who inherits the
virtues of his forebears, and the highest nobility springs from the antiquity
of the family and the virtues inherited.21 This theme provided the basic program of the funeral decorations designed by the architect Gaspare Vigarani,
who had by the time of the funeral moved to Paris, where he later built the
Salle des Machines in the Tuileries; he was succeeded as theatre architect to
Louis XIV by his son, Carlo, whom Bernini met on his visit to Paris in
1665.22 The decorations comprised the two sides of the nave, the faade,
and the catafalque itself and included, in addition to depictions of the
major events in the dukes life and his achievements, portrayals of his ancestors organized according to the virtues they represented and transmitted to
the duke. This treatment Gamberti himself described as a retrospective
idea of the prince-hero,23 thus incorporating the past in the present as the
link in the union of the divine and the human, nobility with virtue.
Gambertis work was published years after Berninis portrait was made,
but he illustrated the bust as the frontispiece and in such a way as to suggest that it was the commemorative sculptural equivalent of his subject
(Fig. 7): an allegorical figure actually inscribes the title of the work on the
Gamberti, Lidea, p. 113.

Ibid., pp. 115, 118.
20
Ibid., p. 123.
21
Ibid., pp. 125, 133.
22
On Vigarani, see Gamberti, Corona, p. 5, and Lidea, p. 17; Chantelou, Diary, p. 81
n 144; J. Southorn, Power and Display in the Seventeenth Century: The Arts and Their Patrons
in Modena and Ferrara (Cambridge, 1988), pp. 568.
23
Gamberti, Lidea, p. 139.
18
19
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pedestal as an emblem of the Christian rulers victory over death.24 Although

there is no reason to suppose that the two men ever met, the link between
them is also evident from the fact that the rearing equestrian figures of
Francesco dEstes ancestors shown on the catafalque with paired spiral
columns (Fig. 8) strikingly anticipate Berninis project for the equestrian
monument of Louis XIV. We know that Bernini was asked to provide a
model for an equestrian monument of Francesco shortly after the dukes
death.25
In part, however, the community of thought between Gamberti and
Bernini was probably based on a common source. One likely possibility was
Tarquinio Galluzzi, a distinguished professor of rhetoric at the Jesuit college
in Rome, the Collegio Romano, in the first half of the seventeenth century,
whom Bernini must have known well.26 (Galluzzi delivered the funeral oration for Robert Bellarmine, for whose tomb in the Ges Bernini executed
his famous portrait bust, the image of fervid devotion.) Galluzzi was a seminal figure in the development of Jesuit drama. He wrote several important
tragedies in the classical style on Christian subjects, as well as theoretical
treatises and commentaries. In a lengthy commentary on Aristotles
Nicomachean Ethics he cites the passage in the Politics (III.xiv.11.14) that
may be the ultimate source of the idea of the prince-hero: here Aristotle
describes the earliest phase of monarchy, which was the age of heroes when
there were gods among men, whom they ruled by common consent.27
Berninis projects for the Modenese court, which besides the bust and
equestrian portraits of Francesco included plans for refurbishing the ducal
The design of the pedestal is reflected in that of the portrait bust of Mazarin in
Giovanni Francesco Grimaldis 1661 funerary catafalque for the cardinal in SS. Vincenzo
and Anastasio in Rome; see M. Fagiolo dellArco, La festa barocca (Rome, 1970), ill. p. 401.
A figure inscribing the pedestal of a bust also appears in the scene representing the princely
virtue of Scienze; see Southorn, Power and Display, pp. 589. Pl. 58.
25
The projected equestrian monument to Francesco I is the subject of correspondence
in June 1659, published by S. Fraschetti, Il Bernini: La sua vita, la sua opera, il suo tempo
(Milan, 1900), p. 226.
26
On Galluzzi and his possible relevance for Bernini, see Lavin, Bernini and Antiquity.
p. 28.
27
Tarquinio Galluzzi, In aristotelis libros quinque . . . nova interpretatio . . . (Paris, 1645).
p. 527: Quartam [Regalis Politiae, vel Monarchiae species] facit eam quae fuit Heroum tempore Saturni, Neptuni, Herculis, Thesei . . . Videbantur enim velut inter homines Dii. Itaque
species haec ideo dicta Heroica est, quod Heroes illo regni genere volentibus populis secundum probatum morem, ac secundum legem dominarentur; cf. De Mattei, Il pensiero, II 23
n25.
24
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palace, profoundly affected the precisely analogous works he undertook for

Louis XIV.28 The bust of the king (Fig. 2) resoundingly echoes that of
Francesco, but carries its innovations a significant step further and not
simply because fifteen years had passed but also because Louis XIV was not
a duke but Le Roi Soleil. The differences are profound. The vigorous sideward turn of the head and eyes has a distinct upward cast suggestive not of
arrogance but of an ardently inspired and noble hauteur. The ebullient perruque engulfs the face in an aureole of loose, twisting, and lambent curls,
highlighted by deep undercutting and flickers of drillwork, that cascade
earthward in a coruscating flood. These changes serve to assimilate the features of Louis to those commonly associated with the greatest of the ancient
monarchs, Alexander, whose pathetic expression and leonine mane had in
turn been assimilated to the fiery-locked sun god Helios (Fig. 9). The
resemblance to Alexander was remarked by contemporary viewers and
emphasized by Bernini himself. The bust now includes an implicit lower
right arm that bends back across the torso, counteracting the forward thrust
of the shoulder. The model for this vigorous contrapposto was again
Alexander, whose portrait by Giulio Romano Bernini evidently adapted to
his purpose (Fig. 10). The lower edge of the torso is now completely dissimulated by the drapery and no trace of the conventional bust form
remains, so that the body and arms seem to continue in the minds eye
not the image of Louis but Louis himself.29 At the same time, the drapery
now flows to one side as if it were truly a magic carpet bearing the living
figure forward and upward.30 This last, and ultimate, illusion must be
28
The ParisModena connection has recently also been emphasized by Peter Burke, The
Fabrication of Louis XIV (New Haven and London, 1992), pp. 1878. On Berninis work for
Modena, see Fraschetti, Il Bernini, pp. 2219; L. Zanugg, Il palazzo ducale di Modena: Il
problema della sua costruzione, Rivista del r. Istituto dArcheologia e Storia dellArte 9 (1942):
21252; A. M. Matteucci, Il palazzo ducale nel dibattito sulle residenze di corte, in Il
palazzo ducale di Modena: Sette secoli di uno spazio cittadino, ed. A. Biondi (Modena, 1987),
pp. 83121; Southorn, Power and Display; O. Rombaldi, Il duca Francesco I dEste
(16291658) (Modena, 1993). pp. 6974.
29
This effect was appreciated by contemporaries: the Venetian ambassador a fort lou le
buste, et a dit que le Roi tait comme en action de donner quelque commandement dans
son arme . . . quencore que ce buste ft sans membres, il semblait nanmoins avoir du
mouvement; Chantelou, Journal, p. 102. cited by Rudolf Wittkower, Berninis Bust of Louis
XlV (London. 1951), p. 17.
30
It should be noted that the upward flare of the drapery at the front revealing the
curved edge of the base suggests another ancient commemorative portrait form, the herm,
in which there is an imperceptible transition from the torso to an abstract support.
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understood in relation to the equally extraordinary pedestal Bernini

intended for the work but never carried out. The bust would have rested on
a terrestrial globe of gilded and enamelled copper, bearing the ingenious
inscription PICCIOLA BASA, small base; the globe in turn would have
rested on a copper drapery emblazoned with military trophies and virtues
these last, no doubt, a specific reference to the attributes of the princehero; and the whole was to be set on a platform.
In part, Bernini invoked an ancient type of portrait bust mounted on a
(celestial) globe to suggest apotheosis. He must particularly have had in
mind a splendid bust monument of the emperor Claudius that included a
base with a globe and a panoply of military spoils (Fig. 11); in the mid-seventeenth century the ancient bust and base had been placed on a sculptured
platform, as well.31 I am convinced, however, that Berninis chief purpose
was to create in his portrait of the king what might be called a living analogue of the ubiquitous device that Louis had adopted two years before, in
1662, as his personal emblem and which had become practically synonymous with his name (Fig. 12). The device showed the sun as a radiant face,
floating high above the clouds and a spherical earth, with the motto NEC
PLURIBUS IMPAR, not unequal to many. The conceit and image seem
to have originated in a book of ethico-political emblems, first published in
1619, in one of which (Fig. 13) the sun dispelling the clouds around the
earth illuminates everything with its rays, the motto derived from
Claudians panegyric on the emperor Honorius; so, the explanation goes,
the majesty of a king might expand his radiance so far as to be recognized
by everyone.32 Louiss motto, however, was the subject of heated geopolitiLavin, Berninis Death, pp. 180 ff: Afterthoughts, pp. 435 ff; PastPresent,
pp. 1635. The doubts concerning my dating of the transfer of the Claudius to Spain,
expressed by Dent Weil in Orfeo Boselli: Osservazioni della scoltura antica dai manoscritti
Corsini e Dorin e altri scritti, ed. p. Dent Weil (Florence, 1978), pp. 834, have been dispelled by Carinci in F. Carinci et al., Catalogo della Galleria Colonna: Sculture (Rome, 1990),
pp. 214. Striking evidence of the importance of the Colonna Claudius in Berninis circle is
provided by the grand imitation in wood that served as the pedestal of a bust of Gustavus
Adolphus of Sweden, the father of Queen Christina, displayed in her palace in Rome, which
must have been made before the original went to Spain in 1664; by 1756 the copy had been
moved to Bologna and was being used for a bust monument now housed in the Academia
della Scienze there; I materiali dellIstituto delle Scienze (Bologna, 1979), pp. 1445.
32
J. W. Zincgref, Emblematum ethico-politicorum centuria (Heidelberg, 1619), no. 38,
ed. D. Mertens and T. Verweyen, 2 vols. (Tbingen, 1993), 1901; A. Henkel and A.
Schne, Emblemata: Handbuch zur Sinnbildkunst des XVI. und XVII. Jahrhunderts
(Heidelberg, 1967). col. 14.
31
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cal controversy. Its meaning that the king, like the sun, is capable of illuminating more than one empire was explained by Louis XIV himself in
his memoirs and by one of the outstanding French Jesuits of the day,
Claude-Franois Menestrier. Menestrier wrote many works on numismatics, heraldry, emblematics, funeral ceremonies, and all sorts of public spectacles including fireworks. In 1679 he published a whole book on the kings
device, La devise du roy justifie, which is of fundamental importance for an
understanding of its true implications and, by extension, those of Berninis
portrait. The tract was intended to counter a statement by an earlier writer
that the device had been employed by Philip II of Spain in reference to the
Spanish conquest of the New World.33 Menestrier showed conclusively that
this prior use was a pure fabrication.
There can be no doubt, however, that the device invented for Louis XIV
was indeed a response to the long familiar Habsburg emblem of two
columns symbolic of the pillars Hercules erected at the end of the earth,
with the inscription NON PLUS ULTRA, not (or nothing) beyond. The
emblem might refer either to an unsurpassable achievement, physical or
spiritual, or to a limitation imposed by prudence; for the Habsburgs, the
device also connoted the geographical extent of the empire. Louis replaced
the Habsburg boast to rule to the limits of the known world by his claim
that his power radiated beyond his own domain. This implication, and
hence the motivation for Louiss device, can have originated in only one
context, that of the Peace of the Pyrenees of 1659, by which the power of
Habsburg Spain was broken and peace between the two ancient enemies
was established. Spain ceded large territories to France; the boundary
between the two countries was drawn; Louiss marriage to Maria Teresa of
Austria, daughter of Philip IV, joining the two families, was arranged; and
Louis agreed not to pursue his expansionist design beyond the Pyrenees. In
countless eulogies, Louis was hailed as the harbinger of peace, and his success in this respect was specifically attributed to his having voluntarily
refrained from a war in which, had he pursued it, he would have conquered
33
The subject of Menestriers rebuttal was a statement by F. Picinelli, Mondo simbolico
(Venice, 1670), p. 17; Claude-Franois Menestrier, La devise du roy justifie (Paris. 1679),
preface and pp. 4, 32, reproduces an exemplar of the medal with the date 1662 and attributes the invention of the device, as well as the title Grand, to a certain M. Douvrier
Louis Douvrier, concerning whom see J. F. Michaud, Biographie universelle, 55 vols. (Paris,
181162), XI 626; Dictionnaire de biographie franaise (Paris, 1933). XI, col. 709:
lacadmie des inscriptions et belles-lettres: 16631963 ( Paris. 1963). exhib. cat., p. 4. no. 3.
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even Spain and its possessions. This noble self-control is suggested in

Berninis portrait by the action of Louiss right arm, bent back in a commanding gesture of restraint. The bust-monument incorporates the apotheosis of the prince-hero in the disembodied image of the king floating on
drapery above a globe labelled PICCIOLA BASA, just as in Louiss emblem
the sun floats over clouds above an earth that is, in effect, much smaller
than it might be. The historical concatenation of these observations is evident from the fact that in another work Menestrier speaks specifically of
Louiss heroic virtues precisely in the context of explaining the NEC
PLURIBUS IMPAR emblem; and he was intimately familiar with
Gambertis work, from which he quotes at length.34
Berninis debt to the anti-Machiavellian prince-hero, to Menestrier, and
to the emblematics of Louis XIV is most emphatically and most spectacularly displayed in his equestrian portrait of the king (Fig. 3). The work
departs as radically from its predecessors as had the bust monument. In the
portrait bust, as in that of Francesco I, the ruler is portrayed without any
allegorical paraphernalia: the king is shown wearing his own not classical armour, and his own Venetian lace collar, in an action that looked to
one observer as if he were about to issue a command.35 All this was changed
in the equestrian monument, where Louis was shown in antique guise, austerely unadorned; his features, as we know from the sources, are utterly
transfigured into those of a radiantly smiling, Alexandrine youth; he grasps
his baton as an emblem of power, but not in a gesture of command. The
work is, moreover, the first monumental free-standing marble statue of an
equestrian on a rearing horse since antiquity. It is also well over life-size and
is carved from a single block, reputedly the largest such monolithic sculpture since antiquity. It is thus heroic in scale as well as technique.
Claude Franois Menestrier, Lart des emblemes (Lyon, 1662), pp. 129 ff.
On all these points, see Wittkower, Berninis Bust, p. 18. It is worth noting in this context that Bernini was given as a model which he conspicuously did not follow a famous
suit of armour with elaborately embossed reliefs representing the history of Caesar and
Pompey, thought to have been designed by Giulio Romano for Francis I (Chantelou,
Journal, p. 49, 9 July; p. 151, 10 September; p. 258, 21 October). The harness, which is still
to be seen in the Louvre (Fig. 14), was actually made by Etienne Delaune for Henry II;
LEcole de Fontainebleau (Paris, 1972), exhib. cat. pp. 4201, no. 582, with bibliography. I
am greatly indebted to Stuart W. Pyhrr of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, for
his expert knowledge and kind response to my inquiry concerning the harness. On Louiss
action, see n29 above.
34
35
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The full import of Berninis sculpture becomes apparent only when one
understands the context in which it was to be seen. It was to have been
placed not on a traditional architectural base, but atop a rocky peak, supported by a swirl of windblown flags symbolizing the conquest of the summit (Figs 15, 18, 20). Like the drapery of Louiss bust, the unfurling banners would seem to bear the portrait aloft. In fact, one realizes that the
equestrian monument was also in its way a living re-creation of the kings
personal emblem, the flags substituting for the clouds as mediators between
the earth below and the sun above. In addition, two monumental spiral
columns recalling both the pillars of Hercules and the triumphal Roman
columns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius were to have flanked the sculpture,
which would have borne the inscription NON PLUS ULTRA (cf.
Fig. 16).36 Here the reference to the Habsburg device NON PLUS
ULTRA with paired columns is explicit and complete, and the message
is obvious. Having reached the summit of glory, Louis stops and goes no
further. In this case. we know Berninis specific source. In 1660 a lavish celebration was held at Lyon for the Peace of the Pyrenees and the marriage of
Louis to Maria Teresa of Austria, which joined the two monarchies. The
political implications of the event were epitomized in one of the temporary
structures erected at strategic points throughout the city. A personification
of war, Bellona, stood on a pile of military spoils that bore the inscription
NON ULTRA, between two columns to which her arms are bound by
chains (Fig. 17).37 One column was decorated with the emblem of France,
the other with those of Len and Castile, and the whole was placed atop a
craggy two-peaked mass referring to the Pyrenees. The Jesuit Menestrier,
who was a native of Lyon and published a lengthy description of the celebrations, may well have been responsible for the allegory. He provides an
The medal of Charles VI shown in Fig. 16 clearly reflects Berninis project except that
the flanking columns are not spiral but return to the form normally used for the Habsburg
device, and the base is the traditional oblong block.
37
First published in Claude Franois Menestrier, Les reioissances de la paix (Lyon, 1660),
pp. 545. After this essay was completed it came to my attention that the twin columns
motif has been studied in relation to Berninis projects and their subsequent influence by
Karl Msender, Aedificata poesis: Devisen in der franzsischen und sterreichischen
Barockarchitektur, Wiener Jahrbuch fr Kunstgeschichte 35 (1982): 158 ff (but following an
unfortunate error concerning the origin and date of Menestriers image; cf. Lavin,
PastPresent, p. 298 n90), and Friedrich Polleross, Architecture and Rhetoric in the Work of
Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach, in Infinite Boundaries: Order Disorder and Reorder in
Early Modern German Culture, ed. Max Reinhart (Kirksville, Mo., 1998), pp. 130 ff.
36
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explanation which, along with the image itself, must have affected Bernini
deeply:
It is often desirable for the glory of heroes that they themselves voluntarily put limits on their designs before Time or Death does so of
necessity . . . The grand example [of Hercules, who raised the
columns, then stopped to rest after his victories,] makes all the world
admire the moderation of our monarch, who, having more ardour
and courage than any of the heroes of ancient Greece and Rome,
knew how to restrain his generous movements in the midst of success and victories and place voluntary limits on his fortune . . . The
trophy that will render him glorious in the history of all time will be
the knowledge that this young conqueror preferred the repose of his
people to the advantages of his glory and sacrificed his interests to the
tranquillity of his subjects.38
Menestriers emblem helps to explain several important points concerning Berninis conception of the equestrian portrait in particular and of the
nature of kingship generally. With regard to the first point, we have a
remarkable statement by the artist himself describing the meaning, quite
unprecedented in the history of equestrian portraiture, he intended the
work to convey. He said:
I have not represented King Louis in the act of commanding his
armies. This, after all, would be appropriate for any prince. But I
wanted to represent him in the state he alone has been able to attain
through his glorious enterprises. And since the poets imagine that
Glory resides on the top of a very high and steep mountain whose
summit only a few climb, reason demands that those who nevertheless happily arrive there after enduring privations [superati disaggi]
Menestrier, Lart des emblemes, pp. 12930: Il seroit souvent souhaiter pour la gloire
des Heros quils missent eux mesmes des bornes volontaires leur desseins avant que le
Temps ou la Mort leur en fissent de necessaires . . . Cest ce grand Example, qui doit faire
admirer tous les Peuples la moderation de nostre Monarque qui ayant plus dardeur & de
courage que nen eurent tous les Heros de Ia vieille Grece & de Rome, sceu retenir ces mouvements genereux au milieu du succez de ses victoires, & donner volontairement des bornes
sa fortune . . . Ce sera aussi ce Trophe qui le rendra glorieux dans lhistoire de tous les sicles, quand on saura que ce ieune conquerant prfer le repos de ses Peuples aux avantages
de sa gloire, & sacrifi ses interests la tranquillit de ses Sujets.
38
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joyfully breathe the air of sweetest Glory. which having cost terrible
labours [disastrosi travagli] is the more dear, the more lamentable the
strain [rincrescevole . . . stento] of the ascent has been. And as King
Louis with the long course of his many famous victories has already
conquered the steep rise of the mountain, I have shown him as a
rider on its summit, in full possession of that Glory, which, at the
cost of blood [costo di sangue], his name has acquired. Since a jovial
face and a gracious smile are proper to him who is contented. I have
represented the monarch in this way.39
Menestriers comment on the emblem at Lyon explains why Bernini did
not show Louis commanding his troops, for while the sculpture is a portrait
of a soldier it is ultimately an image of peace. in this way, too, may be
understood Berninis emphasis on the privations, the terrible labours, the
lamentable strain, and the cost of blood Louis suffered for his greatness.
Bernini, in effect, universalized Menestriers thought; the Pyrenees became
The translation, with some alterations, is from Rudolf Wittkower, The Vicissitudes of
a Dynastic Monument: Berninis Equestrian Statue of Louis XIV, in De artibus opuscula XL:
Essays in Honor of Erwin Panofsky, ed. Millard Meiss (New York, 1961), p. 503. I quote the
whole passage, which concerns an ingegnoso cavalier Francese. che assuefatto alla vista del
suo R in atto Maestoso, e da Condottiere di Eserciti, non lodava, che qu allora collarmatura purindosso, e sopra un Cavallo medesimamente guerriero, si dimostrasse nel volto
giulivo, e piacevole, che pi disposto pareva a dispensar grazie, che ad atterririnimici, e soggiogar Provincie. Poiche spieggli a lungo la sua intenzione, quale, benche espressa adeguatamente ancora nellOpera, tuttavia non arriv a comprendere il riguardante. Dissegli dunque.
Non haveregli figurato il R Luigi in atto di commandare a gli Eserciti, cosa, che finalmente
propria di ogni Principe, m haverlo voluto collocare in uno stato, al quale non altri, che esso era
potuto giungere, e ci per mezzo delle sue gloriose operazioni. E come che fingono i Poeti risieder
la gloria sopra unaltissimo, ed erto Monte, nella cui sommit rari son quelli, che facilmente vi
poggiano, ragion vuole, che quei, che pur felicemente vi arrivano doppo i superati disaggi, giocondamente respirino allaura di quella soavissma gloria, che per essergli costata disastrosi travagli,
gli tanto pi cara, quanta pi rincrescevole gli f lo stento della salita. E perche il R Luigi con
il lungo corso di tante illustri vittorie haveva gi superato lerto di quel Monte, egli sopra quel
Cavallo lo collocava nel colmo di esso, pieno possessore di quella gloria. che a costa di sangue
haveva acquistato il suo nome. Onde perche qualit propria di chi gode la giovialit del volta,
& unavvenente riso della bocca, quindi , che tale appunto haveva rappresentato quel Monarca.
Oltracche, benche questo suo pensiere si potesse ben ravvisare nel Tutto di quel gran Colosso, tuttavia molto pi manifesto apparirebbe, quando collocar si dovesse nel luogo destinato. Poiche col
doveasi scolpir in altro Marmo una Rupe proporzionata erta, e scoscese, sopra cui haverebbe in
bel modo a pasore il Cavolla con quel disegno, chei fatto ne haverebbe; Domenico Bernini, Vita
del cavalier Gio. Larenzo Bernino (Rome, 1713), pp. 14950.
39
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the mountain of virtue, and territorial containment became victory over the
self, the ultimate achievement of the true hero.40 He thus managed to incorporate both meanings of the non plus ultra / Pillars of Hercules tradition,
expressing Louiss attainment of the extreme limit of glory through victories
achieved at great self-sacrifice. The essence of Berninis conceit lies in the
poignant irony of the great hero reaching the heights of spiritual triumph
by limiting earthly ambition. The equestrian monument becomes thereby a
vision not only of military but of moral force, a vehicle not only of political but also of ethical precept. Berninis image, above all, is that of potentially overwhelming power held in firm and benign restraint.
I hope it will have become clear that Bernini was profoundly indebted
to the vital, predominantly Jesuit tradition of moral statesmanship represented by the anti-Machiavellian movement, to the idea of the prince-hero,
and to Menestriers explanations of the emblematic imagery of Louis XlV.
The extent, but also the limit, of Jesuit involvement in the development of
Berninis ideas on the subject, and the political significance the order itself
attached to the equestrian monument, may be gauged from a letter of great
subtlety and perspicuity written by Berninis good friend Gian Paolo Oliva,
superior general of the Jesuit order. Oliva had been instrumental in persuading Bernini to undertake the trip to Paris in the first place, and in 1673,
having recently seen the sculpture in Rome, he wrote to his Jesuit cohort in
Paris, Jean Ferrier, who had earlier assumed the critical post of confessor to
the king. Oliva encapsulates the self-sacrificial theory of rulership, and turns
it specifically to the struggle against heresy, notably the Jansenist movement
then much in vogue at the French court, and the Turkish menace.41 Oliva
was also preacher to the pope, and his remarks suggest that Berninis visit to
Paris may itself have been part of Alexander VIIs strategy to enlist the kings
support in the face of these threats to the church:
40
This self-sacrificial understanding of Berninis concept, developed by me in
PastPresent, pp. 17696, has recently been appropriated by K. Hermann Fiore in Bernini
scultore: La nascita del barocco in casa Borghese (Rome, 1998), exhib. cat., p. 326.
41
On the situation at this time, see Ludwig von Pastor, The History of the Popes from the
Close of the Middle Ages, 40 vols. (London, 192353), XXXI 482 ff. Others have suggested
the not incompatible theory that the pope gave his permission as part of the settlement of
the troubled relations with France in the wake of the Peace of Westphalia: Ludovici in F.
Baldinucci, Vita del cavaliere Gio. Lorenzo Bernino (Florence, 1683), ed. S. S. Ludovici
(Milan, 1948), p. 249, and R. Krautheimer, The Rome of Alexander VII (Princeton, 1984),
p. 141.
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I congratulate the city of Paris, which will soon admire in its most
famous place a monument of which none better may be seen or will
be seen in Europe, for the object it represents and for the art with
which it is portrayed. The acclaimed miracle lacks nothing except the
crown on the head of the Prince it represents. Of the two crowns we
venerate in commanders, that of glory was given to the king by the
birth that revealed him to the world as Prince of so many lands; the
other of laurel is offered to him by so many heretical places expunged
by his sword. There remains the last, of olive, most glorious of all and
desired by all, in which the king is ringed by the universal peace
among faithful princes; it alone remains to add to his praises, nor can
there be greater decoration for his splendour. Such a garland is not
worked by tools, hence the Cavalier has not placed it on the portraits
head, and only a King loaded with so many trophies may assume it
by overcoming himself after having overcome the enemies of the
faith . . . It is your responsibility to offer with the holiness of your
counsels to such a potent King the branches of a crown that with
God and the Good takes precedence over any diadem . . .42
In one important respect, however, I believe Bernini went beyond his
predecessors. It is a striking fact that Berninis works for Louis XIV the
designs for the Louvre as well as the portraits of the king are almost
devoid of any royal or dynastic references such as crowns, ancestor portraits,
42
Per mi congratulo con la Citt di Parigi che presto ammirer nella sua pi famosa
piazza una macchina di cui lEuropa non ne vede, n vedr miglior, e per loggetto che rappresenta e per larte con cui figurata. Non altro manca lacclamato miracolo fuorch la
corona sul capo del Principe rappresentato. Dalle due corone che veneriamo comandati,
quella di gloria al Re la diede il nascimento che lespose al mondo Principe di tanti Stati, laltra di lauro a lui la porgono tante piazze eretiche espugnate dalla sua spada. Resta lultima
dellolivo pi gloriosa di tutte e da tutti sospirata, ove in essa con la pace universale fra
Principi fedeli si cinga sua Maest, n a suoi preggi rimane che aggiungere, n pu accrescersi
freggio per cui risplende. Tale Ghirlanda non si lavora dal ferro, e per dal Cav.re non si
sovraposta alle tempie del simulacro e solo un R carico di tanti Trofei pu caricarsene col
superar se stesso soppo dhaver superati i nemici della fede mentre trionfa di natione tronfante con tanto danno della Religione fin nellultimo oriente. Appartiene a V. R. offerire con
la santit di suoi consigli a si potente R i rami duna corona che presso Dio, e presso i Buoni
precede qualunque diadema, e la prego di suoi santi sacrificij. For the full letter, see A.
Venturi, Lorenzo Bernini in Francia, Archivio storico dellarte 3 (1890): 143, and Fraschetti,
Bernini, p. 360 n2; and see Wittkower, Vicissitudes, pp. 5278, for a version among
Berninis papers at the Biblothque Nationale in Paris.
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and fleurs-de-lys. Colbert complained bitterly about this austerity even

while Bernini was in Paris. But there is more here than meets the eye (or
rather than does not meet the eye), for implicit in this heredity-restraint is
the subversive view of the ruler as a man endowed with noble ideals but
whose merit derives not merely from his noble birth but from his heroic
virtue and labours. Bernini had the temerity to say precisely this to Louis
himself on the eve of his departure from Paris to return to Rome. The two
men had taken an immediate liking to each other, and the young king
wished the aging artist could stay to finish his various projects. Having put
the finishing touches to the bust, Bernini said that his only regret was that
he was obliged to leave; he would have been happy to spend the rest of his
life in [the kings] service, not because he was king of France and a great
king, but because he had realized that [Louiss] spirit was even more exalted
than his position.43 Both aspects of this provocative combination of values
a God-given right to rule vested in one who earned it through the exercise of virtue were stated expressis verbis on two complementary medals
commemorating the statue that were struck in Rome, doubtless under the
aegis of the pope.44 One bears the inscription HAC ITER AD SUPEROS,
this way to the gods, in allusion to the arduous peak of virtue and self-conquest which the victorious hero surmounts (Fig. 18). This was a pre-emi43
Il sestimerait heureux de finir sa vie son service, non pas pour ce quil tait un roi
de France et un grand roi, mais parce quil avait connu que son esprit tait encore plus relev
que sa condition (Chantelou, Journal, p. 201, 5 October; translation, with modifications,
from Chantelou, Diary, p. 254). A version of Berninis remark was repeated by Oliva in a
letter written to the Marquis de Lionne, Louiss foreign secretary. shortly after the artists
return to Rome. Oliva reported that in praising the king Bernini had deprived him of his
noble birth and his empire, insisting that he was more elevated by the capacity of his mind
and other virtues; the king was not great for the vastness of his domain or the force of his
arms: E giunto in Roma il Cavaliere Bernino, transformato in tromba del R Cristianissimo,
che di Scultore lha renduto quasi Sasso, tanto si mostra attonito alle Doti incomparabili di
S. M. Questo stupore nelleccesso, s della gratitudine a gli onori inauditi e agrossi soccorsi,
come dellammirazione alla grandezza e alla magnanimit dun tanto R, lha precipitato in
una prodigiosa ingratitudine: mentre, per celebrare Monarca di tanto merito, lha spogliato
del Nascimento e delllmperio; protestandolo assai pi sublime, per la capacit della mente,
per la prudenza della lingua, per la splendidezza della mano, per la generosit del cuore, per
la riverenza voluta a divini Scarifici ne Templij, e per la maest dogni sua parte; che non
grande, per quella vastit di Dominio e per quella potenza dArmi, che lagguagliano a R
pi celebri degli Annali antichi; Gian Paolo Oliva, Lettere, 2 vols. (Rome, 1681). II 712.
and Baldinucci, Vita, pp. 1256, for the whole letter; reprinted in part by Bernini, Vita,
pp. 1445.
44
On the medals, see Bernini in Vaticano (Rome, 1981). exhib. cat., pp. 3089.
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nently Herculean sentiment, associated especially with the theme of

Hercules at the Crossroads; the hero chooses the difficult path of righteousness over the easy road to pleasure, thereby expressing the supreme
Stoic virtue, conquest of the self.45 Bernini had himself invoked the idea in
his plan to place guardian figures of the demigod, identified with fortitude
and labour, flanking the entrance to the Louvre. He explained to the king
that Hercules by means of his fortitude and labour is a portrait of virtue,
which resides on the mountain of labour, that is, the rocky mass; and he
says that whoever wishes to reside in this palace must pass through virtue
and labour. This thought and allegory greatly pleased His Majesty, to whom
it seemed to have grandeur and sententiousness.46 In architectural terms,
Bernini here referred to one of the most illustrious Roman structures, the
double temple of Honour and Virtue so arranged that one had to pass
through the one to reach the other.47 The image that echoed in Berninis
mind must have resembled the frontispiece of the most popular of all the
Jesuit tracts on Christian political theory, Diego de Saavedra Fajardos Idea
principis christiano-politici, published in the Brussels edition of 1649
(Fig. 19).48 Hercules guides the armoured Christian prince, who crushes the
Hydra of heresy underfoot, through an honour guard of virtues along the
path that leads up to the temples at the summit, inscribed HAC ITUR AD
ASTRA, This way leads to the stars.49 The other medal (Fig. 20) carries the
45
Virtus in astra tendit (Seneca. Hercules Oetaeus, line 1971); see Lavin, PastPresent,
pp. 1756.
46
Sopra detto scoglio dalle parte della porta principale invece dadornamento di doi
colonne, vi ha fato due grandi Ercoli, che fingono guardare il palazzo, alle quali il sig. caval.
gli da un segnificato e dice Ercole il retratto della vert per mezzo della sua fortezza e fatica, quale risiede su ii monte della fatica che lo soclio . . . e dice chi vuole risiedere iti questa
regia, bisognia che passi per mezzo della vert e della fatica. Qualpensiero e alegoria piacque
grandamente a S. M., parendogli che havesse del grande e del sentesioso; L. Mirot, Le
Bernin en France: Les travaux du Louvre et les statues de Louis XIV, Mmoires de la Socit
de lHistoire de Paris et de lIle-de-France 31 (1904): 218n; Berninis remarks were quoted in
a letter from Paris to Rome by his assistant Mattia de Rossi, 26 June.
47
Lavin, PastPresent, pp. 15761.
48
Needless to say, the hyphenated term in the title is of interest in our context. On
Saavedra, see the chapter in Bireley, Counter-Reformation, pp. 188216. The frontispiece,
designed by Erasmus Quellinus, was noted and reproduced by Judson and van de Velde,
Book lllustrations, p. 239 n7, Fig. 188. Bernini may well have known Saavedra, who spent
many years in Rome until 1633, as a diplomat at the Spanish envoy.
49
Bernini surely also knew the very similar treatment of the Hercules-Temple of Virtue
and Honour theme by Federico Zuccaro in his house in Rome, where the allegory is applied
to the artist himself (Lavin, PastPresent, p. 160, Fig. 211); and the motto SIC ITUR AD
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sharpest challenge to princely rule, in the motto inscribed on the flags that
would have wafted the bounding equestrian heavenward: ET MAIOR TITULIS VIRTUS, Virtue is greater than titles astonishing on a monument to Louis XIV, the Sun King.
Underlying all these conceits one can discern a radical principle that the
true basis of just rule lay in individual virtue and self-control rather than in
inherited rank and unbridled power. While giving form to the concept of
the prince-hero Bernini defined it in a way that challenged the very foundations of traditional monarchist theory, including even that of the antiMachiavellians.50 In his works of political intent, he created a revolutionary
new means of visual expression to convey a revolutionary new social ideal.51
ASTRA, as applied to Giovanni Bolognas equestrian group of Hercules overcoming Nessus

(ibid., p. 174, Fig. 230).
50
It is interesting and important to note that Berninis conscious effort to infuse the
resemblance of portraits of the sort required by Louis with that which belongs in the heads
of heroes was embedded in his very method of creating them: after studying the sitter carefully in action he worked almost always from the imagination, looking only rarely at his
drawings, but inward to the idea he had of the king: Jusquici il avait presque toujours travaill dimagination, et quil navait regard que rarement les dessins quil a; quil ne regardait principalement que l dedans, montrant son front, o il a dit qutait lide de Sa
Majest; que autrement il naurait fait quune copie au lieu dun original, mais que cela lui
donnait une peine extrme et que le roi, lui demandant son portrait, ne pouvait pas Iui commander rien de plus pnible: quil tcherait que ce ft le moins mauvais de tous ceux quil
aura faits; que, dans ces sortes de portraits, il faut, outre la ressemblance, y mettre ce qui doit
tre dans des ttes de hros (Chantelou, Journal, pp. 723, 29 July).
51
The underlying deflation and moralization of conventional social values implicit here
in the domain of official portraiture has its counterpart in Berninis creation of the private
caricature portrait of exalted and high-born personages; see Irving Lavin, High and Low
before Their Time: Bernini and the Art of Social Satire, in Modern Art and Popular Culture:
Readings in High and Low, ed. K. Varnadoe and A. Gopnik (New York, 1990), pp. 1950.
Lavin XXIV. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap IX
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XXIV
Berninis Bumbling Barberini Bees

Misericors Dominus, et justus, et Deus noster miseretur
(Gracious is the Lord, and righteous;
yea, our God is merciful, Ps. 116:5)*
HIS paper is partly in the nature of an extended, and I hope expansive,

footnote to an extraordinarily important and strangely neglected essay
on Bernini's tomb of Urban VIII published in 1971 by Catherine
Wilkinson (Fig. 1).1 Her brief article focused specifically on the iconography of the figures of Charity and Justice, but Wilkinson's interpretation has
important implications for our understanding of Bernini's art generally. She
demonstrated, in effect, that the two figures do not represent, as had always
been taken for granted, the traditional moral allegories of Charity and
Justice, thus illustrating the relatively simple, not to say superficial, and
often sycophantic character of Bernini's art as it was commonly conceived.
Taking up the doctrinal formulations of the Council of Trent and as well as
other supporting texts, Wilkinson made it clear that Bernini's figures are
intellectually sophisticated, indeed profound evocations, not of the moral
*
Theme-text for a catechism of John Paul II on divine charity and justice and the relationship between them: audience of July 7, 1999 (LOsservatore Romano, CXXXIX, No.
154, July 8, 1999, 4). The judicial branch of the Italian government is still called Ministerio
di Grazia e Giustizia.
1
Wilkinson 1971. Coincidentally appeared the monographic essay on the tomb by
Kauffmann 1970, 10935, which incorporates a great and invaluable mass of material on
every aspect of the monument, but fails to grasp the fundamental distinction observed by
Wilkinson. The same is true of the recent study by Schtze 1994, devoted essentially to the
imperialist ambitions of Urban VIII.
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virtues, but of the divine virtues of Charity and Justice.2 The virtues are
therefore not qualities of Urban VIII personally, but attributes of his office
as the Vicar of Christ on earth. Interestingly, Wilkinson overlooked what is
perhaps the most striking testimony to her interpretation: a painting by
Baglione in which Divine Wisdom, crowned by the dove of the Holy Spirit,
reaches down from heaven with golden chains to link to herself and to each
other her earthly representatives, Charity and Justice (Fig. 3).3 Bernini's
allegories therefore cannot be understood as mourners for the departed
pope. Among the least valuable implications of Wilkinson's work, for
example, is that it obviated the embarrassing need to construe Charity's
maternal benevolence as an expression of grief (Fig. 3)!4
The initial key to the significance of the allegories is that Bernini did not
accompany the pope by the cardinal moral virtues normally associated with
the earthly ruler, whose loss they properly mourn. Instead, he combined
one of the cardinal virtues, Justice, with the chief theological virtue,
Charity. This combination was common enough, but in the context of
papal portraiture it specifically denoted the role of the papacy in the execution of God's wish that man be justified, that is, made just, and so redeemed
from original sin. God achieves this result through the sacrifice of his only
son, and the exercise of the chief attributes of his perfection, the divine
virtues of Charity and Justice. The two virtues are equal and interdependent, the one operating through the other in the interest of mankind. The
allegories, therefore, far from lamenting the pope's demise, illustrate the
roles of Gods virtues in achieving the beneficent result implicit in the
pope's salvific gesture.5
In the case of Charity Bernini makes his point by creating a binary complementary moral and psychological contrast contrapposto, Bernini
Wilkinsons point of departure was an observation to this effect by Panofsky 1964, 94;
see n. 35 below.
3
Cited by Kauffmann 1970, 109 f. The inscriptions on the painting read as follows: Qui
manet in caritate in deo manet et deus in eo; Diligite iustitiam qui iudicatus terram. (He
who abides in charity abides in God, and God abides in him; let him who judges the earth
delight in justice.)
4
. . . the allegories, touched by the sense of bereavement at the death of so good a pope,
are moved to tears and Justitia, in a swoon of grief, barely manages to hold the sword that is
no longer guided by Urbans rule. Fehl 1986, 181.) Baldinucci (1948, 87) also interprets the
allegories as mourners, but recognizes Charitys compassionate expression: Pietoso sguardo,
mostri di compatire al suo pianto.
5
On the popes gesture see below.
2
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957
would have called it between the extremes of the soul's route to salvation.6 One child (Fig. 3), having absorbed the milk of God's forgiving goodness sleeps blissfully until the end of time. The other soul (Fig. 4) bawls at
the top of his lungs: he is the repentant sinner reaching desperately for
redemption, so utterly consumed by recrimination as to be unaware of
Charity's compassionate response to his excruciating Jeremiad. Wilkinson
cites a remarkably close precedent for Bernini's concept in a painting by
Lanfranco illustrating the action of the Virgin interceding with her son to
save a repentant soul (Fig. 6).7 To a degree, the composition, and perhaps
also the concept, seems to echo the figure of Charity Bernini's father, Pietro,
had carved years before in Naples (Fig. 7).8 The point of the subject, however, is explicitly represented in a painting by Guercino, famous in its day,
as evidenced by an engraving in which the accompanying inscription treats
the subject of Charity as a memento mori reminding the viewer that his own
redemption is in direct proportion to his participation in God's love
(Fig. 8).9
Charity is a vigorously dynamic and earthly figure who contacts the
papal tomb primarily by resting her sleeping charge against the sarcophagus
an image that insistently recalls the themes of the Piet and entombment
of Christ, whose sacrifice was the prototype of all acts of charity.10 In sharp
contrast, the passive figure of Justice stands, or more accurately leans against
the tomb, in a pose that is redolent of languor and passivity (Fig. 9).
Whereas Charity has fewer accouterments than usual (two babies rather
than three), Justice has more: the book, and fasces in addition to the canonical sword and balance. The attributes obviously relate to the quintessential
forms of justice: legal, commutative and distributive, derived ultimately
from Aristotle, developed by the scholastics, and formulated definitively at
the Council of Trent.11 Three points concern us here. The crossleg pose of
the figure and the inclusion of the fasces have a common theme with respect
to the sword and balance, which evoke the impartial and retributive nature
On Berninis notion of contrapposto, see Lavin 1980, 9 f, and compare his busts of the
Damned and Blessed Souls, Lavin 1993, 10138.
7
Bernini 1982, 37 f.
8
On Pietro Berninis Charity see Alisio, ed., 1987, 848.
9
Aspice, sum Charitas, Christi me dilige cultor,/ Quantus amor fuerit, proemia tanta
feres. On the painting, in the Dayton Art Institute, see Fifty Treasures, 1969, 92, 141.
10
Kauffmann 1970, 122, notes the analogy with the Piet.
11
Commutative, individual to individual the sword; distributive; society to the individual fasces; legal; individual to society book; the balance = equality of all Justice.
6
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958
of justice.12 Crossed legs were a frequent attribute of figures representative

of unhurried meditation and contemplation, and in this case the motif
expresses one of the fundamental attributes of God's justice, that it is slow
and deliberate.13 Vincenzo Cartari explains the fact that Saturn was often
represented with his feet tied together as indicating that Divine Goodness
does not run quickly or noisily to castigate error, but belatedly and slowly,
so that the sinner is unaware before he feels the pain.14 Under the heading
precisely of Divine Justice Cesare Ripa describes the fasces with the ax, carried by the lictors before the consuls and the Tribune of the People, as signifying that in the execution of justice overzealous castigation is unwarranted, and that justice should never be precipitous but have time to mature
judgment while unbinding the rods that cover the ax.15 The crossleg pose
and the fasces occur together in a painting of Justice attributed to Battista
Dossi (Fig. 10).
The second observation I want to make about Justice concerns the
weapon she holds. The particular sting of Urban's justice, which we will discuss presently, is felt in the magnificent colony of bees that decorates the
pommel (Fig. 11). Valeriano in his Hieroglyphics explains the double-edged
sword as alluding to the two aspects of punishment, corporeal and spiritual.16 In this case the point is made with a particular embellishment in the
12
Ripa s.v. Giustitia: Le bilancie significano, che la Giustizia divina da regalia tutte le
attioni, & la spada le pene de delinquenti. (1603, 188) Il mostrare la severit. il rigore della
giustizia per una spada ignuda . . . stato trovato da moderni, i quali per dar qualche cenno
allequit vi aggiunsero ancor la bilancia. Valeriano 1625, 565.
13
On the crossed legs see Kauffmann 1970, 124 ff, who seems to have over looked the
fundamental study by Tikkanen 1912, 12350.
14
Cartari 1626, 30 . . . la divina bont non corre in fretta, n con romore a castigare
chi erra, ma v tarda, & lenta, & cos tacitamente, che non prima se ne avede il peccatore,
che senta la pena. An ancient representation of Justice with a figure leaning on a spear
signified la lentezza, per la quale le cause si mandano in lungo pi del dovere: perche . . .
significa tardanza. Valeriano 1625, 566.
15
Ripa 1603, 188: Il fasco di verghe con la scure, era portato anticamente in Rome da
littori inanzi a Consoli, & al Tribuno della Plebe, per mostrar che n si deve rimanere di castigare, ove richiede la Giustizia, ne di deve esser precipitoso: ma dar tempo maturare il giuditio nel sciore delle verghe. On the fasces as an attribute of Justice see the discussion by
Kissel 1984, 107 f.
16
. . . perche assai noto, che il coltello inditio della severit, e del castigo, non da
lasciar indientro, che nelle sacre lettere spesso si f mentione del coltello di due tagli.
Ieroglifico di questo , che nel giuditio pu punire lanimo, & il corpo ad un tratto, overo
che punisca col supplitio della pena presente, e col timore dellavvenire. Valeriano 1625,
566. Valeriano is here surely alluding to the passage in Hebrews 4:12: For the word of God
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form of damascening that decorates the two faces of the blade in mirror
images (Fig. 12). The design is evidently indecipherable as words, but I suspect it may allude to Islam and the conversion of the infidel.17 This ideal of
Christian justice, which included publication of the bible in Arabic, was a
guiding principle of the Propaganda Fide, the great missionary institution
that was one of the major preoccupations of Urban's reign.18
My third point concerns the most commonly misunderstood feature of
the allegory, that is, what might be called her mood, her head resting on her
hand, her head and eyes turned upward, her lips parted as if in response to
some message received from on high. In truth, there is nothing tearful or
morbid about her expression, which is rather one of dreamy absorption
tinged with a kind of melancholic lethargy. The very fact that her elbow
rests on the book of law Urban was first and foremost a jurist and his
rise within the church hierarchy rested on that basis indicates that her
action has to do with justice, not mourning.19 To be sure, all writers emphasize that divine chastisement is inflicted only reluctantly, and with dismay,20
and hints of fearsomeness and withdrawal are expressed by the putti, one of
whom hides anxiously with the scales, while the other turns away with the
fasces (Figs. 13, 14). The allegory herself, however, has a quite different attitude. The head-on-hand motif is one of the most consistent postures of the
thinker, the contemplator, the meditator, and the turn of her head and
glance makes it clear, not only that she is slow to act but that what she contemplates is the heavenly source of divine justice. Bernini seems to have
based this aspect of his figure on just such a prototype, Domenichino's
equally dilatory allegory of Prudence at San Carlo ai Catinari (Fig. 15).
Ripa emphasizes that the eyes of Divine Justice must regard the things of
is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the
thoughts and intents of the heart. Augustine compares the two-edged sword to the Old and
New Testaments: And scripture says that the word of God is a two-edged sword because of
its double edge, the two testaments. De Civ. Dei XX, 21, 2; McCrackeen and Green
195772, 3845. See Frommhold 1925, 51.
17
Southern 1962. Daniel 1980. Kedar 1984.
18
Pastor 192353, XXIX, 2126.
19
On Urbans legal training and early career, see Pastor 192353, XXVIII, 2829.
20
Wilkinson 1971, 58 f, notes that Divine Justice grieves for the sinner and suffers the
same pain it inflicts.
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960
this world as beneath her, keeping her attention always fixed on the pure
and the true.21
The two groups together thus offer a veritable concert of psychological
and moral states, the allegories themselves acting in a counterpoint perhaps
deliberately analogous to the saintly figures in the crossing piers beneath the
dome, Veronica, Andrew, Longinus and Helen (Fig. 16ad); carried out
under Bernini's supervision during the same period as Urban's tomb, they
represent the principal passion relics possessed by the basilica. The two
female saints one active, one passive are earthbound and outward
directed, while the two men (one active, one passive) appear upward
directed and inspired from heaven.22
This theme, that is, the divine origin and earthward dispensation of
God's grace in the form of Charity and Justice, carries deep into the motivation and ultimate significance of the monument, which is in fact the first
papal tomb incorporating these two virtues together and in isolation.
Rarely, they appeared together independently, as in the painting by
Baglione. They were commonly included in cycles of the virtues, and in
Domenichino's series at San Carlo, the attributes of Justice include both the
sword and the fasces (Fig. 17).23 Most importantly, there was a certain tradition for pairing the allegories in relation to papal portraits, since from the
Middle Ages on these virtues played fundamental roles in the theoretical
discussions of the extent and limitations of papal rule the so-called plenitudo potestatis.24 This last context was clearly a factor in Bernini's conception. One direct source was the image of Pope Urban I flanked by Justice
and Charity in the series of grandiose papal portraits by Giulio Romano in
the Sala di Costantino, which document the awesome continuity of the
church of Rome since its establishment by the first Christian emperor
(Fig. 18).25 This onomastic reference may reflect three reasons contemporary sources report for Urban's choice of his name: because of his affection
for the city; because he wished to emulate the great achievements of his
21
For both these observations see Kauffmann 1970, 124 who also draws the analogy
with the upturned glance of Berninis Anima Beata and S. Bibiana.
22
On what might be called the psycho-theology of the crossing figures see Lavin 1968,
2439.
23
Following Ripa, Mle 1932, 391, identified Justices companion as Benignit; Spear
1982, 276.
24
This tradition was admirably outlined by Quednau 1979, 2514.
25
The relation to the Sala di Costantino Urban I was first noted by Kauffmann 1970,
110; Quednau 1979, 251 f, Scott 1991, 161, Schtze 1994, 266 n. 160.
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namesakes; and because, realizing that he tended to be rather rigid

(alquanto . . . rigidetto) by nature, the name would be a continuous
reminder to be temperate.26 On the urbanity of the pope's rule we shall
have more to say presently. Underlying the first two motivations may be a
particular understanding of the role played by the image of Urban I in the
Sala di Costantino cycle: as the first pope to identify himself literally with.
the capitol of the empire, he would have been the embodiment par excellence of the virtues associated with the church's dominion.27 The allusion is
no doubt also to Urban II, promoter of the first crusade, who is mentioned
specifically in another source and may have been a model for Urban VIII's
zealous support for foreign missions and the Propaganda Fide.28
Interestingly, the same allegories reappear in the frame of an engraved portrait of Urban VII, by Cherubino Alberti (Fig. 19).29 The point is that this
combination of virtues, while perhaps appropriate to a specific individual,
was also emblematic of the vicarious role of all the successors of Peter as
magistrates of the church.
The sense of continuity is expressed in the basic conception of the tomb,
which is a kind of epitome of the two papal monuments previously erected
Egli dice haver preso il nome di Urbano per due cause, la prima per amar egli molto
questa citt, che sappella Urba per autonomasia, la seconda perch conoscendo egli la sua
natura tirar alquanto al rigidetto le fusse continuo raccordo di dover temperarla. (Pastor
192353, XXVIII, 25, n. 1) . . . dal qual nome ha voluto egli insignirsi, come ha detto, per
venerare la memoria degli antichi Urbani predecessori suoi, che pieni di santo zelo, ed alieni
agli interessi del monda, tentarono imprese gloriose. (Barazzi and Berchet 18778, I, 225.)
On the naming of the pope see also Hergemller 1980, 198 f. No doubt Barberini was also
aware that Urban I, who played a central role in the life of St. Cecilia, used the most familiar of all bee clichs to describe the Roman martyrs works in the service of Christ: . . . Lord
Jesus Christ, sower of chaste counsel, accept the fruit of the seeds that you sowed in Cecilia!
Lord Jesus Christ, good shepherd, Cecilia your handmaid has served you like a busy bee: the
spouse whom she received as a fierce lion, she has sent to you as a gentle lamb! Voragine
1995, II, 319. . . . Caecilia famula tua quasi apis tibi argumentosa deservit: nam sponsum,
quem quasi leonem ferocem acceptit, ad te quasi agnum mansuetissimum destinavit.
Voragine 1850, 772.
27
Curiously, Quednau 1979, 250, was able to offer no specific reason for the inclusion
of Urban I in the Sala di Costantino series or for his association with the virtues of Justice
and Charity.
28
Pastor 192353, XXVIII, 25, n. 1, citing Negri 1922, 174.
29
Cited by Kauffmann 1970, 110; see Buffa, ed., 1982, No. 96, 127 , III. The same
frame served for a series of portraits, including Gregory XI, Leo XI and Paul V, the latter two
signed by Alexander Mair (Zimmer 1988, 312, No. E52, Zijlma 1979, 142 f, Nos. 72, 72A).
26
7/1/09
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962
in new St. Peter's, those of Paul III (Fig. 20) and Gregory XIII (Fig. 21).30
The parallel and continuity between them is established by the use of corresponding materials, and by the echoing pyramidal composition of the
bronze figure of the pope seated on a pedestal, before and beside which are
placed white marble pairs of allegories. The levitating gesture of UrbanVIII,
moreover, which repeats that of St. Peter himself in the Sala di Costantino
(Fig. 22), seems deliberately to intermediate between the palm-down pacification of Paul III and the triumphal exclamation of Gregory XIII.31
Bernini's allegories leaning against the sarcophagus seem also to link the
reclining and isolated standing figures on the two earlier monuments, while
relating the tomb to its psychological and spatial environment in a new way.
These papal monuments have a close parallel in an engraved political allegory that is rooted in the Petrarchan tradition of allegorical triumphs, and
that in turn anticipates many of the features of Bernini's conception. The
composition was designed by Joseph Heintz, court painter to the emperor
Rudolph II, and engraved by Lucas Kilian in Venice in 1603, to celebrate
the appointment of Heintz's brother Daniel as architect of the city of Bern
(Fig. 23).32 Seated atop a two-stepped structure the triumphant figure of
Justice brandishes her sword and holds her scales aloft, looking heavenward.
She is flanked below by standing figures of Truth and Charity, who rest their
arms on the pedestal. Truth looks up to the sun (one of Urban VIII's
emblems) and Charity holds one child while looking down toward the
other who reaches up toward her; between them at their feet on the lower
level cringes the chained figure of Avarice. Apart from the theme of the allegory, its relevance for Bernini lay in the unity and coherence of the composition, and the psychological counterpoint enacted by the figures.
The earlier papal monuments had included four allegories each, alluding to the terrestrial and celestial virtues of the popes. Paul III Justice,
30
These were the only papal tombs erected in new St. Peters before Urban VIIIs
(Borgolte 1989, 305). For particulars on the tomb of Paul III see Gramberg 1984. On the
original tomb of Gregory XIII, which was replaced in the eighteenth century, Krger 1986.
The fundamental study of the decoration of new St. Peters before the addition of the nave
under Paul V is that by Siebenhner 1962. On the relations between the three tombs, see
Pope Hennessy 1970, 114 f; Kauffmann 1970, 110, 114, 119, 128; Schtze 1994, 257, 260,
264 f, 266.
31
The relationship to St. Peter in Sala di Costantino was noted by Kauffmann 1970,
132. On Paul III in atto di pacificatore see Thoenes 1990, 135.
32
The relationship of the Urban VIII tomb to the engraving was observed and discussed
by Larsson 1971; see also Prag 1988, 415 f, No. 302, Zimmer 1988, 146 f, No. A75.
7/1/09
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963
Prudence, Peace and Abundance; Gregory XIII Charity, Peace, Faith,

Hope. (The monument to Paul III was first erected freestanding in a side
aisle with the allegories placed at the front and back; when it was moved
and reinstalled in a niche in one of the crossing piers, Justice and Prudence
were placed at the base while the other two were set on the pediment
above). Bernini may be said to have abstracted and combined the two chief
virtues of the earlier tombs, Justice and Charity. The significance of this
choice must be understood in the light of a project to integrate the choir
and crossing of St. Peter's in one grandiose and comprehensive program. At
the center the tomb of St. Peter was crowned with a new baldachin that
expressed Christ's triumph in its very design; and the papal altar was surrounded in the crossing piers with relics and images of saints evoking
Christ's passion, the whole embodying the process of sacrifice and salvation.
It must have seemed positively providential that the Farnese tomb, having been transferred to one of the crossing piers, was, so to speak, in the
way of this vast program.33 The idea of moving it to the apse (16289) to
form a pair with the tomb of Urban gave the opportunity to demonstrate
the significance of papal succession through the location of the two monuments, as well as their design. Placed in the lateral niches the pair flanked
the tomb of St. Peter himself at the center of the crossing. This arrangement
formed a coherent group of memorials that served to illustrate the millennial papal succession and hegemony initiated under St. Peter and established under Constantine.34 Moreover, the choice of Justice and Charity
created in relation to Paul III's Justice and Prudence an inescapable contrapposto in meaning, as well as form: the cardinal virtues traditionally associated with earthly dominion, the wise ruler, vis-a-vis the divine virtues
proper to the pope as a spiritual leader, the just judge.35 A final correlation
It has been suggested that Urban chose to pair his tomb with that of Paul III because
the Farnese pope served as a model for his own nepotistic ambitions (Scott 1991, 6). My
view is that the primary motive was the demonstration of papal continuity and the complementarity of papal terrestrial and spiritual dominion.
34
On this theme of papal succession in the arrangement of the tombs see Borgolte 1989,
3135, followed by Schtze 1994, 265 f, who notes that the reference would have been
made explicit by a depiction of Christ giving the Keys to St. Peter (repeating the subject of
the medieval decoration in the apse of the old basilica) that was planned for the altar in the
centre of the apse. between the two tombs.
35
Panofsky 1964, 94, noted the substitution in relation to the Paul III tomb of the
theological virtue, Charity, for the moral virtue Prudence; but he failed to realize this change
implied a corresponding shift in meaning for Justice.
33
7/1/09
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964
1. Bernini, Tomb of Urban VIII. Rome, St. Peters (photo: Anderson 215).
7/1/09
13:25
Page 11
2. Giovanni Baglione, Allegory of Charity and Justice. London, Hampton Court.
965
7/1/09
13:25
Page 12
966
3. Bernini, Tomb of Urban VIII, detail. Rome, St. Peters

(photo: Saskia 8001 M 14).
7/1/09
13:25
Page 13
4. Bernini, Tomb of Urban VIII,

detail. Rome, St. Peters
5. Bernini, Tomb of Urban VIII,

detail. Rome, St. Peters
(photo: Lehmann-Brockhaus).
967
7/1/09
13:25
Page 14
968
6. Giovanni Lanfranco, Salvation of a Soul. Naples, Galleria Nazionale

(photo: SAGN 13929).
7/1/09
13:25
Page 15
7. Pietro Bernini, Charity. Naples, Monte di Piet (SAGN 5820).
969
7/1/09
13:25
Page 16
970
8. After Guercino, Charity, engraving by Giovanni Battista Pasqualini.
7/1/09
13:25
Page 17
Fig. 9. Bernini, Tomb of Urban VIII, detail. Rome, St. Peters

(photo: Stoedtner 210382).
971
7/1/09
13:25
Page 18
972
10. Battista Dossi, Justice. Dresden, Gemldegalerie .
7/1/09
13:25
Page 19
11. Bernini, Tomb of

Urban VIII, detail.
Rome, St. Peters
(photo: ARFSP).
12. Bernini, Tomb of

Urban VIII, detail.
Rome, St. Peters
(photo: ARFSP).
973
7/1/09
13:25
Page 20
974
13. Bernini, Tomb of Urban

VIII, detail.
Rome, St. Peters

VIII, detail.
Rome, St. Peters
(photo: Lehmann-Brockhaus).
7/1/09
13:25
Page 21
15. Domenichino, Prudence with Time. Rome, S. Carlo ai Catinari

975
7/1/09
13:25
Page 22
976
16. (a) Francesco Mochi, St. Veronica; (b) Franois Duquesnoy, St. Andrew;
(c) Bernini, St. Longinus; (d) Andrea Bolgi, St. Helen. Rome, St. Peters
(photos: Anderson 20590, 20598, 20588, 20591).
7/1/09
13:25
Page 23
17. Domenichino, Justice with Benignity. Rome, S. Carlo ai Catinari

977
7/1/09
13:25
Page 24
978
18. Giulio Romano, Urban I. Rome, Palazzo Vaticano, Sala di Costantino

7/1/09
13:25
Page 25
19. Cherubino Alberti, Urban VII, engraving.
979
7/1/09
13:25
Page 26
980
20. Guglielmo della Porta, Tomb of Paul III. Rome, St. Peters
7/1/09
13:25
Page 27
21. Prospero Antichi, Tomb of Gregory XIII. Rome, St. Peters

(after Chacon 1677, IV, 32).
981
7/1/09
13:25
Page 28
982
22. Giulio Romano, St. Peter. Rome, Rome, Palazzo Vaticano,

Sala di Costantino (photo: Anderson 3836).
7/1/09
13:25
Page 29
23. Joseph Heintz,

engraved by Luca Kilian,
Triumph of Justice,
engraving.
24. Guglielmo della Porta,

Tomb of Paul III (detail).
Rome, St. Peters
(photo: BH unnumbered).
983
13:25
26. Clemency of the Prince. Alciati 1621,

Emblema CXLIX.
7/1/09
25. Guglielmo della Porta, Tomb of Paul III (detail).

Rome, St. Peters (photo: BH 18641).

Page 30
984
13:25
28. Pungat et Ungat. Mendo 1661, 160 .
7/1/09
27. Clemency of the Prince. Alciati 1567,

Emblema IX.

Page 31
985
13:25
30. Bernini, David Killing the Lion, engraving.

Barberini 1631, title page.
7/1/09
29. Maestate tantum. Pietrasanta 1634, 34.

Page 32
986
13:25
32. Dominion over the Self, woodcut.

Ripa 1603, 111.
7/1/09
31. Rubens, Samson Killing the Lion, engraving.

Barberini 1634, title page.

Page 33
987
7/1/09
13:25
Page 34
988
33. Domenichino, Force with Dominion over the Self.

Rome, S. Carlo ai Catinari (photo: Alinari 29985).
7/1/09
13:25
34. After Fabio Cristofani,

Ballot for the Election of
Urban VIII, tapestry.
Rome, Musei Vaticani
(photo: ICCD E39259).

Page 35
989
7/1/09
13:25
Page 36
990
35. Pietro da Cortona, Divine Providence, detail. Rome, Palazzo Barberini

7/1/09
13:25
Page 37
36 Bernini, Barberini Bees,

stained glass.
Rome, S. Maria in Aracoeli
(photo: SIP Rete di Roma,
1993/94, front cover)
37. Barberini Bees.

Rome, Ss. Cosmas and
Damian.
Basilica n.d., back cover.
991
7/1/09
13:25
Page 38
992

VIII, detail.
Rome, St. Peters
(ARFSP).

VIII, detail.
Rome, St. Peters
(ARFSP).
7/1/09
13:25
Page 39
40. Bernini, Tomb of Urban VIII, detail.

Rome, St. Peters (ARFSP)
993
41. Bernini, Tomb of Urban VIII, detail.

Rome, St. Peters (ARFSP)
42. Bernini, Tomb of Urban VIII, detail. Rome, St. Peters (ARFSP).
7/1/09
13:25
Page 40
994
43. Malediction, Tomb of Archilochus, engraving. Alciati 1621, Emblema LI.
7/1/09
13:25
Page 41
44. Et minimi vindicatam, tomb of Domitian. Peacham 1612, 144.
995
7/1/09
13:25
Page 42
996
45. Tomb of Cardinal rard de La Marck. Boissard, 15971602,

Part IV, Tome II, title page
7/1/09
13:25
Page 43
46. Allegory of History. Ripa 1611, 235.
997
7/1/09
13:25
Page 44
998
47. Hic domus, Barberini impresa.

Ferro 1623, II, 72.
7/1/09
13:25
Page 45
48. Bernini, Tomb of Urban VIII, detail. Rome, St. Peters

(photo: Stoedtner 210381).
49. Bernini,
Tomb of Urban VIII,
detail.
Rome, St. Peters
(photo: ARFSP B 3772).
999
7/1/09
13:25
Page 46
1000
and contrast is evident in the treatment of what is, literally and figuratively,
the central theme of both tombs, that is, death itself. In both cases the
caducity of earthly existence is expressed by wing-borne inscriptions with
the names of the deceased (Fig. 24), except that Bernini assimilated this
motif, and the figure of Historia represented on the front of Paul III's cope
(Fig. 25), to the traditional winged personification of Death, which now
becomes also the fateful recorder of life.36
However, the choice of justice and Charity alone for the tomb of Urban
unprecedented, I repeat, in papal funerary iconography suggests that
this combination of virtues, in their divine nature, had special meaning in
the case of Urban VIII. (I want to emphasize here parenthetically, that the
tomb of Urban was an astonishing, even revolutionary departure from the
grandiose, self-expository monuments covered with great visual biographies, erected by his recent predecessors, Sixtus V and Paul V at Santa Maria
Maggiore.)37 The complementary and necessary attributes of Charity and
Justice were a constant feature in the ideology of the good magistrate from
antiquity on, discussed and eulogized in innumerable ways in innumerable
texts. One of the leitmotifs of this theme made it particularly relevant to
Urban VIII because it was based on the equally ancient tradition that the
social organization of the bee, three of which animals constituted the coat
of arms of Urban VIII, represented the ideal state: a hierarchical monarchy
where every individual had its assigned place which it never transgressed,
and where every individual made its contribution to the commonweal,
wholeheartedly, and in utter harmony with its fellows.38 Two specific characteristics of the bee were especially relevant to the ideology of the good
ruler, the fact that the bee could inflict pain with its stinger, and was thus
feared by its enemies, but also produced sweet honey and was thus loved by
36
Gramberg 1984, 323f, identifies the subject of Della Portas reliefs as Historia,
although the shield and helmet reflect the images of Victory on which it depends (Ettlinger
1950); Pope-Hennessy 1970, 400, calls it a Victory. The relation to Berninis figure of Death
was first noted by Kauffmann 1970, 119.
37
Wittkower 1981, 21, also emphasises Berninis break with the previous papal tombs,
and his return to the models of Paul III and Michelangelos Medici tombs.
38
A helpful survey of bee symbolism in Jesuit emblem literature is provided by Dimler
1992; on the bee colony as a model society see pp. 231 f, 234. One of the most important
bee topoi, directly relevant to the Barberni papacy, was the equivalence of the beehive to the
Unity of the Holy Church, developed in the seminal thirteenth century treatise on bees by
Thomas of Cantimpr (Misch 1974, 69103; Hassig 1995, 5271. esp. 56).
7/1/09
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1001
its friends.39 The other important characteristic was that the ruling bee itself
often thought to be a king rather than a queen; larger, more important
and constantly surrounded and guarded by his subjects had no stinger.40
On both these counts, the ideal state of the bee was based on and derived
from the ideal admixture of charity and justice inherent in its nature. In
general terms, the bee became one of the important emblems of the ideal
ruler, as when Alciati depicted Princely Clemency as a hive to which bees
are attracted because the ruler treats his subjects with justice and clemency,
or as an enthroned seated ruler to whom the bees fly in good will (Figs. 26,
27).41 Pungat et ungat is the motto of another emblem of the Principe
Perfecto, illustrated by a swarm of bees following its leader (Fig. 28).42 In
another case, the swarm following the king illustrates the passage on the
stingless king bee from Seneca's discourse on Clemency to indicate that, in
Picinelli 1729, 501, quotes a text on psalm 50 by Urban himself, which I have been
unable to trace, on exactly this point.: Apes & si inferant punctionis dolorem, amantur
tamen, quia mellis dulcedinem administrant. Sic & persecutores meos Domine, amare volo,
& punctiones, quas mihi amaris conatibus inferunt, tribulatio spiritu tolerare, ut mellita
jucunditas subsequantur.
40
The missing stinger of the ruling bee is emphasized by the ancient writers as a mark
of the bee's ideal monarchy: the king bees greatest mark of distinction, however, lies in this:
bees are most easily provoked, and, for the size of their bodies, excellent fighters, and where
they wound they leave their stings; but the king himself has no sting. Nature did not want
him to be cruel or to seek a revenge that would be so costly. (Seneca, De Clementia I.xix.
3, Basore 195864, I, 140 f ) . . . there is no agreement among the authorities . . . whether
the king bee has no sting and is armed only with the grandeur of his office (maiestate tantum armatus). or whether nature has indeed bestowed one upon him but has merely denied
him the use of it.. It is a well established fact that the ruler does not use a sting. The commons surround him with a marvelous obedience. (Pliny, Hist. Nat. XI. xvii. 53, Rackham
et al. 193862, III, 465.)
41
Principis clementia/ Vesparum quod nulla unquam rex spicula figet./ quodq. alijs
duplo corpore maior erit;/ Arguet imperium clemens moderataq. regna./ Sanctaq. iudicibus
cretita iura bonis. Alciati 1621, CXLIX, p. 632 Clementia del Prencipe/ Che del le vespe il
R mai non ferisca,/ col pungiglione,alcuno, o, che non lhabbia;/ E, che, de laltre vespe, al
doppio, tenga/ maggiore il corpo; additer limpero costante,e fermo, e i moderati regni;/ E
le leggi santissime, commesse/ A giudicanti di sinera mente. (Alciati 1626, 220 f; Daly et
al. 1985, II, No. 149) Wasps and bees are interchangeable in this literature, and the commentaries in the editions cited specifically correct wasps to bees in this case.
42
Mendo 1661, 160; see Dimler 1992, 232 f, for Mendos sources.
39
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Pliny's words, majesty alone (maiestate tantum), not cruelty, suffices for the
ideal ruler (Fig. 29).43
Although it has not been properly understood heretofore, the same fundamental thought underlies the famous illustrations by Bernini and Rubens
for editions of Urban's poetry (Figs. 30, 31). Both portray the ideal of overwhelming strength united with the gentleness of poetry. Bernini showed
David as defender of his flock strangling the lion (I Samuel 17:345) but
with his harp nearby. Rubens showed Samson killing the lion, from whose
body bees issued forth (. . . and out of the strong came forth sweetness,
Judges 14:56, 8, 14); this biblical episode is mentioned in a poem
addressed to Urban's brother Antonio, a Capuchin monk, which alludes to
the spirit's rise to heaven from the corrupt body.44 Rubens here also identifies Urban's poetry with the mellifluousness of bees. The bees issuing specifically from the lion's mouth, including a formation of three, draw an obvious parallel between Urban, celebrated as a poet in the Greek style, and
Pindar, whose poetry was said to have been instilled by honey that bees had
dropped upon him as a child.45 But the basic image and the conceit derive
from a broader concept, that is, self-control, Dominio di se stesso, the most
noble form of Force, represented by Ripa as a man straddling and bridling
a lion (Fig. 32).46 Ripa's image had been taken up as a counterpart to
Strength by Domenichino (Fig. 33).47 This ideal of self-restraint was classiSee n. 4 above. Pietrasanta 1634,34 (see Dimler 1992, 234 f, Ferro 1623, 67), attributes the device to Ferdinand I of Florence, where it appears as a king bee surrounded by concentric circles of workers, on the base of Giambolognas equestrian monument of the Duke
(Watson 1983, 183 n.27; Torriti 1984, 18, ill. p. 21, 50). Scipione Bargogli was the inventor (Erben 1996, 338 f ). Maffeo Barberini came from Florence (see p. 1011 below), and it
is tempting to think he brought this Medicean politico-apian theme with him.
44
See the important observations in Judson and van de Velde 1978, 284 f, 359.
45
As pointed out by Julius Held 1982, 177 f, 182 f; see Davis 1989, 45 f, 47 n. 12. On
Berninis composition see Ficacci, ed., 1989,27983. The story concerning the infant Pindar
was related by Pausanius (Descr. IX, 23, 2) in connection with but not in reference to the
poets tomb.
46
Huomo a sedere sopra un leone, che habbia in freno in bocca, & regga con una mano
detto freno, & con laltra punga esso leone con una stimolo. Ripa 1603,113. Ripa refers to
Valeriano (1556, 14v.): Veluti etiam hominem insidentem iconi nunquam videas, quem is
stimulo regat, quod esse animi regem omnino videtur significare.
47
It seems clear, incidentally, that Bernini also understood and borrowed from
Domenicino the underlying principle of pairing contradictory notions
Prudence/Time,Justice/Charity, Force/Self-restraint. The only exception is the pendentive
with the complementary virtues of Temperence with Discernment and Virginity, where the
43
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cal in origin, associated above all with Alexander the Great, whose greatness
was augmented by his self-control, which proved his greatness as much as
any victory: . . . great-minded as he was and still greater owing to his control of himself, and of a greatness proved by this action as much as by any
other victory: because he conquered himself . . .48 The idea was clearly
taken as apposite for Urban, whose very name, as we have seen, incorporated the ideal of rigor tempered by charity. All these metaphors, the stingless king bee, the poetic victory over the ferocious lion, the rule by majesty
alone, the dominion of urbanity, were applied to the pope in the literary
celebrations of his election.49 Indeed, I suspect that the tradition of the bee
as the embodiment of the Godly coincidence of opposites, clemency and
justice, may have been the most important factor in the choice of those allegories for the tomb. In any case, these associations of the bee must have
made the election of Maffeo Barberini to the papacy seem like a heaven-sent
materialization of those same divine virtues that were the quintessential
attributes of the vicar of Christ on earth.
This point may be thought of, and certainly was thought of by contemporaries, as literally true. One more bee-fact is necessary to understand why.
Because of the attributes we have discussed, and for many other reasons, as
well for example, the perfect geometry of its hive and the perfect effiemblems allude specifically to Carlo Borromeo, the patron saint of the church (Mle 1932,
392 f ). Significantly, the saint is referred to in the inscription in the cupola as . . . qui . . .
in tempore iracundiae factus est reconcilio.
48
. . . magnus animo, maior imperio sui nec minor hoc facto quam victoria alia, quia
ipse se vicit . . . Pliny, Nat. Hist., XXXV, xxxvi, 867, Rackham et al. 193862, IX, 324 f.
The rulers sacrifice of his personal ambition to the welfare of his people, was directly linked
to the virtue of Charity by Fabrizi 1588, 156: Princeps, charitatis ardore exit de terra sua,
idest propriam voluntatem abnegat ad populorum regimen, & tranquillitatem assumptus.
This principal of dominion over the self later formed the basis of Berninis conception of the
ideal ruler, embodied in his portraits of Francesco I dEste and Louis XIV, concerning which
see Lavin 1993, 170 f, 1825, and my forthcoming Berninis Image of the Ideal Christian
Monarch.
49
Qual tra le fere rugge Vinte il leon;/ tal tu con dolce canto/ Le tue, e de tuoi narra vittorie, e l vanto,/ Ago non t'arme, n; la maestosa/ Fronte sola ai tuo impero alletta, e lega/
E i duci tuoi e l popolo men grande./ Se cotale armi/ hai pure; sempre ascosa/ Fra loro
tuo gli ochi altrui si nega;/ Spira dolce timore, sange non spande, (from the Canzone in
lode del re delle api in Bracci 1623. 48). Breve spatio pens, comegli intende/ Con dolce
Urbanit regger la terra,/ L'iraammorzar, che gli egri petti accende,/ E vincer con amor
l'odio, e la guerra./ E cos divisato il nome prende/ DUrbano, e l grido four sapre, e dissera./ E dallOccaso allIndico Oceano,/ Urbano il mondo e l ciel risuona Urbano.
(Bracciolini 1628, 483.)
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ciency of its anatomy the bee was regarded as endowed with a supernatural intelligence. Whence it became a symbol of Divine Wisdom, whose
primary aim was to make man perfect in his own image. The idea is both
classical and biblical: Led by such tokens and such instances, some have
taught that bees have received a share of the divine intelligence, and a
draught of heavenly ether; for God, they say, pervades all things . . .; yea,
unto him all beings thereafter return, and, when unmade, are restored; no
place is there for death, but, still quick, they fly unto the ranks of the stars,
and mount to the heavens aloft (Virgil, Georgics, IV. 21927);50 For my
spirit is sweet above honey: and my inheritance above honey and honeycomb (Ecclesiasticus 24:27).51
To be sure, all popes are elected by the action of Divine Providence,
operating through the ballots of the College of Cardinals. But at the election of Maffo Barberini, the action of Divine Providence the descent of
the Holy Spirit, one might well assert was made physically manifest by
the sudden appearance through an open window of the Conclave of nothing less than a swarm of bees! The event is alluded to in a tapestry illustrating Urban's election, where a conspicuously open window is shown conspicuously in the background (Fig. 34). The wonder is repeated in Pietro da
Cortona's frescoed vault in the great salon of the Palazzo Barberini
(Fig. 35), where the invading squadron is framed by a wreath of laurel (the
second major Barberini emblem, concerning which we will have more to
say presently) and surmounted by the papal arms.52 A contemporary
account of the decoration actually describes the scene as Divine Providence
commanding Immortality to crown with its starry diadem the arms of the
new pope, whose election had made him King of the Bees.53 The Story of
the election, and Cortona's reference to it had yet a deeper significance,
however, since Urban's victory was confirmed only after a recount was
Rushton Fairclough 1950, I, 2103.
Cited after Scott 1982, 300 f.
52
The subject of Urbans election has been admirably explored in these connections by Scott
1991, 1806, who scrupulously acknowledges (185 n. 28) my calling his attention to the miracle of the bees and its relevance to the Cortona fresco. On the tapestry, see Scott 1991, 189 f, who
also cites pp. 185, 216, the explanation of the ceiling allegory by Mattia Rosichino(1640): . . .
dimostra lImmortalit dessiguire i comandamenti, movendosi con la corona di stelle ad
incoronare linsegna di Urbano Ottavo Sommo Pontefice; questa circondata da due rami di
lauro, che insieme arrendendosi, fanno la simiglianza di uno scudo . . . On the significance of the
laurel as a Barberini emblem, see below, p. 1010 and n. 79.
53
On Urban as King of the Bees, see n. 48 above and Scott 1995, 219.
50
51
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taken, at his insistence, when it was discovered that a ballot was missing
from the scrutiny that had elected him.54 This is the primary scene represented in the election tapestry, where allegorical figures of Modesty and
Magnanimity fly into the conclave to celebrate the virtues Urban displayed
in his own election.55 His coronation and assurance of immortality, presaged
by the miracle of the bees, were thus occasioned by his exemplary demonstration of virtue in its most heroic form, self-restraint. The pope's biographer commented: It was a truly memorable deed that will render his name
forever most glorified because, seeing himself at one point pope and then
not pope, with great courage and with such a magnanimous heart he
decided to let the welfare of the universal Church prevail over his own desire
for the supreme principate. Wherefore amongst his other signal faculties
and spiritual qualities are the constancy, magnanimity, and generosity he
demonstrated in his heroic act, it will be sufficient to render his name
immortal and celebrate to the world the manner in which he assumed the
papacy.56 It might thus well be said that the age of the Baroque was ushered
in by a supreme act of ephemerality the sudden descent upon Rome, the
church and mankind, of an unmistakably heaven-sent swarm of bumbling
Barberini bees, conveying to the chosen one the divine virtues of Clemency
and Justice proper to his newly acquired office.
With that swarm began the veritable invasion (plague, as some would
have it by the time Urban's reign ended) of bees, the number of which populating Rome and the papal states one wag later estimated at more than ten
thousand.57 In my estimation, however, what distinguished the Barberini
bees was not their number many popes had been great builders and art
patrons, and many puns and other games had been played with their coats
of arms. But none had acquired the active, literally volatile presence of the
Barberini bees. Perhaps one should rather say transience, for to my mind
and in our context, at least, the Barberini bees embody the notion of
For the story of the recount of the scrutiny, see Scott 1991, 183.
Scott 1991, 190.
56
Attione in vero memorabile, che render per sempre gloriosissimo il suo nome, perch vistosi in un punto Papa, e non papa seppe con tanta intrepidezza, e con si magnanimo
cuore far prevalere il bene della Chiesa universale alla cupidit propria del supremo principato: onde fra laltre sue segnalate prerogative, e doti dellanimo, la costanza, la magnanimit
e la generosit che egli mostr in questatto eroici baster per rendere immortale la fama di
lui, e celebre al mondo la maniera, con la quale fu assunto al Pontificato. Scott 1991,
185 f.
57
Scott 1982, 300 n. 32.
54
55
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ephemerality in their period more profoundly and more pungently than

any other sign. They fly against the blue sky in the church of the virgin at
the altar of heaven (Fig. 36); and in the early medieval apse mosaic in the
basilica of Ss. Cosmas and Damian in the heart of the Roman forum, where
a Barberini restoration gave new life to the image of Urban's predecessor,
the sainted Pope Felix IV (Felicitas = Happiness), they fructify the garden
of paradise (Fig. 37).58
This same quality informs the famous bees that have alighted on
Urban's tomb, having now presumably passed through a window of the
basilica, to participate in the commemoration of St.Peter's departed successor and their beloved ruler just as they had done twenty years before at
Urban's election. In fact, the three large bees that allude to the coat of arms
are really the leaders king-size bees, one might say (Figs. 38, 39) of a
swarm that populates the monument; the others are much smaller, worker
bees indeed, they are true to scale (Figs. 4042).59 Transforming the
papal coat of arms into a swarm of insects bumbling over the papal tomb
was, surely, an act of unparalleled imagination and wit, which also served to
transform the mood of melancholy and despair usually associated with
funeral iconography into a moment of surprise and even of joy.60 The essential idea was not new, however. Stinging swarms had been associated with,
and attached to tombs in two closely related and complementary instances,
both of which I think were seminal inspirations for Bernini's conceit.61 The
Greek Anthology includes a description of the tomb of Archilochus, who
first made the Muse bitter dipping her in vipers'gall, staining mild Helicon
with blood . . . Pass quietly by, O wayfarer, lest haply thou arouse the wasps
The window of S. Maria in Araceli, a modern restoration (see Fraschetti 1900, 100,
Campitelli, ed. 1997, 279), is described by Baldinucci 1682, 147: colori di azzurra il finestrone invetriata e in esse figuro le tre api, quasi volando per aria, e sopra collic il regno.
The figure St. Felix at St. Cosmas and Damian was restored by Urban VIIs nephew,
Cardinal Francesco Barberini, during the pontificate of Alexander VII (165567); see
Mattiae 1967, 135.
59
The bees of the tomb were discussed by Howard Davis 1989, who first noticed the
little real insects, and interpreted by him as alluding to the sweet odor of sanctity sometimes exuded by the corpes of those destined for heaven. (No such phenomenon was
reported at the death of Urban). Davis noted four small bees, one on each foot of the sarcophagus, overlooking the one on the laurel wreath on the lid, which was observed by Fehl
1982, 353 f.
60
Fehl 1987, 202, also noted this element of wit and joy elicited by the Barberini bees.
61
The tombs of Archilochus and Domitian are mentioned in a different context by
Clements 1960, 73.
58
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that are settled on his tomb.62 Archilochus was the founding father of Greek
lyric poetry, famous for having composed the song of victory used by the
victors at Olympia, and for inventing the epode and many other verse
forms; but he was also famous for his bitter satires, which wounded his enemies even unto death.63 It was thus a kind of poetic jusfice that at his own
death his barbs should return as a reminder of his malicious verses, in the
form of a swarm of wasps carved on his tomb. The idea was visualized in
Alciati's famous emblem book (Fig. 43), and given Urban's fame as a poet
himself he wrote a great deal in exactly the kind of epodic verse associated with Archilochus there can be no doubt of his, and Bernini's, familiarity with the tradition.64 The second instance of apiary sepulchral imagery
concerned the emperor Domitian, whose cruelty, especially toward
Christians, was celebrated and immortalized by the avenging attack on his
tomb of swarms of wasps and bees (Fig. 44):
Once Nero's name, the world did quake to heare,
And Rome did tremble, at Domitian's sight:
But now the Tyrant, cause of all this feare,
Is laid full low, upon whose toombe do light,
To take revenge, the Bee, and summer Flie,
Who not escap't sometime his crueltie.65
It is remarkable indeed, and must have seemed providential to the pope and
to Bernini. that these two associations between stinging insects and tombs
should both apply aptly to Urban, the first as poet, the second as pope;
providential also in that simply by reversing the sense of the malevolent tradition, the image of the bee-infested tomb could be transformed. Instead of
swarming to avenge ancient, pagan evil, the apian chorus (one can practically hear the buzzing of the busy bees) is attracted to its ruler, as in Alciati's
emblems of Princely Clemency (Figs. 26 and 27). The bees celebrate the triPaton 192543, II, 42 ff.
On Archilochus see Burnett 1983 part I.
64
Maledicentia, Archilochi tumolo insculpas de marmore vespas/ Esse ferunt, linguae
certa sigilla malae. (Slander. On the marble tomb of Archilochus wasps were carved,/ they
say, fixed signs of an evil tongue (Daly, et al. 1985, I, emblem 51). See Henkel and Schne
1967, col. 928.
65
Peacham 1612, 144. I am indebted to Alan R. Young for his help in tracking down
Peachams manuscript and printed emblems.
62
63
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umph of Christian virtue realized poetically in Urban's verses, devoted not

to destructive diatribe but to pious inspiration; and institutionally in
Urban's reign, devoted not to tyranny and martyrdom but to the charity
and justice of the rule of Christ vested in the pope. Considered in this light
the seemingly casual, bumbling placement of the three big Barberini bees
becomes charged with meaning. They all face upward and seem to rise in
an ascending march past the skeletal figure of death, as if in response to the
resurrecting command of the pope appropriated, as Kauffmann first
noticed, from the gesture of St. Peter himself in the Sala di Costantino series
(Fig. 22) enthroned on his seat of wisdom, itself ornamented with bees.66
It is astonishing but true that the lowermost bee, on the rim of the sarcophagus basin, has no stinger it is not broken off, it never had one
(Fig. 38),67 O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?!
(1 Cor. 15:55) The other two (Fig. 39), as if resurrected, are whole again
and proceed in their rise to the very border between death, commemoration, and life.68
The hyperbolic flattery usually attributed to Bernini is belied not only by the
theological nature of the allegories, but also by the inordinate importance attributed to death itself, by virtue of the inclusion of the Michelangelesque sarcophagus, and specially the central role played by the figure of the Reaper in the
drama of the tomb.69 Like the bees, Death seems to rise from the sarcophagus,
a conceit derived, I think, from the tomb of a great Flemish cardinal of the sixteenth century, well known through contemporary engravings of monuments
of famous persons (Fig. 45).70 In the tomb of Cardinal rard de la Marck, however, Death performs his role as memento mori in a traditional way, brandishing
an hourglass, whereas Bernini's figure writes, or rather finishes writing the name
and title of Urban VIII in the black book of death (Fig. 48). The bookish Death
seems to recall that along with his literary interests the pope was an avid historian and bibliophile.71 However, a more specific reference is suggested by a rarely
noted, and to my mind never properly understood peculiarity of the motif, the
Kauffmann 1970, 132.
Davis 1989, 47, thought the stinger might have been broken off.
68
Kauffmann 1970, 127 and n. 117, associated these bees with resurrection; on spontaneous generation, see Fraser 1931, 1012.
69
Wittkower 1981, 22, also notes Berninis emphasis on the sepulchral idea, in contrast
to the commemorative and ceremonial monuments of his predecessors.
70
On the de la Marck tomb see Lavin 1990, 34, and the references given there.
71
See Pastor 192355, XXIX, 43350.
66
67
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name of Urban's predecessor partially visible on a preceding page. Often

assumed to refer to Urban's immediate predecessor Gregory XV, the letters are
clearly legible as CL above and AL below, that is, Clement VIII Aldobrandini.
And, as if to avoid any possibility of misunderstanding, exactly the right number of pages, corresponding to the number of intervening popes, namely three,
are shown between that with Urban's name and that with Clement's.72
(Clement VIII, Leo XI, Paul V, Gregory XV, Urban VIII.) It is not hard to
understand why the reference to Gregory was avoided: that pope's nephew,
Cardinal Ludovisi, had been a bitter enemy since the time of the conclave. On
the other hand, Urban had been a great favorite of Clement VIII, who had furthered his early career in many ways.73 However, I think there was another, more
specific reason, which may even have been the inspiration for the motif of the
record book itself. One of the important acts of Clement was to have established
in Castel Sant'Angelo (originally the tomb of the Emperor Hadrian), the
guardian fortress of the papacy, an archive for the historical records of the
church, the so-called Biblioteca Clementina.74 In praise of the project, Barberini
wrote a poem, dedicated to Clement, which was included in all the editions of
his collected verse. The poem, which is dedicated to Clement and titled De tabulario pontificio in arce Hadriana, involves an elaborate conceit specifically linking the records kept through the Pope's generosity to the permanence of his
fame.75 Urban himself, apart from his famous literary and bibliophilic interests,
was also a great archivist, establishing along with several ecclesiastical repositories, a central archive of the notarial records of the city.76 Hans Kauffmann,
recalling the figure on Paul III's cope, aptly described the figure of death writ-
Schiavo 1971, first noted that the reference was to Clement, rather than Gregory;
Schiavo recalled the disagreements with Gregory and Urbans debt to Clement, and also
noted that Clement had dedicated the new high altar at St. Peters, while Urban had consecrated the new basilica itself. For the correct identification, see also Fehl 1982, 354 (adding
a letter in each line, however) and 1987, 194.
73
Pastor192353, XXIII, passim; Fehl 1987, 194, who also calls attention to Urbans several poems honoring Clement.
74
Pastor 192353, XXIV, 447 f; see DOnofrio 1971, 202, 223, Figs. 1723, 178, 180;
Langelo 19878, I, 1715.
75
A CLEMENTEM VIII. DE TABVLARIO PONTIFICIO IN ARCE HADRIANA.
Hoc nos scripta loco/ dubios contemnere casus/ Possumus, o Clemens,/ munere septa tuo./
Pro quo, sancte pater,/ nostris tuo gloria chartis/ Viuet, dum nobis vita/ superstes erit./ Quid
loquimur, / si firmus obex nos protegit arcis,/ Et tua se propria fama/ tuetur ope? (Barberini
1642, 151; Pastor 192353, XXIV, 454).
76
Pastor 192353, XXIX, 453 f.
72
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ing in a book as a kind of allegory of History (Fig. 46).77 Here, however Death
has the specific task of record keeper archivist, one might well say displaying at once the ephemerality of earthly things, bees as well as popes, but also
the permanence of heavenly things, notably the church as embodied in the person of its temporary temporal and spiritual head. Therein lies the ultimate, and
supremely paradoxical, significance of Bernini's tomb of Urban VIII and, I
would say, of ephemerality in Baroque art generally. The very figure representing the triumph of transience, winged Death, is at the same time also the guarantor of permanence, indeed of immortality, through the achievements and
fame of Urban, and through the divine virtues vested by God in the institution
of the church and the papacy.
Bernini left two unmistakable clues to the supernaturally inspired truth
of this message. Four of the small, real bees appear on the legs of the sarcophagus, while a fifth has landed on a leaf of the laurel wreath that decorates the sarcophagus lid, near the tip of Death's wing (Fig. 42).78 Laurel
was, of course, the preeminent symbol of poetry and the victorious immortality it confers;79 and one of the best known and most consistent of the
ideas attached to bees based on Virgil's notion, quoted earlier, that the
bee did not die but flew to heaven to join the stars was that they symbolized immortality.80 The two Barberini emblems coincided in the principle Barberini family impresa, which depicted a flight of bees landing on the
branches of a laurel tree, with the legend Hic domus (Fig. 47).81 The meaning and history of this device are critical to an understanding of the message of the tomb. The conceit is based on a climactic passage in the Aeneid
when the hero, having at last reached Latium after his peregrinations from
Troy, realized that he had reached his final destination, there to establish the
See n. 36 above.
See n. 59 above.
79
On the manifold associations of laurel, see the rich collection of material provided by
Cox-Rearick 1984, concerning the emblems of the Medici family in Florence. The immortality of the laurel was based on the notion, also extolled by Virgil, that the evergreen plant
was immune to lightning and able to regenerate from a branch. On laurel as a symbol of victory see Tervarent 195864, II, col. 233.
80
On the immortality of the bee in reference to the tomb of Urban, see Kauffmann
1970, 127, and Schtze 1994, 252, who emphasizes their monarchic symbolism in this
context.
81
The device is discussed at length by Ferro 1623, II, 738, whose book is dedicated to
Maffeo Barberini as cardinal. The importance of the emblem for Barberini imagery was
emphasized by Scott 1991, 10710, 115, 185, and Schtze 1994, 24952.
77
78
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religion of his fathers and the hegemony of Rome, from the wondrous
descent of a large swarm of bees upon a laurel tree sacred to Apollo.
Heeding the signs, he declared Hic domus, haec patria est (here is our
home, here our country).82 Maffeo invented the impresa to celebrate the
transferral of the Barberini family from Florence to Rome, and his own call
to a higher destiny, before he became pope.
The bee-infested laurel was thus a truly uncanny forecast of the apian
intervention of Divine Providence in Urban's election. On the pope's tomb
the little bee, the very emblem of bumbling transience, almost invisible
perched on its botanical equivalent, by its humble immortality clips the
wings of death itself and triumphs over the very emblem of earthly caducity.
At the same time, the lyrical delicacy of the motif reinforces a hint of nostalgia implicit in another emblematic association of the laurel and bee, the
Virgilian Golden Age evoked rhapsodically by contemporaries in relation to
the Barberini papacy.83 That tree of knowledge, of triumph, of poetry, of
empire, of immortality, of chastity; and similarly the bee of eloquence,
poetry, continence, clemency, diligence, artifice, long and prosperous life,
eternal felicity, peace, and union.84
The primary witness to the meaning of the tomb is to be found where it
should be, in the coat of arms of the Barberini pope, attached to the face of the
arch at the apex of the niche (Fig. 49). Here an extraordinary indeed, as far
as I know unique operation is performed by two heaven-sent messengers.
The Barberini escutcheon, instead of arriving, as in the ceiling of the Palazzo
Barberini (Fig. 35), is detached from the papal tiara and keys and carried aloft.85
The image is a living demonstration of the fleeting earthly presence and spiritual sublimation of an individual mortal who briefly occupied the center of an
eternally abiding creation of the will of God.
In the end, however, perhaps the sharpest insight into the significance of
Bernini's bumbling Barberini bees and the spirit in which they were conAeneid VII, 122, Rushton Fairclough 1950, II, 10.
See the citation in Schtze 1994, 248 n. 100.
84
Quello albero di scienza, di trionfo, di poesia, dImperio, dimmortalit, di castit; &
parimente lApe deloquenza, poesia, continenza, clementia, diligenza, artificio, vita prospero, e lunga, felicita eterna, pace, & unione. Ferro 1623, II, 77.
85
What I would call the stemma riportato motif (for which see Campbell 1977, 124 f,
who uses the term stemma in arrivo, Scott 1991, 107) is a variant of the ancient emblem
of celestial apotheosis, the imago clipeata (for which see Lavin 1980, 69 f ). On the coat of
arms on the Urban tomb, see also Fehl 1987, 202. Berninis use of the motif is strikingly different from that of Algardi, discussed by Montagu 1985, 49, 244 n. 45.
82
83
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ceived was provided by Bernini himself. His words are quoted by his biographers in recounting an incident that took place at the unveiling of the
tomb of Urban, in the presence of the pope's ferociously inimical successor,
Innocent X, who had driven the Barberini family into exile: One cannot
refrain at this point from recalling a cutting reply the Cavaliere gave in
demonstration of his firm allegiance to Urban, to a person of high station
who was not sympathetic to the Barberini family. He had represented here
and there on the sarcophagus of the tomb a number of bees, for no other
purpose than to allude wittily to Urban's arms. The person noticed, and in
the presence of others said to the Cavaliere with a smile, Sir, you have wished
by placing the bees here and there to portray the dispersion of the Barberini family (the members had then withdrawn to France), to which without a
moment's hesitation Bernini replied, But you, Sir, may well know that dispersed bees at the sound of a bell return to congregate, referring to the great bell
on the Capitoline that sounds at the death of every pope. Bernini's reply
brought him great applause from those who reflected on the risk he took at
that time to remain constant to the memory of his benefactor.86
86
N tralasciar si deve in questo luogo di far ricordanza di unacutisima risposta, che in
testimonianza della sua inalterabile fede verso Urbano diede il Cavaliere ad un Personaggio
di alta condizione, per altro poco affezionata a Casa Barberini, Haveva egli figurate su lurna
del Sepolcro in qua, e in l alcune Api, che vagamente alludevano allArme di Urbano.
Oservllo il Personaggio accennato, e presenti altre persone rivoltosi al Cavaliere, sorridendo
disse, Signor Cavaliere, V. S. h voluto colla situazione di questi Api in qu, e in la mostrare
la dispersione di Casa Barberini (erano allora le persone di quella Casa disgustate col
Pontefice, e ritratte in Francia) al che senza frapazione di tempo rispose il Bernino, V, S. per
pu ben sapere, che le Api disperse ad un suon di Camponaccio si tornano a congregare,
intendendo della gran Campana di Campidoglio, che suona doppo la morte di ciascun Papa.
Per la qual risposta merit il Cavaliere l'applauso dovuto. da chi seppe riflettare, con quanto
suo pericolo in quelle congiuntare di tempi si mantenesse costante alla memoria del suo
Benefattore. (Bernini 1713, 73 f.) Fu questopera stupenda incominciata due anii avanti la
morte di Urbano e scoperta circa a 30 mesi dopo che egli fu andato al cielo e ci fu alla presenz del suo sucessore Innocenzio.N io voglio lasciare di portare in questo luogo un'acuta
risposta che diede il Bernino a personaggio di alta condizione, poco amico di casa Barberina,
che stava guardando, presenti altre persone. Aveva il Bernino per una certo bizzaria, e non
ad altro fine figurate in qua e in l sopra il deposito alcune api, alludenti all'arme di quel
papa; osservolle il personaggio e disse: Signor cavaliere, V. S., ha voluto con la situatione di
queste api in qua e in l mostrare la dispersione di casa Barberina (erano le persone di quella
casa ritrate in Francia), e cos rispose il Bernino: V. S. per pu ben sapere, che le api disperse ad un suono di campanaccio si tornano a congregore, intendendo della campana
grande di Campidoglio che suona dopo la morte depapi. (Baldinucci 1948, 88.)
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Alinari
ARFSP:
BH:
ICCD:
SAGN:
Archivio della Reverenda Fabbrica di S. Pietro.

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Lavin XXV. Revised:Lavin 2 Chap VIIa
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XXV
Bernini-Bozzetti: One More, One Less

A Berninesque Sculptor in Mid-Eighteenth
Century France*
AM pleased that this commemoration of the artists birth affords an

opportunity for me to celebrate the golden anniversary of my obsession
love affair might be a better term with the work of Gianlorenzo
Bernini. The affair began when I was a graduate student in search of a dissertation subject at Harvard University in the early 1950s. Partly because
travel was expensive and difficult, partly because in those days art history as
a discipline was much more attached to objects than it is today, and certainly also partly by inclination, I wanted to work on something near at
hand that I could actually get my hands on. (In those days museums were
somewhat less fastidious than they are now about touching objects.)
It happened that one of the great riches of Harvard's Fogg Art Museum
was its collection of some 27 sculptured bozzetti, or small terracotta
sketches, including by far the largest group of autograph studies by Bernini
in the world, with no more than a very few in any other collection. It was
indeed love at first sight. From the beginning I felt a certain communion
with the artist who, it was said, worked with such passion and concentra-
* A draft of this paper was first presented in a symposium at Harvard University in April
1998, commemorating the quadricentennial of Bernini's birth. This extended version was
published in Hannah Baader, et al., eds., Ars et scriptura. Festschrift fr Rudolf Preimesberger
zum 65. Geburtstag, Berlin, 2001, 143156, and in Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. Atti dei
convegni lincei 170. Convegno internazionale La cultura letteraria italiana e lidentit europea
[Roma, 68 aprile 2000], Rome, 2001, 24584.
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BERNINI-BOZZETTI
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tion that, when interrupted, he exclaimed sono innamorato.1 The little

clay sketches seemed to me the very incarnation of that supreme act of
divine love described in Genesis, when God creates Adam from dust. They
seemed to me to make that same magic leap from inert, formless earth to
heaven itself, at the touch of a finger. In the end, my dissertation, interrupted by a call to military service, remained a fragment of my intention.2
But I was in love then, and after half a century I am still in love, especially
with the angels which are my subject today.3
One More
The beautiful terracotta model illustrated in Figs. 13, is, so far as I am
aware, unknown to Bernini scholarship. It is 20 cm. high, well preserved
except for the missing head, and it lives in what at first seems like a very
unlikely place, the Muse des Beaux-Arts at Besanon. The model is clearly
related to the angel that kneels in devotion with arms folded across its
breast, at the right side of the last great work Bernini undertook for
St. Peter's, the Altar of the Sacrament (Fig. 4). The model is also clearly
related and herein lies much of its significance for my discussion
today to the series of clay sketches for the sacrament angels now in the
Fogg Museum, and it takes is place, proudly and somewhat earlier in the
development of the composition, alongside its counterpart there (Fig. 5).
The new bozzetto is in fact quite old, for it has been alive and well since
the mid-eighteenth century in the Museum of Fine Arts at Besanon.
1
According to Domenico Bernini, Nel rimanente era sempre tanto fisso nelle sue occupazioni, che a chi distoglier lo voleva per invitarlo al riposo, rispondeva tutto anzioso,
Lasciatemi star qu, che io son innmamorato. Domenico Bernini, Vita del cavalier Gio.
Lorenzo Bernino, Rome 1713, p. 179. Reported, with interesting variations, by Baldinucci:
. . . us per ordinario fino all'ultima sua et d'impiegare nel lavoro de' marmi, fatica, la quale
gli stessi suoi giovani reggere non poteano: a se talvolta alcuno di loro nel voleva distogliere,
resisteva con dire: Lasciatemi star qui, ch'io sono innamorato. Stava in quel lavoro cos fisso,
che sembrava estatico, a pareva che dagli occhi gli volesse uscir lo spirito per animare il sasso;
Filippo Baldinucci, Vita del cavaliere Gio. Lorenzo Bernino, Florence 1682; ed. Sergio Samek
Ludovici, Milan 1948, p. 139.
2
Irving Lavin, The Bozzetti of Gianlorenzo Bernini, Ph.D. diss., Harvard 1955. The Fogg
terracottas have now been admirably published by Wardropper: Ian Wardropper et al., From
the Sculptor's Hand: Italian Baroque Terracottas from the state Hermitage Museum, exhib. cat.,
Chicago 1998.
3
Some further thoughts on Bernini's angels will be found in my essay Bernini at St.
Peter's: Singularis in singulis, in omnibus unicus, reprinted here.
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Traditionally the model has been regarded, with good reason, as the work
of Luc-Franois Breton (17311799), a native of Besanon and one of the
best-known sculptors of the Franche-Comt. Breton was an altogether
remarkable character, partly because he was in many respects typical of his
era.4 Born of a poor family, he was apprenticed early, with a kind of craftscholarship, to a local woodcarver, and later entered the sculpture atelier of
Claude Attiret at nearby Dle. In 1754 Breton set out, on foot, for Rome,
stopping first at Marseilles, where he worked as a woodcarver and studied
the works there of Pierre Puget. With free passage arranged by an influential sympathizer, he set sail for Rome where he arrived, penniless, in 1754.
After four years of hard work, in 1758 he entered the sculpture competition
of the prestigious Accademia di San Luca, and, mirabile dictu, he won first
prize with a terracotta model representing the assigned subject, Metellius rescuing the Palladium from the Temple of Vesta (Fig. 6).5 He was the first French
artist to win the first prize in sculpture. With this feather in his cap, Breton
in 1762 was taken in by the painter Natoire, director of the French
Academy in Rome, who gave him a room so that, although he lacked the
education and culture requisite for a Prix de Rome, he was able to attend
classes and study the great works, old and new, that surrounded him.
During his stay at the Academy he would have met Houdon, Clodion,
Boucher, and many others. He received commissions from French patrons,
as well as from Robert Adams, whom he had met in Rome. Adams ordered
from him plaster models and casts of classical sculpture and architectural
ornaments on Roman buildings.6 Adams also commissioned him to produce a terracotta model for a marble relief that decorates Adams's monument to Roger Townsend, hero of the battle of Ticonderoga, in Westminster
Abbey. Breton had one major commission in Rome, a colossal figure of St.
Andrew for the church of S. Claudio dei Borgognoni, a model which is preserved at Besanon (Figs. 7, 8).7 Breton remained in Rome for 17 years,
4
For virtually all of what follows concerning the career of Breton see Lucie Cornillot, Le
sculpteur bisontin Luc Breton (17311800), Besanon 1941?; list of works, including the
models discussed here pp. 11525.
5
Vincenzo Golzio, Le terrecotte della R. Accademia di S. Luca, Rome 1933, pp. 18 f.
6
See the important contribution by John Fleming, Robert Adam, Luc-Franois Breton
and the Townshend Monument in Westminster Abbey, in: Connoisseur, CL, 1962,
pp. 16371.
7
The faade sculpture was noted recently among French works in Rome at the time of
Clodion, by Olivier Michel, La Rome de Clodion. Sculpture et tradition, in: Guilhem Scherf,
ed., Clodion et la sculpture franaise de la fin du XVIIIe sicle, Paris 1993, pp. 5983, see p. 69.
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BERNINI-BOZZETTI
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except for a brief, but for our purposes extremely important, return to his
native town in 1765. He passed this time via Florence and Genoa, where he
made a copy of Puget's Saint Sebastian (Fig. 9). In Besanon he received the
commission to carve two kneeling angels for a new high altar of the parish
church, Saint-Maurice. The following year he went back to Rome to procure the marble and execute the figures, which were complete in 1768 and
installed on the altar in 1769. In 1771 Breton returned definitively to
Besanon, where apart from his activity as a sculptor he devoted himself
above all to the establishment and directorship of the first free school of fine
arts in the Franche-Comt.
The eighteenth century was of course the great age for public education
and such schools were mushrooming all over France at the time. For political reasons, the Franche-Comt being fiercely jealous of its independence
from the central administration, Breton's school was never accorded the
official status of an Academy. In fact, it was the only provincial institution
of its kind not associated with the Paris Academy, which meant that it could
not send its students to Rome. With a modest subvention from the municipality, however, the school thrived. It opened in 1774 and by 1778 fortyfive pupils were enrolled. The rules and program were equivalent to those
of the other Academies and very demanding. Each professor upon his
appointment, and in alternation each year thereafter, had to donate to the
school a piece of his own composition. Lessons took place in the evening in
winter, mornings in summer. Students twelve and older from Besanon and
the Franche-Comt were admitted free, and others came from Germany,
Switzerland, and Alsace. The sessions were open to the public. The aspiring
sculptors studied copies after antiquities and the works of their teacher.
From 1775 prizes were awarded in several categories: subjects from the
imagination; subjects after nature; copies in drawing; and copies in three
dimensions. It all came to an end with the Revolution, and was only revived
in 1807 by one of Breton's pupils. The Municipality was prescient, however, and when Breton died in 1800 a portion of his material was purchased
to serve as models in the courses of design.
We have two early inventories, 1815 and 1820, of the models owned by
the cole, which list many works by Breton.8 Several of these are related to
Bernini, more than to any other modern artist. Four can be identified
unequivocally: une femme mourante; un ange adorateur, ronde-bosse;
8
Cornillot 1941? (see n. 4), pp. 1316.
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1022
1. Bernini, angel of the

sacrament, terracotta.
Muse des Beaux-Arts, Besanon.
2. Bernini, angel of the

sacrament, terracotta.
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BERNINI-BOZZETTI
1023
3. Bernini,
angel of the sacrament,
terracotta.
Muse des Beaux-Arts,
Besanon.
4. Bernini,
angel of the sacrament.
St. Peters, Rome.
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1024
5. Bernini,
angel of the sacrament,
terracotta.
Fogg Art Museum,
Cambridge, MA.
6. Luc Breton,
Metellius rescuing the
Palladium from the
Temple of Vesta,
terracotta.
Accademia di S. Luca,
Rome.
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BERNINI-BOZZETTI
7. Luc Breton, St. Andrew.

S. Claudio dei Borgognoni,
Rome.
8. Luc Breton, St. Andrew,

terracotta.
Besanon.
1025
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1026
9. Luc Breton, plaster cast

of a copy of Pugets Saint Sebastian.
10. Luc Breton,

copy after Berninis
Habakkuk and the Angel,
terracotta.
Besanon.
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BERNINI-BOZZETTI
11. Bernini, Habakkuk and the Angel. S. Maria del Popolo, Rome.
1027
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Page 12
1028
12. Attributed to Bernini,

St. Jerome, terracotta.
Antiquarium, Termini Imerese.
14. Attributed to Bernini,

St. Jerome, terracotta.
Palazzo Chigi Saraceni, Siena.
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BERNINI-BOZZETTI
13. Bernini, St. Jerome. Duomo, Siena.
1029
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1030
15. Bernini,
study for St. Jerome,
drawing.
Knste, Leipzig.
16. Luc Breton,

copy after Beninis
Ludovica Albertoni,
terracotta.
Besanon.
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BERNINI-BOZZETTI
17. Anonymous,
copy after Beninis
Ludovica Albertoni,
terracotta.
18. Luc Breton,

kneeling angel.
Cathedral, Besanon.
1031
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1032
19. Luc Breton,

kneeling angel.
Cathedral, Besanon.
20. Bernini, Sacrament Altar.

St. Peters, Rome.
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1033
BERNINI-BOZZETTI
21. Anonymous,
standing angel,
terracotta.
Fogg Art Museum,
Cambridge, MA.
22. Anonymous,
standing angel,
terracotta.
Fogg Art Museum,
Cambridge, MA.
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Page 18
1034
23. Anonymous, standing angel, terracotta.

Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, MA.
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BERNINI-BOZZETTI
24. Bernini,
angel with the Superscription,
terracotta.
Fogg Art Museum,
Cambridge, MA.
25. Bernini,
angel with the Crown of Thorns,
terracotta.
Fogg Art Museum,
Cambridge, MA.
1035
11/12/08
1036
26. Attributed to Antonio Raggi,

studies for angels,
drawing.
Kunstmuseum, Dsseldorf.
27. Anonymous,
standing angel,
gilt bronze.
Pinacoteca Comunale,
Spoleto.
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1037
BERNINI-BOZZETTI
28. Anonymous,
standing angel.
Spoleto.
29. Anonymous,
ostensorium.
Spoleto.
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Page 22
1038
Apollon et Daphn d'aprs le Bernin; Habacuc d'aprs le Bernin. Except for

the Apollo and Daphne, they are still preserved. The Habakuk and the Angel
(Fig. 10) is an astonishingly subtle and intelligent rendering in high relief
of Bernini's group in the Chigi chapel in S. Maria del Popolo in Rome,
including the niche (Fig. 11). Breton was concerned to convey the crucially
important aspect of the sculpture's effect, its relation to its context. The
model has a remarkable, and perhaps not entirely fortuitous analogy in
another terracotta, which Wittkower accepted as an original bozzetto by
Bernini, in an equally unlikely place, a small museum at Termini Imerese
on the north central coast of Sicily (Fig. 12).9 Represented here is Bernini's
contemporary sculpture of St. Jerome in the Chigi Chapel in the Duomo
of Siena (Fig. 13). We have comparable models of Bernini niche sculptures,
including the St. Jerome, that do not incorporate the niche (Fig. 14), but
there are also autograph drawings that do (Fig. 15).10 Whatever the explanation, it seems hard to believe that the coincidence between Breton's
model and that in Sicily is purely coincidental. The dying woman of the
inventory is the model of the Ludovica Albertoni, which belongs to a veritable plague of reductions of this figure in museums and collections around
the world (Figs. 16, 17), that in Besanon being the only one to which we
can attach a name.11
It is easy to disregard the Habakuk and the Ludovica Albertoni as mere
copies, especially since they are both relatively highly finished and very close
to the originals. They are, however, extremely competent, and the syncretistic spirit of the mid-eighteenth century is eloquently illustrated by the
fact that the works of Bernini and the monuments of classical antiquity
were the two chief subjects of Breton's study. The fact that he worked for
Robert Adam and also reproduced the Berninesque angels for the Cathedral
Maria Vittoria Brugnoli, Un bozzetto del Bernini per il San Girolamo , in: Arte
antica a moderna, 1961, pp. 2913. Nothing is known of the provenance of the piece.
10
Giancarlo Gentilini, and Carlo Sisi, La scultura. Bozzetti in terracotta, piccoli marmi a
altre sculture dal XIV al XX secolo. 1989. Siena. Palazzo Chigi Saracini, 2 vols., Florence 1989;
I, pp. 22937, other exemplars illustrated p. 236; on the drawings see Lavin et al. ed.,
Drawings by Gianlorenzo Bernini from the Museum der bildenden Knste, Leipzig, exhib. cat.,
Princeton 1981, pp. 22936.
11
Some other examplars, with greater or less claims to authenticity: Hermitage
Wardropper et al. 1998 (see n. 2), p. 82 f.; Rome, private collection, Il Seicento europeo.
Realismo classicismo barocco, exhib. cat., Rome 1956, pp. 257 f.; Victoria and Albert Museum
Shelley Karen Perlove, Bernini and the Idealization of Death. The Blessed Ludovica Albertoni
and the Altieri Chapel, University Park and London 1990, see pp. 17, 24 f.
9
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BERNINI-BOZZETTI
1039
shows that he responded equally well to the English neoclassical and the
nascent French Rococo.
The case of the little kneeling angel is not so simple, however, because it
has all the qualities of a preparatory sketch and is much closer in facture and
spirit than the other models to the bozzetti in the Fogg. Having been placed
on their intended altar in Saint-Maurice, Breton's marble angels were saved
from desecration during the Revolution because they served as emblems of
Love on the chariot of the Goddess of Reason in a procession to the
Cathedral of Besanon, where they were installed in their present position
on the high altar (Figs. 18, 19). It is obvious that Breton upon returning to
Rome took as the point of departure for his figures Bernini's kneeling sacrament angels, one in prayerful adoration, the other in ecstatic devotion
(Fig. 20). Breton varied the prototypes in significant ways, however, none
of which correspond to the model. This fact alone, I think, rules out the
Besanon terracotta as a preparatory study for Breton's figures. Two possibilities remain. One is that Breton is here copying not Bernini's final figure,
but one of the master's bozzetti perhaps even the very one now in the
Fogg. The Besanon model, which is directly and uniquely associated with
a single known artist, raises the tantalizing, and devastating, prospect of
Breton's having copied not simply Bernini's executed work but his preparatory style, his sketchmanship, as it were. This would be a striking and precisely documentable instance of what I believe was an important factor in
the transformation of the grand and often grandiloquent dynamism of the
seventeenth into the lithe and delicate rhythms of the eighteenth century
and the development of a special sensitivity to the small, spontaneous and
informal qualities of the preparatory sketch.
In the case, however, I prefer the other possibility: the Besanon angel is
not a copy at all, but what it seems to be at first glance, an original bozzetto
by Bernini for the angel in devotion at the right side of the Sacrament altar
in St. Peter's which Breton acquired while he was in Rome. Apart from
the sheer quality of the work, this hypothesis has one point in particular in
its favor, chronology. We know that Breton received the commission and
went to Rome in 1766 and that the angels were finished by 1768. He can
scarcely have avoided contact with Rome's greatest impresario of restoring,
collecting, and purveying sculpture, Bartolomeo Cavaceppi (171799),
from whom he may have then acquired his Bernini bozzetto.12 A decade
Following the pioneering work of Seymour Howard, Bartolomeo Cavaceppi.
Eighteenth-Century Restorer, New York and London 1982; the splendid investigative task of
12
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1040
later, in fact, faced with financial problems, Cavaceppi offered part of his
vast collection of casts, copies and models for sale to the pope. For this purpose, he drew up a selected list of 100 pieces, in which some of the sculptures now in the Fogg are recorded.
One Less
Although clearly related in conception as well as execution to the angels
of the Ponte S. Angelo, one of the models in the Fogg stands apart from
the others, and I have long been suspicious of the attribution to Bernini
(Figs. 2123).13 The tiny head with mincing features and the pirouetting
movement seem incompatible with the powerful action and forthright
emotion expressed by Bernini's figures (Figs. 24, 25). Anyone who considers even briefly the array of materials drawings as well as models connected with the various angels for the bridge knows that they constitute an
immensely intricate visual counterpoint of many motives arm, leg and
head positions, swirls of fluttering drapery, and psychological states.14
Analyzing these interrelated variables in an effort to define a reasonable
sequence is like trying to disentangle the melodic lines of a Bach fugue. The
combination of notes being sounded at any one measure is probably unique
for the entire composition. Right leg forward, left leg back, right shoulder
back, left forward, right arm raised, left arm down, face turned toward left,
drapery flowing around the right leg behind the left. Of all the material
related to the bridge angels that has come down to us only one tiny sketch
corresponds to these details, and it corresponds so closely that the relationship can hardly be coincidental. I refer to a drawing in Dsseldorf attributed to one of Bernini's closest followers, Antonio Raggi, who executed the
recovering Cavaceppi's operations and their legacy, was accomplished by Carlo Gasparri and
Olivia Ghiandoni, Lo Studio Cavaceppi a Le Collezioni Torlonia, in: Rivista dell'istituto
nazionale d'archeologia a storia dell'arte, XVI, 1993. The correlation between the Cavaceppi
inventory and known bozzetti, including those in the Fogg, will also be found in Maria
Giulia Barberini and Carlo Gasparri, eds., Bartolomeo Cavaceppi scultore romano
(17171799), exhib. cat., Rome 1994.
13
Published by Richard Norton, Bernini and other studies, New York 1914, p. 45, No.
25, Pl. XXVII, a; Leonard Opdycke, A Group of Models for Berninesque Sculpture, in: The
Bulletin of the Fogg Museum of Art, 19378, pp. 2630, see p. 29, identified as for the
Cathedra Petri.
14
See the full discussion of the bridge by Mark Weil, The History and Decoration of the
Ponte S. Angelo, University Park and London 1974.
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BERNINI-BOZZETTI
1041
angel with the Column of the Flagellation for the bridge, where some of the
details came to fruition (Fig. 26).15
The terracotta has an almost identical counterpart, however, in a quite
unexpected place and context, a beautiful small bronze gilt angel now in the
Pinacoteca Comunale at Spoleto (Figs. 2729).16 The provenance of the piece
is not certain. It was rediscovered in 1981 in a storeroom in the Palazzo
Comunale, adapted to serve as an ostensorium for the display of the sacramental host. The base, the stem and the custodia were thought to be later
additions, although the logic of the figures in the Dsseldorf drawings makes
me wonder; if they are later, they must have replaced something quite similar. The heights of the model and the bronze are virtually identical at one
Roman palmo (22.5 cm.).17 The only significant difference is that in the terracotta the right arm is not extended in support, but folded against the angel's
breast, and this I believe suggests an interesting and important hypothesis. It
would seem that a figure developed from the sketch but never realized on the
bridge, came to serve two purposes. In one context, the model was given a
practical function as the bronze caryatid at Spoleto, which may have held a
candelabrum, as in the Dsseldorf drawing, or, more probably an ostensorium, part of which may (or may not) have been replaced. On the other hand,
in the non-supportive, devotional form of the Fogg terracotta, the figure also
served as an independent object. In fact, the terracotta was originally colored
to resemble bronze. The point I want to make here is that the figure, which
evidently had its origin in a project for monumental sculpture, also had a life
of its own on a small scale, both as a useful instrument, and as an objet d'art.
To be sure, this process of miniaturization had a long history; one need only
recall the small bronzes of Giovanni Bologna. Indeed, this was only one of
many aspects of Giambologna's art the rough and ready handling of the
clay bozzetto was another taken up by Bernini and his school, that ultimately played a seminal role in the creation of the Rococo.18
Weil 1974 (see n. 14), p. 86.
See Bruno Toscano, in: Arte in Valnerina a nello Spoletino. Emergenza e tutela permanente, exhib. cat., Rome 1983, p . 1547. Giampiero Ceccarelli, et al., Urbano VIII
vescovo di Spoleto: nel IV centenario della nascita di Gian Lorenzo Bernini, exhib. cat., Spoleto
1998, pp. 46 f.
17
Published heights: Fogg No. 1937.60: 22.5 cm.; Spoleto: 21.5 cm.
18
On the relationship of Bernini's to Giambologna's clay sketches, see Irving Lavin,
Bozzetti and Modelli. Notes on Sculptural Procedure from the Early Renaissance through
Bernini, in: Stil and berlieferung in der Kunst des Abendlandes. Akten des 21. internationalen
Kongresses fur Kunstgeschichte in Bonn 1964, Berlin 1967, III, pp. 93104, see p. 102.
15
16
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1042
It happens that we can make an educated guess how the piece came to,
or was created for Spoleto. Cardinal Jacopo Nini who was the
Maggiordomo of Alexander VII and Clement IX, and who countersigned
with Bernini the payments for the work on the Ponte S. Angelo, and of
whom Bernini made one of his famous caricatures, had a twin brother
named Carlo (164092). Carlo was buried in Spoleto in San Domenico
(originally San Salvatore, where the ostensorium would have been especially
appropriate), in a tomb whose inscription proudly records his relationship
to Jacopo.19 Our angel is evidently not among those included in Cavaceppi's
early sales catalogue; but it could well have been among those listed summarily in the Cavaceppi inventories taken after his death, and there is no
reason to doubt that its provenance is the same as for the others.
The possibility that both models discussed here may have passed
through the same collection in the mid-eighteenth century is in itself not
remarkable, but the character and function of that collection suggests a final
observation I should like to make in this context. It is important to realize
that the acquisition of the major holdings of Roman Baroque bozzetti by
the museums that house them was a relatively late development in their history.20 The Farsetti collection was purchased for the czar of Russia in 1799
and installed in the Academy of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg, where it
remained until it was transferred to the Hermitage in 1919; the Brandegee
family purchased the Fogg bozzetti from Giovanni Piancastelli, Director of
the Borghese Gallery in Rome, in 1909 and gave them to Harvard in 1937;
those in the Palazzo Venezia were acquired in 1949 from the opera singer
and omnivorous collector Evangelista Gorga.
The recent research that has revealed the early history of the models has
tended to confirm the conviction I have long had that the Bernini bozzetti
in the Fogg are not a collection in the sense of having been assembled by an
art lover from a variety of sources, but are descended as a group ultimately
from Bernini's own studio.21 Cavaceppi must have acquired them, directly
or indirectly, from someone who had actually worked with Bernini. A likely
source, for example, was one of Bernini's favorite pupils, Giulio Cartari,
who executed for display on the Ponte S. Angelo the very sensitive variant
Toscano 1983 (see n. 16), p. 157.
For an excellent survey of the history of model-collecting, see Dean Walker in
Wardropper et al. 1998 (see n. 2), pp. 1429.
21
Irving Lavin, Calculated Spontaneity. Bernini and the Terracotta Sketch, in: Apollo,
CVII, 197 8, pp. 398405, see p. 399.
19
20
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BERNINI-BOZZETTI
1043
of Bernini's own Angel with the Superscription; we know that Cartari

received a cache of bozzetti from Bernini's studio by 1706.22 Cavaceppi certainly collected on a grand scale, and he had many motives for doing so.
Selling the collection, however, was evidently not one of them. So far as we
know, during his lifetime he attempted to sell only a small selection, and,
failing that, his collection remained intact until his death in 1799. His primary motivation then became clear. What Cavaceppi dreamt of was a
school, an academy, in which the figurative tradition and indeed the cultural tradition it represented, handed down from antiquity, especially in
sculpture, would be carried on. In his testament he left his entire collection
to the Accademia di San Luca in Rome, where in 1732 he had himself won
a prize for a terracotta model of Bernini's Habakuk and the Angel.23 It is
important to bear in mind, moreover, that in doing so, he was following the
lead of Ercole Ferrata, one of the sculptors who had indeed worked with
Bernini, and who had left his considerable collection, partly to the
Accademia di S. Luca, and partly to the Accademia Borromeo in Milan.24 The
Roman Accademia promptly proceeded to sell Cavaceppi's collection to the
great art collector Marchese Giovanni Torlonia, and thereafter the diaspora
began.
Although we have no documentary proof it can scarcely be doubted that
there was a close connection between Cavaceppi and another voracious collector who, though not an artist himself, had the instincts of one. The
wealthy Venetian Abbot Filippo Farsetti (170374) evidently realized that
his native city, despite its own noble antiquarian tradition, did not share the
grand sculptural heritage that was the particular glory of Rome in the age
of Neo-classicism.25 And what Farsetti conceived to fill the lacuna was again,
a school. Farsetti spent 17503 in Rome, commissioning and acquiring
everything he could in the way of antiquities, copies in marble, plaster and
terracotta, and models, with the idea of turning his own villa into a
Lavin 1978 (see n. 2), pp. 404 f, n. 3.
Barberini and Gasparri, eds., 1994 (see n. 12), p. 18; the sculpture was listed in an
Academy inventory of 1807.
24
Walker in Wardropper et al. 1998 (see n. 2), p. 23. On the Ambrosian Academy
founded by Carlo Borromeo, see Pamela M. Jones, Federico Borromeo and the Ambrosiana.
Art Patronage and Reform in Seventeenth-Century Milan, Cambridge and New York 1993,
pp. 4555.
25
On Farsetti see most recently Sergej Androssov in Wardropper et al. 1998 (see n. 3).
pp. 213.
22
23
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1044
museum and an academy for the training of aspiring artists and the education of the public. Early in 1753 Natoire, Director of the French Academy
in Rome, made an arrangement with Farsetti that included acquiring a cast
of la plus belle figure du Bernini, the S. Bibiana. One of Natoire's letters
to Paris provides a lively picture of Farsetti's feverish activity, which filled
the churches and palaces of Rome with cast-makers and copyists. Farsetti
had obtained the permission of Benedict XIV agreeing to provide copies for
the Accademia Clementina of Bologna (the pope's native city) of everything
he acquired for himself.26 It may not be coincidental that Farsetti appointed
as curator of his collection a Bolognese sculptor, Bonaventura Furlani, who
specialized in that city's ancient tradition of modeling in stucco and clay,
26
The passage is worth quoting in extenso: January 17, 1753. M. l'abb Farcetti, noble
Vnitien, homme riche, beaucoup de got pour les arts et que vous aurs veu Rome,
Monsieur, fait une belle collection de modelle en sculpture (cet la partie o il s'attache le
plus); son dessain et de former Venise une gallerie o l'Ecole vnisiene puisses tudier la
bonne manire du dessain. Ceux qui sont attachs Rome luy voyent enlever ses curiosits
avec peine, mais l'argent fait ordinairement remuer les choses les plus inaccessibles. Le Pape
luy a permis de faire mouler les antiques les plus distingus et d'autres morceaux modernes
des plus renoms, avec une condition: Sa Saintet voulant enrichir l'Acadmie de Boulogne
nome l'Instituto, accorde M. l'abb Farcetti 6,000 cus pour entrer dans la depance ncessaire pour cette operation, au moyen de laquelle il sera aublig de fournir une figure jette
en pltre de tous les moules qu'il aura fait faire pour aitre transporte dans laditte Accadmie
de Boulogne, tous frs fait; cela yra environ a une sinquantaine de morceaux; on ne voit
prsentement que des mouleurs rependus dans tous les endrois de Rome, tant dans les glises
que dans les palais. Je n'ay l'honneur de vous faire ce detail, Monsieur, que pour vous dire
que je vien de faire aussy une petite convention avec ce zell amateur et qui et pour le bien
de lAcadmie: il ma demand la permission de fair mouler la figure de Germanicus, dont le
marbre ait dans la gallerie de Versailles. Je luy ay fait sentir combien le devois aitre jaloux que
rien ne se fit dans l'Acadmie qui pt tendre aucun domage, bien au contraire tendre l'ogmentation de son intrest. Tout tant bien considr qu'il n'y auriot aucun danger en accordent ce service, cela vous vaudra la permission aussy d'avoir un pltre de la belle figure du
Bernin de le tems pressoit pour ce dterminer, ce qui m'a empch de vous prvenir pour en
attendre votre permission. Nous avons deux pltres de cette statue; on ne touchera
pas celle qui decore l'appartement; le tout s'excutera avec beaucoup d'attention . . .
Anatole de Montaiglon, ed., Correspondance des directeurs de l'Acadmie de France a Rome
avec les surintendants des batiments, 18 vols., Paris 18881908, X, pp. 434 f. The correspondence of the directors of the French Academy contains many references to casts and copies
of works by Bernini, including an attempt in 1740 by the artist's descendants to sell the
statue of Truth, left to them in perpetuity, to the King (IX, 419, 422). On Farsetti,
Benedict, and Bologna, see also Francis Haskell, and Nicholas Penny, Taste and the Antique.
The Lure of Classical Sculpture 15001900, New Haven and London 1982, p. 85.
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BERNINI-BOZZETTI
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and is mentioned in the Clementina's sculpture competition in 1768.27

Farsetti opened his collection in 1755 and returned to Rome for more
acquisitions in 17669, precisely when Cavaceppi was preparing his sale.
The plausible suggestion has been made that Cavaceppi was one of
Farsetti's suppliers, and no doubt the two exchanged ideas concerning their
respective academies, as well.28
There is an astonishing coincidence of attitude among the people, collections, and institutions we have been considering: Ferrata, Accademia di
San Luca, Accademia Borromeo, Cavaceppi, Farsetti, Accademia Clementina,
Breton, St. Petersburg Academy of Fine Arts they all involve, or are closely
related, not only to one another but to the idea of formal, academic instruction in the fine art of sculpture.29 There was a veritable academic movement. Equally remarkable is the wide range of artistic modes that found
expression in this studious intellectual climate from the informal charm
and sentiment of Clodion, who at the Paris Salon of 1773 presented a small
terracotta that may have been inspired by a Bernini bozzetto then in the
possession of Natoire, to Canova, whose art is inconceivable without
Bernini and who acknowledged his profound debt to his early studies in the
Palazzo Farsetti.30 Paradoxically, the embracing catholicity implicit in this
range of interests, was the correlative of the catholicity of method inherent
in the very notion of an academy; and together they provided the protean
clay from which our own academic appreciation of the bozzetti was
formed. In common parlance academic has come to signify the arid pursuit of useless knowledge. On the contrary, inspired largely from Italy, and
devoted to the education of the young, the academic tradition has from its
inception been a vital creative force in European culture.
27
Eugenio Riccmini, Vaghezza e furore. La scultura del Settecento in Emilia, Bologna
1977, p. 136.
28
Barberini and Gasparri, eds., 1994 (see n. 12), p. 116.
29
A full appreciation of this culture of casts and copies after the antique is provided by
Haskell and Penny 1982 (see n. 26).
30
Anne L. Poulet, and Guilhem Scherf, Clodion 1738-1814, exhib. cat., Paris 1992,
pp. 1258; for Canova see Walker in Wardropper et al. 1998 (see n. 2), p. 27.
LavinXXVI.Revised:CHAPTER227/1/0913:35Page2
XXVI
Berninis Death: Visions of Redemption*
CCORDING to the biographies by Filippo Baldinucci and Berninis

son, Domenico, the artist as an old man, sensing the end approaching,
took measures to prepare for death, which entailed creating three works of
art. First and foremost was the death itself, or rather, Berninis idea and
method of preparing for it, as described by the biographers, which derived
from a medieval tradition codified in a famous text, the Ars moriendi. The
Art of Dying had been revived toward the end of the sixteenth century, notably by the Jesuits, who institutionalized the tradition in the Confraternity
of a Good Death (bona mors). Bernini belonged to the confraternity for
many years and practiced its devotions every day in the Ges, the mother
church of the order in Rome. The biographers also report that, besides following the prescribed devotions, Bernini made two works of visual art with
a view to obtaining a good death. Differing in medium and subject matter,
both works had the common theme of illustrating his mortal invocation of
Christs humanity, which he called sinners clothing, as protection to ward
off perdition.1 Both works were intended to serve in Berninis private, per-
* Details concerning many of the topics mentioned here will be found in the original essays on Berninis death, Lavin 1972, 1973, 1978, and subsequent related publications, 1998,
2000a, 2000b.
1
Bernini 1713, 170 f.:
Ed era s viva in lui questa fiducia, che chiamava la Santissima Humanit di Christo,
Veste dePeccatori, e perci tanto maggiormente confidava, non dover esso esser fulminato
dalla Divina vendetta, quale dovendo prima di ferir lui, passar la veste, per non lacerare linnocenza, laverebbe perdonato al suo peccato. (This trust was so alive in him that he called
the Most Holy Humanity of Christ Sinners Clothing, whence he was the more confident
BERNINIS DEATH: VISIONS OF REDEMPTION
1047
sonal devotions, and as public demonstrations of the eschatological efficacy

of Christs sacrifice.
The Sangue Di Cristo
The first was a spectacular composition known as the Sangue di Cristo,
which Bernini designed and had executed in two forms, as an engraving by
Franois Spierre (the French printmaker whom Bernini favored in his later
years) (Fig. 1, Fig. 2), and as a large painting, which he kept before his bed
until his death.2 The genesis of the composition is movingly described in the
biographies of the artist by Filippo Baldinucci and his son, Domenico
Bernini.
Baldinucci:
He always kept fixed in his mind an intense awareness of death. He
often had long discussions on this subject with Father Marchesi, his
nephew who was an Oratorian priest at the Chiesa Nuova, known for
his goodness and learning. So great and continual was the fervor with
which he longed for the happiness of that last step, that for the sole intention of attaining it, he frequented for forty years continuously the
devotions conducted toward this end by the fathers of the Society of
Jesus in Rome. There, also, he partook of the Holy Eucharist twice a
week.
He increased the alms which he had been accustomed to give from his
earliest youth. He became absorbed at times in the thoughts and in the
expression of the profound reverence and understanding that he always
had of the efficacy of the Blood of Christ the Redeemer, in which, he
was wont to say, he hoped to drown his sins. He made a drawing of this
subject, which he then had engraved and printed. It shows the image of
Christ Crucified, with streams of blood gushing from his hands and feet
as if to form a sea, and the great Queen of Heaven who offers it to God
not to be struck by divine retribution which, having first to penetrate the garment before
wounding him, would have pardoned his sin rather than tear its innocence.)
2
At least five copies of the painted composition are known. The various versions, their
histories and attributions have been discussed by Tedaldi 1996; Gaia Bindi in Bernardini and
Fagiolo dellArco, eds., 1999, 4436, and in Pittura 1999, 76 f.; Petrucci 2001, 814. See
also n. 11 below.
1048
the Father. He also had this pious concept painted on a great canvas
which he wanted to have always facing his bed in life and in death.3
Domenico Bernini:
and he explained his thought by adding that the goodness of God being
infinite, and infinite the merit of the precious Blood of his Son, it was
an offense to these attributes to doubt Forgiveness. To this effect he had
copied for his devotion, in engraving and in paint, a marvelous design
which shows Jesus Christ on the Cross with a Sea of Blood beneath,
spilling torrents of it from his Most Holy Wounds; and here one sees the
Most Blessed Virgin in the act of offering it to the Eternal Father, who
appears above with open arms all softened by so piteous a spectacle. And
he said, in this Sea his sins are drowned, which cannot be found by
Divine justice except amongst the Blood of Jesus Christ, in the tints of
which they will either have changed color or by its merits obtained
mercy. This trust was so alive in him that he called the Most Holy
Humanity of Christ Sinners Clothing, whence he was the more confident not to be struck by divine retribution which, having first to
penetrate the garment before wounding him, would have pardoned his
sin rather than tear its innocence.4
The engraved version, also relatively large, was clearly intended to give
the composition a wider dissemination, in two forms: as an independent
3
Baldinucci 1948, 135 (transl. adapted from Baldinucci 1966, 68 f.):
Teneva egli sempre fisso un vivo pensiero della morte, intorno alla quale faceva. bene
spesso lunghi colloqui col padre Marchesi suo nipote sacerdote della Congregazione
dellOratorio nella chiesa Nuova, uomo della bont e dottrina, che nota; e con tal desiderio aspir sempre mai alla felicit di quellestremo passo, che per questo solo fine di
conseguirla dur quarantanni continovi a frequentar la divozione, che a tale effetto fanno i
padri della Compagnia di Ges in Roma; dove pure due volte la settimana si cibava del sacramento eucaristico. Accresceva le limosine, esercizio stato suo familiarissinto fino dalla prima
et. Si profondava talora nel pensiero e nel discorso dunaltissima stima e concetto che egli
ebbe sempre dellefficacia del Sangue di Cristo Redentore, nel quale (come era solito dire)
sperava di affogare i suoi peccati. A tale oggetto diseng di sua mano e poi fecesi stampare
unimmagine di Cristo Crocifisso, dalle cui mani e piedi sgorgano rivi di sangue, che formano quasi un mare e la gran Regina del Cielo, che lo sta offerendo allEterno Padre. Questa
pia meditazione fecesi anche dipingere in una gran tela, la quale volle sempre tenere in faccia al suo letto in vita e in morte.
4
Bernini 1713, 170 f.:
1049
image to commemorate the canonization of the Virgins namesake, Maria

Maddelena dePazzi, in 1669; and, the format having been carefully scaled
so as also to fold neatly into a handy octavo format, as the frontispiece of a
devotional tract published the following year by the artists beloved nephew
and counselor in the art of dying, the Oratorian Father Francesco
Marchese. A modern version of the Ars moriendi, titled The Only Hope of
the Sinner Consists in the Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Marcheses introduction urges the reader to contemplate the image, for the explication of
which the text was composed.5 The inscriptions on the engraving, adapted
from a passage in Pauls Epistle to the Hebrews, and from a quotation of
Maria Maddalenas own words, together with the title of Marcheses book,
epitomize the meaning and spiritual function of the image.6
spiegava il suo sentimento con soggiungere, che La bont di Dio essendo infinita, &
infinto il merito del prezioso Sangue del suo Figliuolo, era unoffendere quest attributi il dubitare della Misericordia. A tale effetto egli fece per sua divozione ritrarre in Stampa, & in
Pittura un maraviglioso disegno, in cui rappresentasi Gies Christo in Croce con un Mare
di Sangue sotto di esso, che ne versa a torrenti dalle sue Santissime Piaghe, e qu si vede la
Beatissima Vergine in atto di offerirlo al Padre Eterno, che comparisce di sopra colle braccia
spase, tutto intenerito a s compassionevole spettacolo: Et In questo Mare, egli diceva,
ritrovarsi affogati i suoi peccati, che non altrimente dalla Divina Giustitia rinvenir si potevano, che fr il Sangue di Gies Christo, di cui tinti haverebbono mutato colore, per
merito di esso ottenuta mercede. Ed era s viva in lui questa fiducia, che chiamava la
Santissima Humanit di Christo, Veste dePeccatori,e perci tanto maggiormente confidava,
non dover esso esser fulminato dalla Divina vendetta, quale dovendo prima di ferir lui, passar la veste, per non lacerare linnocenza, haverebbe perdonato al suo peccato.
5
Marchese 1670. In the introduction, the Precious Blood speaks to the reader:
Sangue di Gies Crocefisso al Cuore di chi legge . . . Ah che lhuomo carnale non penetra le cose superne, e che da Dio prouengono: perci farle meglio capire, linfinita carit
del Signor Iddio h ora con particolar prouedimento disposto, che da mano di divoto artefice
sia delineata lImagine del Salvatore Crocefisso, grondante Sangue n tanta copia, che se ne
formi un ampio mare, e che per mani della Beatissima Vergine Maria conforme al pio sentimento di S. Maddalene de Pazzi io sia del continuo offerto alleterno Padre favore de
peccatori, (per la cui esplicatione si composto il presente libro) affinche con tali mezzi agli
occhi dellhuomo carnale rappresentati, il tuo cuore sia pi facilmente disposto udire, e ad
ubidire suoi celesti ammaestramenti. Apri adunque lorecchio del cuore, mentre fissi locchio alla diuota imagine, leggi questi fogli.
6
Heb. 9:14:
quanto magis sanguis Christi qui per Spiritum Sanctum semet ipsum obtulit inmaculatum Deo emundabit conscientiam vestram ab operibus mortuis ad serviendum Deo viventi;
(Douay: How much more shall the blood of Christ, who by the Holy Ghost offered himself
unspotted unto God, cleanse our conscience from dead works, to serve the living God?)
1050
hebr./9.14/ SANGVIS CHRISTI, QVI SEMETIPSVM OBTVLIT

IMMACVLATVM DEO, EMVNDABIT CONSCIENTIAM
NOSTR
(The blood of Christ, who offered himself without spot to God, will
purge our conscience)
S. M. Magd./de Pazzis uit./p. 2. C. 6/ Vi offerisco il sangue dellumanato Verbo, Padre Eterno: e se manca cosa alcuna, lofferisco a voi, o
Maria, accioche lo presentiate allaeterna Trinita.
(I offer to you, eternal Father, the blood of the incarnate word; and if
anything is wanting I offer it to you, Mary, that you may present it to
the eternal Trinity.)
Eq.s Io. Lauren. Bernini inuen.
Franciscus Spier Sculp.
The general composition, conceived as a cloud-borne vision with the

Virgin kneeling as advocate before the Crucifixion, follows the traditional
mode of intercessory illustrations of the Ars moriendi, of which one of the
primary injunctions was that the believer preparing for a good death
should contemplate holy images, especially the Crucified Christ and the
Virgin (Fig. 3).7 In such intercessory images, however, the Virgin normally
alludes to her breast, since it is as his mother that she appeals to her son,
who cannot refuse her request, while Christ alludes to his chest wound,
since it is as sacrificial son that he transmits her appeal to God the father.
None of these features is present in Berninis composition, in which, moreover, the vision is conceived as appearing not within the picture to the
moribund on his deathbed, but through the picture to the viewer. It is clear
that while retaining essential elements of the Ars moriendi imagery, Bernini
departed radically from the medieval tradition, which had focused on what
might be called the external mechanism of intercession. Bernini focuses instead on the inner, sacramental medium of redemption, that is, the
For the passage from Part II, Chapter 6, of the biography by Vincenzo Puccini, see n. 26
below.
7
On the stained glass window at Wettingen, dated 1590, see Anderes and Hoegger
1989, 258 f.
1051
Eucharist itself, corresponding to the mottoes inscribed below, and to the

title of Father Marcheses book in which they are explained.
Berninis composition incorporates three fundamental innovations that
together express the essential conception embedded in these texts: the
Eucharist as a reciprocal offering to and by the sinner, and the only means
by which universal redemption may be achieved.
The Ocean
From the earliest Christian times metaphors expressing the generosity
and ubiquity of the blood of Christ had frequently been cast in liquid
terms. Father Marchese devotes a lengthy passage to expressing the universal efficacy of the Eucharist, through the metaphor of the Blood of Christ
as an infinite sea that covers the world. He relates the concept to that of the
Blood as a fountain and as a river, and cites a variety of sources, including
the prophets Job (38: 11, and here shall thy proud waves be stayed?) and
Micah (7: 19, and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea),
St. John Chrysostom (Hom. 41 in Ioann., This Blood, poured out in
abundance, has washed the whole world clean), and Maria Maddalena de
Pazzi, who described the era of grace, in which the Incarnate Word sent the
Blood of Christ into this small world, as the second flood, following that of
Noah.8 Such metaphors might also be illustrated, as in Botticellis famous
Eucharistic depiction of the Crucifixion, where the blood becomes the river
of baptism (Fig. 4).9 But Marcheses own explicit formulation and Berninis
portrayal of the blood cascading to form a limitless ocean, while indebted
to these antecedents, were unprecedented.10
Blood and Water
The motivation is found in the second innovation that concerns us here:
Christs chest wound expresses two streams of liquid, instead of the usual
one (see Fig. 2). This motif expressly illustrates a detail of Christs death that
is recounted exclusively in the gospel of St. John. John tells of the Roman
The texts referenced by Marchese are cited in full in Lavin 1972, 167 n. 26.
The composition by Botticelli, to which Vasari gave the title Triumph of the Faith, is
interesting in our context because the liquid descends from the cross to form a cleansing river
of baptism.
10
Pace Beltramme 1994.
8
9
1052
soldier who, after Christ had given up the ghost, pierced the saviors side,
whereupon blood and water suddenly poured forth.11 Since Christ was already dead, the body should not have bled at all. John recognized the
double wonder the body did bleed, and not only blood but water, as well
and he took pains to record that he was himself eye witness to the miracle:
After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the
scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst.
...
When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and
he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.
...
But one of the soldiers with a spear opened his side, and immediately
there came out blood and water.
And he that saw it, hath given testimony, and his testimony is true. And
he knoweth that he saith true; that you also may believe.
For these things were done, that the scripture should be fulfilled. (John
19:28, 30, 3436).12
The lance wound was thus quite distinct from those inflicted by the cruWithout considering the significance of the motif, Francesco Petrucci has made the
important observation (in Petrucci 2001, 814, and in Tapi, 2003, cat. no 25) that the
painted version of the Sangue di Cristo in a private collection in Genoa actually shows the
spouts as blood and water separately, unlike other painted replicas in which they are both red
(Bernardini and Fagiolo dellArco, eds., 1999, Figs. 223, 226). Petrucci argues cogently that
this detail favors the Genoa picture, which measures 99 70 cm., as the large original
Bernini kept beside his bed, while the others are copies after the engraving. In the Eucharist
itself, of course, the wine and water are mixed, and interesting in this context is a passage in
Domenicos description of the composition, quoting the artist: . . . (Bernini) said, in this
Sea are drowned his sins, which cannot be found by Divine justice except amongst the Blood
of Jesus Christ, in the tints of which they will either have changed color or by its merits obtained mercy. (Et In questo Mare, egli diceva, ritrovarsi affogati i suoi peccati, che non
altrimente dalla Divina Giustitia rinvenir si potevano, che fr il Sangue di Gies Christo, di cui
tinti haverebbono mutato colore, per merito di esso ottenuta mercede (Bernini 1713, 170).
12
28 postea sciens Iesus quia iam omnia consummata sunt ut consummaretur scriptura
dicit sitio
...
30 cum ergo accepisset Iesus acetum dixit consummatum est et inclinato capite tradidit spiritum
...
11
1053
cifixion itself: it revealed Jesuss true nature and gave proof that his death assured the realization of the divine plan that the scripture should be
fulfilled. From the earliest Christian times the lance wound became the prototype for the mixture of water and wine in the Eucharist. The dual
constituents were also taken to signify the beginning and the end of the
sacraments, the water identified with baptism and the Church, the blood
with the Eucharist and Christ. St. Cyril and Chrysostom say, that the water
signifies baptism, which is the first beginning of the Church and the other
sacraments, and the blood represents the Eucharist, which is the end and
completion of the sacraments, to which they all refer as to their beginning
and their end. Particularly important was the idea that with the lance
wound the Old Law was succeeded by the New and Gods entire plan for
salvation was actuated. And for the Fathers of the Church the effusion of
blood and water signified that from the death and side of Christ as a second Adam sleeping on the cross, the Church was formed as Eve the spouse
of Christ.13
The chest wound is thus the source of the Eucharist par excellence, and
this explains why the ocean is formed by blood falling from only three of
Christs wounds, those of the hands and feet. The combination of blood
and water was an important factor in the association of the Eucharist with
salvific liquids generally, a notable instance in our context being Rupert of
Deutzs punning reference to the Red Sea, in his comment on the Good
Friday liturgy in his treatise on the Divine Office. Explaining why neither
blood nor water alone but both came from the side wound, and why the
34 sed unus militum lancea latus eius aperuit et continuo exivit sanguis et aqua
35 et qui vidit testimonium perhibuit et verum est eius testimonium et ille scit quia vera
dicit ut et vos credatis
36 facta sunt enim haec ut scriptura impleatur os non comminuetis ex eo.
13
. . . ut significaretur ex morte et latere Chrisiti, quasi secondi Adae dormientis in cruce,
Ecclesiam quasi Evam Christi sponsam formatam esse . . . ut ait Cyrillus e Chrysostomus,
acqua significet baptismum, qui est principium Ecclesiae et Sacramentorum caeterorum;
sanguis vero repraesentet Eucharistiam, quae omnium Sacramentorum finis est et complementim, ad quae duo quasi ad principium et finem, caetera Sacramenta omnia deducuntur.
(Lapide 18668, XVI, 621; Lapide 18761908, VI, 249, 248).
The early interpretations are conveniently summarized by Malatesta 1977, and Meehan
1985. On the earliest crucifixions depicting the theme, see Kartsonis 1994, esp. 166 f. See
also the important work by Heer 1966, who relates the Johannine tradition to the devotion
of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, followed by ODonnell, 1992. The first part of John 19:34, is
quoted in the banderole in the upper part of the crossing pier niche with Berniniss sculpture of St. Longinus, in connection with which the text was discussed in a paper by
Preimesberger, 1989.
1054
two were merged, Rupert specifically likened their association in the

Eucharist to the opening and closing of the Red Sea in the salvation of the
Elect from their diabolic pursuer:
Through its merger, I say, with the life-giving, precious blood, the water
received this meaning, that it really appears as similar to the Red Sea,
through which the saved people traversed, while Pharaoh with his chariots and horsemen were drowned in it. For those who flee the Egyptians
of this world, are transported cleansed into the true Promised Land, and
completely swallows up the devil who pursues them, with his ephemeral deeds and splendors.14
While the blood and water were frequently shown as two adjacent
streams, I have found no precedent for Berninis absolutely distinct, gushing spouts, one to each hand of the Virgin whose two breasts, it should
be recalled, were traditionally understood as the Old and New Testaments,
conjoined in her body.15
The Virgin as Advocate, Church, and Priest
Equally important is the fact that the streams from the chest wound descend not to the ocean but to Marys hands, where they disappear. The role
of the Virgin is the third great innovation in Berninis composition. Mary
is shown kneeling, arms and hands extended, palms turned up to receive the
effusions which, commingled within her body to become the Eucharist, she
offers up to the Trinity exactly the process that takes place at every
Mass.16 This quite unprecedented enactment entailed the amalgamation of
Cur nec solus sanguinis nec sola aqua de latere eius exierit, vel cur aqua sanguini sociata sit.
...
Societate, inquam, vivifici pretiosi sanguinis hoc accepit, ut comparetur vera similitudine Rubro mari, per quod salvatus populus transivit Pharaone submerso cum curribus et
equitibus suis. Nam fugientes Aegyptum huius saeculi mundatos in veram repromissionis
terram transmittit diabolumque persequentem penitus absorbet cum praeteritis actibus et
pompis suis. (Rupert of Deutz 1999, III, 8124)
15
I have tried to show that his tradition underlay the particular relation between the
Virgin and the Christ child in Michelangelos Medici Madonna (Lavin 2001).
16
All contemporary sources, including Bernini himself, identify the figure as the Virgin
Mary (as duly noted by Bindi in Bernardini and Fagiolo dellArco, eds., 1999, 445); indeed,
14
1055
three related but heretofore distinct interpretations of the Virgins role in

the work of salvation. As Mother of Christ Mary is the intercessor par excellence with her son, who can refuse her no request for mercy. In Rome
this theme was associated above all with a particular class of images in which
the Virgin lifts both hands upward in a gesture that suggests both an appeal
and an offering to heaven. The type was familiar from the classic Byzantine
Crucifixion composition in which the Virgin standing beneath the cross
gestures in this way; isolated as a famous icon known as the Madonna
Avvocata, any Roman viewer would recognize the allusion in Berninis figure (Fig. 5).17 But never before Bernini had the Virgins role, effected
through the up-turned palms of her hands, been specifically Eucharistic in
this context. In response to Maria Maddelena dePazzis invocation, the
Virgin has become not simply a mother and advocate but the unique conduit for humanitys unique hope of salvation. Upon her assumption, Marys
role as Christs bride brought her the epithet Regina Coeli, and ultimately
her identification with the institutional church, Ecclesia. The common epithet Mater Ecclesia alludes equally to the Church and to the Virgin as
spouse, mother, and Queen.18 It was precisely in this capacity that the
Virgin was identified with the Church as an institution and portrayed as
participant in depictions of the Crucifixion in which the post-mortem issue
of blood and water was explicitly identified as the Eucharist. A female personification of Ecclesia wearing a crown, was often shown in what might be
called ecclesiological depictions of the Crucifixion collecting the effusions
from the side wound in an emblematic chalice.19 In some cases, the instituonly she can perform the task given to her by Maria Maddalenas invocation and in Berninis
composition. The figure no doubt also alludes to the Virgins two namesakes: Mary
Magdalene, who is often shown as the penitent kneeling at the foot of the cross (as noted by
Brauer and Wittkower 1931, 168); and Maria Maddalena dePazzi herself. A member of the
Discalzed Carmelites, the order dedicated to the Virgin, the saint was famed for her frequent
ecstatic visions like the one from which the caption of the Sangue di Cristo was quoted. The
relevance of Maria Maddalena is amply discussed by Beltramme 1994, who follows Blunt
1978, in actually identifying the figure as the Florentine mystic.
17
Marienlexikon 198894, I, 41; II, 54959. The icon and the great procession in which
it had figured for centuries were part of the backround for Berninis projects for the tribune
of S. Maria Maggiore and a hospice for the poor at the Lateran palace; see n. below and
n. 43. As has been noted by Cardile 1984, 202, 208 nn. 50, 50, the gesture is related to the
manis expansis of the Offertory of the Mass.
18
Marienlexikon 198894, II, 3124.
19
The relationship between these images and the blood and water was noted by Mle
1984, 193 f. (Tedaldi 1996, 90, and Bindi in Bernardini and Fagiolo dellArco, eds., 1999,
1056
tional nature of the sacrament is emphasized, as when Ecclesia, on the dexter side of the cross, is contrasted with Synagoga on the sinister side.20 In
some cases, the Virgin and Ecclesia might appear together, thus identifying
Mary as compassionate intercessor with the Church as the administrator of
the sacraments (Fig. 6). In one notable instance Ecclesia gathers the blood
and water in her chalice, while a personification of Charity inflicts the lance
wound (Fig. 7). The third manifestation of the Virgin associates her with
the actual function of the Church in the administration of the sacraments,
that is, Maria Sacerdos, the Virgin as Priest.21 The concept of Mary-Ecclesia
as equivalent to the consecrated male, priest, received its first, explicit formulation by the eighth century from the Pseudo-Epiphanius: equivalent to
the priest and indeed the altar, she gives Christ our celestial bread in remission of our sins.22 The principle is illustrated as a dramatic vision in a
Flemish engraving of the early seventeenth century that Bernini must have
known. Mary appears in this sacerdotal capacity, cloud-borne, kneeling before an altar and offering the chalice and wafer to God the Father and the
Holy Spirit above (Fig. 8).23 The subtle relationship between the intercessory Virgin and the priesthood with respect to the Eucharist is formulated in
the inscription that accompanies the print: Mary as intermediary offers to
God the Father what has been consecrated by the priests, that is, the virgin
445, refer to the Ecclesia type but not its relevance to the Joannine theme.) Blood and water
issue from the side wound in the Crucifixion in Duccios triptych at Hampton Court
(Shearman 1983, 96); the ecclesiological reference is here expressed through the extraordinary combination of the Crucifixion with Mariological scenes in the wings. The blood and
water motif also refers to the institutional sacrament in Bellinis Blood of the Redeemer,
National Gallery, London; the double stream from the chest wound, to which Christ gestures, is captured in a chalice by a kneeling angel (Goffen 1989, ill. 57).
20
See the examples illustrated in Seiferth 1970.
21
On this delicate and vexed subject see Marienlexikon 198894, V, 3148. In 1916 the
Holy Office forbade the use of images of Mary portraying her as a priest, and in 1927 they
forbade the devotion to Mary Virgin Priest altogether.
22
sacerdos pariter et altar quidem ferens, dedit nobis coelestem panem Christum in remissionem peccatorem (cited after Marracci 1710, 607).
23
Missaglia, et al., 1954, Fig. 102, p. 111. I have been unable to trace this MadonnaPriestess image. The inscription below (faintly legible in the bad reproduction from an
unspecified source used for Missaglias book, preserved in an album in Ss. Andrea e Claudio
dei Borgognoni in Rome) specifies that Mary offers to God her sons flesh and blood, consecrated by the priests: MARIA TANQUAM MEDIATRIX OFFERT DEO PATRI QUOD
CONSECRATUM EST A SACERDOTIB SCILICET [C]ARNEM VIRGINEAM ET
SANGUINEM PRETIOSUM FILI EIUS DOMINI NOSTRI IESU CHRISTI.
1. Bernini, Sangue di Cristo, engraving by F. Spierre, 473 x 290mm,

from Marchese 1670. Biblioteca Vaticana, Rome.
1057
1058
2. Detail of 1, Virgin receiving and offering

Eucharistic Blood and Water.
1059
3. The Death of Moriens and the Intercession with the Trinity of Christ and the Virgin,
stained-glass votive window. Wettingen, Switzerland.
1060
4. Sandro Botticelli, Triumph of the Faith, woodcut.
5. Madonna avvocata (Madonna di S. Sisto) .

S. Maria del Rosario, Rome (photo: ICCD E55673).
1061
1062
6. Crucifixion, showing the Virgin as advocate and Ecclesia with the Chalice
receiving the Water and Blood of the Sacrament,
reliquary plaque, Muse de Cluny, Paris (Huchard, et al., 1996, 28, 43).
8. Mary as Priest offering the Chalice of the Sacrament to the Trinity, engraving.
Brussels, Jumpers Collection (after Missaglia, et al., 1954, 102, p. 111).
1063
7. Christ Crucified by the Virtues, Ecclesia with the Chalice receiving Water and Blood,
Psalter, MS 54, fol. 15v. Muse Municipal, Besanon (Haussherr, ed., 19779, II, 514).
1064
9. Caravaggio, Madonna del Rosario. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.
1065
10. Bernini, The Last Supper,

detail. Santa Maria della
Vittoria, Rome.
11. Claude Mellan, bust of the

Savior, engraving.
1066
12. Bernini, Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes,

engraving by Franois Spierre.
13. Giovanni Battista Gaulli, il Baciccio, Christ and the Samaritan Woman.
Galleria Spada, Rome.
1067
1068
14. Bernini, bust of the Savior. San Sebastiano fuori le mura, Rome.
1069

Palazzo di Montecitorio,
Rome.
16. Giovanni Battista Gaulli,

il Baciccio, Salvator Mundi.
Ducrot Collection, Rome.
1070
flesh and blood of her son, our Lord Jesus Christ. In this context it is significant that the closest antecedent I have found for the Virgins gesture is
that of the priest, St. Dominic, in Caravaggios Madonna of the Rosary,
where it carries essentially the same meaning: Dominic receives the Rosary
from the Virgin, and offers her the devotion of the faithful (Fig. 9).
Berninis Virgin fuses all these characters in a single persona and the
symbolic chalice is replaced by Mary-Ecclesias own hands, bathed in the
humble and charitable sacrifice she shares as compassionate co-redemptress.
Berninis portrayal of the Madonna in this role was a direct visualization of
the most famous of all accounts of the Virgins role as Eucharistic conduit
in the process of salvation, Bernard of Clairvauxs sermon on the Nativity
of the Virgin, called De aquaeductu. The title itself makes the point, which
is defined explicitly in the final paragraph, to which Marchese himself
(p. 82) alludes:
But, my brother, whatsoever thou hast a mind to offer to the Lord be
sure to entrust it to Mary, so that thy gift shall return to the Giver of all
grace through the same channel by which thou didst obtain it. God of
course had the power, if He so pleased, to communicate His grace without the interposition of this Aqueduct. But he wanted to provide us with
a needful intermediary. For perhaps thy hands are full of blood (Is.
1:15) or dirtied with bribes: perhaps thou hast not like the Prophet
shaken them free from all gifts (Is. 33:15). Consequently, unless thou
wouldst have thy gift rejected, be careful to commit to Mary the little
thou desirest to offer, that the Lord may receive it through her hands, so
dear to Him and most worthy of all acceptation (1 Tim. 1:15). For
Marys hands are the very whitest of lilies; and assuredly the Divine
Lover of lilies will never complain of anything presented by His
Mothers hands that is not found among the lilies. Amen.24
24
Bernard of Clairvaux 1950, III, 305.
Caeterum quidquid illud est, quod offerre paras, Mariae commendare memento, ut
eodem alveo ad largitorem gratiae gratia redeat quo influxit.Neque enim impotens erat
Deus, et sine hoc aquaeductu infundere gratiam, prout vellet; sed tibi vehiculum voluit
providere. Forte enim manus tuae, aut sanguine plenae, aut infectae muneribus, quod non
eas ab omni munere excussisti. Ideoque [alias, itaque] modicum istud quod offerre desideras,
gratissimis illis et omni acceptione dignissimis Mariae manibus offerendum tradere cura, si
non vis sustinere repulsam. Nimirum candidissima quaedam lilia sunt: nec causabitur ille liliorum amator inter lilia non inventum, quidquid illud sit quod inter Mariae manus
invenerit. Amen. (Migne 184447, CLXXXIII, col. 448.)
1071
The underlying principle was expressed in St. Bonaventures treatise on

the Incarnate Word, in terms that seem perfectly illustrated in the Sangue
di Cristo:
. . . one cannot reach the benefaction of this sacrament without the protection of the Virgin. And for this reason, as this holy body has been
given to us through her, so it must be also be offered by her hands and
received by her hands as the Sacrament, which she procured for us and
which was born from her breast.25
In the Sangue di Cristo, Maria Maddalenas first appeal is to the father,
then to the Virgin, and ultimately to the Trinity. Perhaps the most profound insight into the ultimate meaning of Berninis image and Marcheses
text is hidden, that is, to be found the conspicuous omission of the Holy
Spirit from the Trinity evoked by the saint. The omission is certainly not inadvertent since the Holy Spirit is a central step in the heavenly ladder of the
saints offering as reported by her biographer, Vincenzo Puccini, referenced
in the citation itself, by the saint herself in her Colloqui, and by Marchese
himself in the text of his book.26 This is indeed the Hidden God that inhabits every altar many of which are actually inscribed with Isaiahs
famous phrase, Vere tu es Deus absconditus, Deus Israel salvator (Truly, thou
art a God who hidest thyself, O God of Israel, the Savior; Is. 45.15)
See also Bernards sermon on the Vigil of the Nativity of Christ: Cum ergo in prima sit
remedium, in secunda adjutorium est; quia nihil nos Deus habere voluit, quod per Mariae
manus non transiret. (For God did not wish for us to have anything that had not passed
through the hands of Mary.) Migne 184447, CLXXXIII, col. 100
25
Bonaventure 193464, V, 316:
. . . quia non nisi patrocinio beatae Mariae Virginis ad virtutem huius Sacramenti pervenitur. Et propeter hoc, sicut per eam hoc sacratissimum corpus nobis datum est, ita per
manus eius debet offerri et per manus eius accipi sub Sacramento quod nobis praestitum est
et natum ex eius utero. (De verbo incarnato, Sermo VI, par. 20, Bonaventure 193464, V,
316, cited by Crocetti 2001, 125.)
26
Tofferisco adunque te, Verbo; lo presento te Spirito Santo, e se cosa alcuna ci
manca, lofferisco te, o Maria, cho lo presenti alleterna Trinit, per supplimto di tutti i
difetti, che fossero nellanima mia, e ancora per sodisfazioijne di tutte la colpe,che fossero nel
copro mio. (Puccini 1609, 241 f.)
Io toffero ilSangue deltuo humanato Verbo, dico loffero a te Padre, loffero a te Verbo,
e loffero a te Spirito Santo. Et se nulla ci mancassi, loffero a te Maria, che lofferisca alleterna Trinit per supplimento di tutti e diffetti che fussino nellanima mia, e ancora per
soddisfatione di tutti edifetto che fussino nelcorpo mio. (DePazzi, 1960, 20.)
1072
whose presence is effected by the sacrament of the Eucharist offered

through the Church.
The Bust of the Saviour
A remarkable passage in Chantelous diary of Berninis visit to Paris in
the summer of 1665 to redesign the Louvre for Louis XIV records a rare occasion of disagreement between Paul Frart de Chantelou, the intelligent
and cultivated connoisseur whom the king had appointed as Berninis translator and companion, and the artist, with respect to the merits of the great
French engraver Claude Mellan (15981688).27 Having spent his early years
in Rome (162436), where he had engraved Berninis designs for a 1631
edition of the poetry of Urban VIII, Mellan was then living in Paris.28
Berninis personal interest in Mellan, his exact contemporary, is evident
from the wish he expressed one day as his Paris visit drew to a close, to repeat a meeting the two artists had had when he first arrived. There then
ensued an exchange in which Bernini wholeheartedly defended Mellan
against the stylistic criticisms of Chantelou, who perspicaciously assessed, in
negative terms, the austere, minimalist, purely linear mode of rendering
Vi offerisco, Padre eterno, il Sangue dellumanit del vostro Verbo; lofferisco voi
stesso, Diuin Verbo; lofferisco anco voi, Spirito Santo; e se manca me cosa alcuna,
lofferisco voi, Maria; accioche, lo presentiate alla Santissima Trinit. (Marchese 1670,
83)
Berninis Sangue di Cristo composition was by no means unprecedented in his respect.
The Holy Spirit as such is not represented in Filippino Lippis Intercession of Christ and the
Virgin in Munich (Lavin 1972, 165, Fig. 4), but is present by implication between the angel
and Virgin of the Annunciation flanking the central presiding figure of God the Father; the
Eucharist is alluded to in the body of Christ displayed in the predella below. Bernini also
omitted the Holy spirit in his drawing of Christ and the Virgin appealing to God the Father,
in Leipzig (Lavin 1972, 165, Fig. 3).
27
Three basic, recent works on Mellan: Praud 1988 ; Praud and Brejon de Lavergne
1988; Ficacci 1989. Mellan was also an ambitious, if elusive painter, concerning which see
Praud and Brejon de Lavergne 1988, 1720, and Ficacci 1989, 35371. On Mellans Saint
Face, his famous pice de resistance, I have contributed Lavin 2001b.
28
On Mellans beautiful renderings of Berninis designs, see the fine discussions by
Ficacci 1989, 2825, with excellent reproductions.
1073
form and luminosity that was Mellans great achievement, and which
Bernini appreciated in full.29
On our way back he remarked to me that a certain engraver who had
been to see him when he first arrived had never called again. I remembered that his name was Mellan. I said that he was not doing much at
present; there were others better at his profession than he; I had never
thought much of his work, for he was too preoccupied with a good line.
He replied that he had seen some wonderful engraving by him, notably
some of Signor Poussins works, of which he mentioned one of Eternal
Wisdom.30 I told the Cavaliere that M. Poussin, like myself, considered
his drawings poorly engraved, as he only tried to give a good line and
never attempted to render light and shade nor the half-tones; this was all
the easier as M. Poussins works were extraordinarily finished, considering how shaky his hand was; M. Mellan only produced a sort of shell
with no half-tones or shadows for fear of hiding the outline. The
Cavaliere said that he thought it fine and well engraved. I said there were
many in France who engraved better. I said I admired the engravings of
Marcantonio, who had copied painting with such skill; the paintings of
Rubens were being well engraved at the moment. He asked me whether
Chantelou 1985, 280 f.
Nous en revenant, il ma dit dans ton carrosse, quil navait point revu un certain graveur
qui 1etait venu voir ds le commencement. Je me suis souvenu que ce graveur est Melan. Je
lui ai dit que prsentement il travaille peu, y en ayant dautres plus habiles dans cette profession, que sa gravure moi ne mavait jamais plu, quil ne songeait qu faire de beaux traits.
Il ma reparti que nanmoins il avait grav merveilleusement bien, quil avait vu, entre autres
de lui, deux ou trois pices du signor Poussin qui lui semblaient admirables, principalement
une Sapience ternelle. Je lui ai dit que M. Poussin, aussi bien que moi, avait trouv ses dessins
faiblement gravs, nayant song qu ne faire quun trait sa gravure, au lieu de penser
imiter les ombres et les lumires, et les demi-teintes, ce qui tait fort ais, pour ce que les
dessins de M. Poussin taient extraordinairement achevs, vu sa mauvaise main, quil navait
donn a ces estampes que 1corce sans demi-teintes et sans ombres au degr quil et fallu,
et cela peur de corrompre ses beaux traits. Le Cavalier a reparti que cela lui avait sembl bien
grav et beau. Jai reparti que nous avions prsent ici des gens qui gravaient beaucoup
mieux; que jestimais la gravure qui tait celle de Marc-Antoine, lequel avait si bien imit la
peinture; que de ce temps-ci les estampes daprs Rubens avaient t bien graves. Il ma demand sil y avait quelquun ici qui gravait bien leau-forte. Je lui ai dit que ctait une
gravure rserve aux grands matres, qui quelquefois gravaient eux-mmes leurs dessins;
quAnnibal Carrache en avait grav quelques-uns, comme une Samaritaine et quelques
Vierges. Il ma dit quil en doutait fort. (Chantelou 1885, 221)
30
See Preaud and Brejon de Lavergne 1988, 146f. no. 189, ill. p. 149.
29
1074
there was anyone competent at etching in this country. I said it was a

form of engraving practiced only by the great masters who sometimes
etched their own drawings. I knew Annibale Carracci had etched some
of his works, among them the Samaritan and one or two of the Virgin.
The Cavaliere said he doubted that. (October 10, 1665)
Three days later, Bernini actually did pay a visit to Mellans house a
rare honor, like a visit from the king to Bernini himself.31
The authenticity and degree of Berninis appreciation of Mellan is attested in two other respects. After Mellan left Rome to return to Paris in
1636 Bernini chose another exceptionally gifted Frenchman, Franois
Spierre, as the engraver of his designs for the Sangue di Cristo and the frontispieces of the publications the sermons and biblical commentaries of his
close friend Giovanni Paolo Oliva, General of the Jesuit order and Apostolic
Preacher (preacher to the pope).32 Bernini greatly admired Spierre precisely
because, as Filippo Baldinucci reports, he was adept in following Mellans
singular linear technique.
He joined the circle of the Cavalier Bernini, from whom, because he was
greatly esteemed, he received commissions for many works, which he
would generally execute in a single cut, in the manner of M. Mellan of
Paris . . . Bernini . . . had such a great conception of him that he was
heard to say, as a qualified professional, that he had no equal in his
time.33
Berninis admiration for Mellan was based on more than the engravers
style and technical expertise, however. In the 1640s Bernini had created a
particular interpretation of the image of Christ at the Last Supper (Fig.
10):34 with locks flowing down to his shoulders, moustache and short, biOctobter 13, 1665; Chantelou 1985, 296, Chantelou 1885, 232.
The frontispieces are discussed in Bernardini and Fagiolo dellArco, eds., 1999,
41518.
33
Si congiunse a quegli del partito del Cavaliere Bernini, dal quale, siccome fu assai stimato, cos ricev ordini di far molti lavori, i quali poi fu solito condurre per lo pi ad una
taglia sola, second lo stile di Mons Melano di Parigi . . . Bernini . . . ebbe s gran concetto
dello Spierre, che fu udito dire da qualificato cavaliere, non averne quel suo tempo un altro
eguale. (Baldinucci 19745, V, 561.)
34
For a perceptive survey of the typology of Christ in Berninis work, see Martinelli
1996, 181231.
31
32
1075
furcated beard; wearing a tunic, with drapery thrown like a carapace over
the left shoulder; gesturing with the right hand to bless the bread on the
table before him, thus initiating the institution of the Eucharist, but also
turning the palm against the Judas who recoils on the opposite side of the
table at his left.
However he may have become aware of it, Mellan seems to have appropriated Berninis concept for a work of his own, an engraved bust of Christ
inscribed with the artists name, the date, 1652, and with a phrase from the
Psalms adjuring the Lords saints to adore him: ADORATE DOMINVM
OMNES SANCTI EIVS (O worship the LORD, all ye his saints) (Fig.
11).35 The inscription and both texts to which it alludes, enjoin to the observer to adore Christ as do his saints, giving the image a specific
eschatological implication that impels the observer from this world toward
the next. The head and shoulders are turned diagonal to the picture plane
to create a powerful movement directed outward and upward toward the
right, culminating in the gesture of the blessing hand. Berninis appreciation
of Mellan takes on particular significance when it is realized that the engravers version of the blessing Christ transforms the purely ritual nature of
the Last Supper relief into a passionate expression of compassionate suffering, and an invocation of divine intervention on behalf of those who risk
perdition on the sinister side of the Saviour.
Berninis understanding of this meaning in Mellans image explains in
part his adaptation of its action for the figure of Christ in his portrayal of
the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes engraved by Spierre for Olivas
commentaries on selected books of the bible, published in 1677 (Fig. 12).36
The key to the meaning of the scene is given in the words from John 6:12
inscribed on the stone (the Cathedra Petri of the Prince of the apostles) on
which Christ sits. Having fully nourished the multitude, Jesus instructs his
disciples: COLLIGITE [quae superaverunt] FRAGMENTA NE PEREANT (Gather up the fragments [that remain], that nothing be lost.). The
subject is therefore not strictly the miracle of the multiplication, but Christ
35
Praud 1988, 44, No. 17, ill. The text is an amalgam of verses from two psalms: Psalm
95:9 : ADORATE DOMINUM in decore sanctuarii paveat a facie eius omnis terra (O worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness: fear before him, all the earth.) and Psalm 30:24:
diligite Dominum OMNES SANCTI EIUS fideles servat Dominus et retribuet his qui satis
operantur superbiam. (O love the LORD, all ye his saints: for the LORD preserveth the
faithful, and plentifully rewardeth the proud doer.)
36
Oliva 167779.
1076
directing the apostles to their mission to save the souls of those who have
not eaten of the precious food, lest they perish. Olivas commentaries explaining the meaning of the selected biblical texts were exemplary
fulfillments of that mission, as if in accord with Augustines comment on
Johns account:
Wherefore nothing is without meaning; everything is significant, but requires one that understands: for even this number of the people fed,
signified the people that were under the law . . . And what were those
fragments, but things which the people were not able to eat? We understand them to be certain matters of more hidden meaning, which the
multitude are not able to take in. What remains then, but that those
matters of more hidden meaning, which the multitude cannot take in,
be entrusted to men who are fit to teach others also, just as were the
apostles?37
It was no accident that Berninis favorite painter in his late years,
Giovanni Battista Gaulli, il Baciccio, in turn adopted the Christ figure from
the engraving for his rendering of Christs conversation with the Samaritan
woman at the well (Fig. 13). Offering the woman the life-giving waters
from his well that quench thirst forever, Christ points to the city of Samaria,
where she takes his message and many if its people were converted. From
the earliest Christian times the episode had been understood as referring to
the Eucharist, and hence the meaning is essentially the same as that of the
Feeding of the Five Thousand.38
John 4: 1314, 16, 2830, 3942:
13 Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water
37
The relationship of the frontispiece to Olivas text was noted by Tedaldi in Pittura
1999, 141f. Augustine, On the Gospel of St. John, Treatise 24, 6 (Augustine 1888, 159).
Nihil igitur vacat, omnia innuunt, sed intellectorem requirunt: nam et iste numerus
pasti populi, populum significabat sub Lege constitutum. . . . Quae sunt autem illa fragmenta, nisi quae populus non potuit manducare? Intelliguntur ergo quaedam secretiora
intelligentiae, quae multitudo non potest capere. Quid ergo restat, nisi ut secretiora intelligentiae, quae non potest capere multitudo, illis credantur qui idonei sunt et alios docere,
sicut erant Apostoli? (Migne 184477, Vol. 35, col. 1595).
38
It is noteworthy that this commanding Christ-type appears again in Baciccios depiction of Christ in the House of Simon at Burghley House (as noted by Silvia Bruno in
Bernardini and Fagiolo dellArco, eds., 1999, 440 f.). The Eucharistic implication is the
1077
shall thirst again: 14 But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall
give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in
him a well of water springing up into everlasting life . . . 16 Jesus saith
unto her, Go, call thy husband, and come hither . . . 28 The woman
then left her waterpot, and went her way into the city, and saith to the
men, 29 Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is
not this the Christ? 30 Then they went out . . . 39 And many of the
Samaritans of that city believed on him for the saying of the woman,
which testified, He told me all that ever I did. 40 So when the
Samaritans were come unto him, they besought him that he would tarry
with them: and he abode there two days. 41 And many more believed
because of his own word; 42 And said unto the woman, Now we believe,
not because of thy saying: for we have heard him ourselves, and know
that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world.
During these years Baciccio was hard at work on the massive fresco decoration of the Ges, largely under the tutelage of Bernini and the patronage
of Oliva.
Everything we know about Bernini in general and about his preparations for death in particular suggest that he saw himself in exactly the same
kind of missionary role as an artist that Oliva had as Jesuit preacher and
scriptural exegete. Oliva himself said as much concerning Berninis theological concern and acumen: discourse with the Cavaliere on spiritual
matters was a professional challenge, like going to a thesis defense. 39
It seems clear that the image of the other-directed Christ focused on the
Eucharist became emblematic of Berninis sense of his mission, both private
same. Christ gestures protectively to the Magdalene who anoints his foot, in explicit anticipation of her act of devotion at the Lamentation:
And Jesus said, Let her alone; why trouble ye her? she hath wrought a good work on me.
. . . She hath done what she could: she is come aforehand to anoint my body to the burying. (Mark 14:6,8).
This picture is in fact a pendant to Baciccios Three Maries at the Sepulcher in the
Fitzwilliam Museum. See Brigstocke and Somerville 1995, 72 f.; Weston-Lewis, ed., 1998,
260 f. (where the Burghley House painting is reproduced in reverse).
39
E come che ei f solito, molti, e molti anni prima di sua morte trattenersi spessissimo
in continui discorsi con dotti, e singolari Religiosi, tanto sinfiammava in questi sentimenti,
e tanto alto ascendeva la sottigliezza del suo ingegno, che ne stupivano quegli, come unhuomo, per altro dedito alle lettere, potesse molte volte non solo giungere alla penetrazione pi
intima di altissimi Misterii, m motivarne dubbii, e renderne ragioni, come se sua vita con
1078
and public. And as such, it played an important role in the genesis of the
third work, his very last, that Bernini created in pursuit of a good death in
the tradition of the Ars moriendi: a marble bust of the Savior, begun the year
before his death in 1680 (Fig. 14). The original of this famous, quasi-iconic image, known from preparatory studies and many replicas and variants,
was long lost. The biographers report that Bernini left the sculpture to his
friend Queen Christina of Sweden, as a token of their mutual esteem. It
was noted in Queen Christinas palace by Nicodemus Tessin, Jr. on his visit
to Rome in 168788. When Christina died in 1689 she left the bust to
Pope Innocent XI Odescalchi (167689), and it is last recorded in a 1713
inventory of the Palazzo Odescalchi. The sculpture, including the Sicilian
jasper base recorded in the inventory, recently came to light in the sacristy
of the chapel of Pope Clement XI Albani (170021), in San Sebastiano
fuori le mura.40
An astonishingly innovative work, the Savior is portrayed in the heroic
manner of ancient, deific portrait busts, rounded at the bottom, hollowed
at the back, and raised on a base. The body is shown waist length with both
arms included, but with the drapery so arranged as to dissimulate the amputation of the torso and hide the left hand.41 Christs body seems to
continue beyond and within its physical limits. The massive figure was up-
dotta havesse nelle Scuole. Diceva il P. Gio. Paolo Oliva Generale della Compagnia di Gies,
che Nel discorrere col Cavaliere di cose spirituali gli faceva di mestiere di unattenzione tale, come
se andar dovesse ad una Conclusione. (Bernini 1713, 171.)
(He was wont for many, many years before his death often to discourse at length with
learned and singular priests; he became so inflamed with these ideas and the subtlety of his
thought ascended so high, they were amazed how a man who was not even a scholar could
often not only penetrate the loftiest mysteries, but also propose questions and provide answers concerning them, as if he had spent his life in the Schools. Father Giovanni Paolo
Oliva, General of the Company of Jesus, said that discourse with the Cavaliere on spiritual
matters was a professional challenge, like going to a thesis defense.)
40
Cucco 2001, 119, where the connection with Bernini was overlooked; Fagiolo
dellArco 2002, 71, where it is described as attributed to Bernini.
41
Berninis two-armed Christ may have a precedent in a bust of the Savior by Agnolo
Poli, dated 1498, in the Museo Civico in Pistoia, which includes the arms in comparable gestures; but both arms are later restorations. (Morello and Gerhard Wolf, eds., 2000, 242 f.)
Bernini had employed such dissimulating drapery before, in the busts of Francesco I
dEste and Louis XIV; there, however, fluttering swaths had served as flying carpets to carry
aloft the cuirassed busts of the monarchs, whereas here the magical drapery is also Christs
own garment.
1079
lifted at the base on the extended hands of two angels of gilt wood, kneeling on a high podium, also of gilt wood. Overall, the monument stood
some three meters high, a miraculous, superhuman vision presented to the
viewer by a pair of divine messengers.
Although profoundly indebted to Mellans image, Berninis Savior is
more sublime than pathetic in conception. The torso is frontal and the
right hand blesses, in the manner traditional with bust-length images of the
Salvator Mundi, and the figure is comparatively exalted, even austere. On
the other hand, there is no overt reference to the theme of world dominion,
such as the globe surmounted by a cross frequently carried by the Salvator
Mundi. Instead of Mellans uni-directional, diagonal thrust, Christs head
is turned to the right and slightly upward, while the right arm reaches across
the chest in a gesture that echoes Christs action in the narrative reference
to the Eucharist in the Oliva engraving. The result is a powerful contrapposto that is, to my knowledge, unprecedented in an isolated image of the
Savior.
The thick, voluminous, enveloping drapery seems almost literally to materialize Berninis luminous metaphor of Christs humanity as the shielding
garment that would assure the sinners pardon. Christs visage is a distant reflection of the inscrutable justice decreed by his father from on high. The
beneficent, shielding gesture of the Saviors right hand abhors the sinister
threat from his lower left. At the center, half-hidden under the drapery,
Christs left hand presses to his chest in allusion to the wound of Longinus,
the wound of the Eucharist the gesture he makes when he is shown appealing to his Father in depictions of intercession, and when he acts as
executant of the divine will at the Last Judgment.42 It is clear that Berninis
chiastic image is a deliberate conflation of the three traditionally distinct aspects of Christs nature, savior, intercessor, and judge.
The ultimate principle of this triune salvific process is alluded to in the
central gesture of the partially hidden left hand. Precisely analogous to the
mysterious presence of the Holy Spirit, the central person in the Trinity, in
the Sangue di Cristo, it refers to the quintessential paradox of the Deus
For an instance of the former see Filippino Lippis Intercession of Christ and the Virgin
mentioned in n. 26 above; for the latter, Michelangelos Christ in the Last Judgment.
42
1080
absconditus whom those who have eyes to see may recognize in the sacrament to which every altar is devoted.
Aftermath
Although there is no trace of Berninis bust of the Savior after 1713 until
it reappeared two years ago, it had a considerable legacy following his
death.43 Beginning a decade later it became the model for the next generation of sculptors who in the 1690s were charged with executing a series of
reliefs based on Berninis bust, which had been adopted as the insignium of
a vast charitable enterprise instituted by the great reforming pope Innocent
XII (Fig. 15). The Apostolic Hospice of the Invalid Poor was an extraordinary invention, intended to concentrate all the manifold philanthropies of
Rome in one universal institution intended to gather together and provide
for the physical and spiritual needs of all the citys homeless poor. The reliefs of the Saviour were placed on the facades of various buildings
throughout the city to indicate to one and all that income from those properties was ascribed to the hospital by the donors, among them the pope
himself. Inaugurated in 1692, the project was supposed to become self-supporting over time, but despite much effort and large investments it proved
financially unsustainable. There were also objections in principle to the idea
of depriving the indigent of his freedom, depriving the mendicant of his
God-given right to invoke charity, and depriving the donor of his opportunity to disperse his charity as he wished. The Hospice failed within a few
years. It was, however, the direct forerunner and inspiration for still larger
poorhouses and social welfare programs that have continued, often struggling with the same problems, to the present day.
Bernini was linked in two ways to the Hospice enterprise, which had
been promoted for decades by leading social reformers from the Oratorian
order. The man who formulated the final project and became its administrator was none other than the artists beloved nephew, Father Francesco
Marchese. Marchese had had a distinguished intellectual and ecclesiastical
career since the time of the Sangue di Cristo, becoming Apostolic Preacher
to Innocent XI in 1676. Profoundly aware of its significance and pertinence
to the institutions mission, Marchese was no doubt instrumental in the
adoption of Berninis image as the Hospices emblem. The later institutions
43
For what follows here see Lavin 1998 and 2001b.
1081
inspired by the Hospice were still larger and more ambitious, but they were
certainly not grander: Innocent XII designated to house the homeless no
less than his own, then unoccupied, official residence as the bishop of
Rome, the palace at the cathedral church of San Giovanni in Laterano. The
choice was not only a demonstration of the popes social concerns, it was
also providential, iconographically speaking. Images of Christ preserved at
the Lateran, reputed to be authentic, miraculous records of the Saviors features, were among the most renowned and venerated in all Christendom
so venerable that Bernini may have intended to evoke them in any case. But
he was also linked to the hospice project directly at its very inception, having been charged as early as 1676 by Innocent XI to restore the Lateran
palace to that purpose. For all these reasons, and considering the grandiose
scale and triumphal presentation of the bust-monument, I suspect that
Bernini from the outset had the Hospice in mind and the prospect of an
eventual permanent installation in the Lateran palace as the artists own
ultimate act of charity, in imitation of Christ.
Domenico Bernini reports that his father left to Innocent XI a painting
by Baciccio representing Berninis sculpture of the Savior.44 A splendid, recently rediscovered painting by Baciccio is closely related to Berninis last
work, although it is certainly not a copy of the sculpture (Fig. 16).45 The
composition amply displays Baciccios remarkable talent and inventiveness
within the framework established by his mentor,46 and is remarkable in our
context for two reasons. With the head and the benedictional gesture of the
right hand turned toward the right, Baciccio clearly reprises, in reverse, the
uni-directional action and emotional intensity of the image by Mellan that
had inspired Bernini. At the same time, Baciccio adopts and transposes the
essential meaning of Berninis contrapposto. Christ looks up in an ecstatic
appeal to his Father, as he often does expiring on the cross; with his left
hand he becomes the Salvator Mundi displaying the cross as he mounts it
44
Bernini 1713,176:
In Testamento lasci al Papa un bellissimo Quadro di mano di Gio: Battista Gaulli rappresentante il Salvadore, sua ultima opera in Marmo.
45
On Baciccios Salvator Mundi, see the entry by Ceclia Grilli in Fagiolo dellArco, et al.,
eds., 1999, 208 f., no. 49 (last years of the seventeenth century).
46
This is also the attitude of Tedaldi 1996, who goes so far as to reverse the relationship,
and Petrucci in Fagiolo dellArco, et al., eds., 1999, 5968.
1082
atop the globe. In adapting Berninis creation, Baciccio has, in effect created a new theme, in which Christ appears as both intercessor pleading with
his Father on behalf of humanity, and as savior of the world by virtue of his
sacrifice.
1083
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Lavin XXVII. Revised:CHAPTER 26
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XXVII
The Rome of Alexander VII

Bernini and the Reverse of the Medal*
FEEL I must first forewarn you that I will not today be speaking directly to the general theme of court art, at least not in the sense in which the
notion of court art is generally conceived in the period called, in stylistic
terms, the Age of the Baroque, in political terms the Age of Absolute
Monarchy. That is, court art as quintessentially elite, magnificent, magniloquent, and extravagant in terms of form as well as cost. Instead, I want to
talk about the other side of the medal, a phrase I have borrowed from the
title of one of the chapters in Richard Krautheimers magisterial book, The
Rome of Alexander VII 16551667, published in 1985. The phrase alludes,
ironically, as we shall see, to the splendid series of portrait medals the pope
regularly issued to advertise and commemorate on their reverses his many
projects for embellishment of the city (Fig. 1). My referent derives from
what might be called the inverse of the main point of Krautheimer s book,
which was to demonstrate how Alexander made the city of Rome itself into
a grandiose work of international court art, masking the reality of life in the
city on the other side of the medal. By reconsidering two important texts
one long well-known, the other newly discovered and published by
Krautheimer himself I want to suggest that the reverse actually had another aspect, intimately related to the obverse but positive in effect, and
with a no less important legacy for the future of Europe.
* Except for a few references given in the notes, the material on which this essay is based
will be found in the following works: Krautheimer 1985, Brauer and Wittkower 1931, Lavin
1997, Lavin 2000, Lavin 2005.
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The ancient metaphorical identification of Rome with the church of

Saint Peter, as an institution and as a structure, began to acquire a new
physical reality with the great entrepreneurial popes of the Renaissance.
However, it can be said without too much exaggeration that the explicit,
programmed materialisation of this metaphorical relationship culminated
in the mid-seventeenth century when Fabio Chigi was crowned Pope
Alexander VII. The scale and pervasiveness of his enterprises were so great
that the eternal city acquired three new epithets, Roma Moderna and
Roma Alexandrina, coined by contemporaries, and Roma barocca a term
that was added in our own epoch (Fig. 2). The coincidence and significance
of these three new visions, chronological, papal, and stylistic, constitute the
fundamental theme of Krautheimers urban history of the city.
In the seventeenth century the term modern was generally understood in
the Petrarcan sense of post-medieval and as distinct from classical antiquity.
And for Krautheimer the extravagant projects of embellishment undertaken by
the Chigi pope epitomised the process of transforming the chaotic and squalid
medieval remnant of the antique city into the splendid new capital of the
Christian world. Alexander was certainly not the first pope to be obsessed with
reconstruction, nor was he the first to consider Rome as a projection of his own
person and his vocation. Sixtus V, who set an important example for
Alexander, certainly had a comprehensive view of the city, but conceived in
broadly symbolic terms still linked to medieval tradition: the main roads connecting the patriarchal basilicas to each other formed a star that reproduced the
popes family crest and the star of Bethlehem (Fig. 3). Alexander, on the other
hand, had a functional vision of the urban fabric in which the city and its monuments should respond to compelling needs both ideological and, at the same
time, politically strategic.
Through his ten chapters, Krautheimer leads the reader along a sequence that begins in the career and personality of Alexander VII, his
training, his culture, his nonchalance in relation to money, and, above all,
his love for architecture, his veritable building mania. Alexander was not a
patron of the arts in the somewhat vulgar sense of the nouveaux riches
Renaissance Maecenases, but scion of an illustrious family and a man of rare
intelligence and vast culture. Krautheimer shows the pope personally following all the work, participating in the minute details of each project, and
showing a passion that could have grown only from innate gifts and a cultivated taste. Krautheimer was able to focus on these characteristics because
he had appreciated the importance of a private diary the pope maintained
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THE ROME OF ALEXANDER VII
1089
in his own hand, publishing the many passages that deal specifically with
art and artists. Alexander surely took as a model the personal but much
more formal memoires, Commentaries on the Memorable Things that affected his Times (Commentarii rerum memorabilium que temporibus suis
contigerunt), of his Sienese compatriot, Pius II. The private quality of
Alexanders chronicle is truly extraordinary and, as far as I am aware, contains a record of intimate thoughts, feelings and activities expressed by no
previous pope. Especially significant in our context are the astonishingly
numerous entries that concern Gian Lorenzo Bernini as his constant companion, consulting and planning together in weekly, sometimes even more
frequent meetings. This degree of personal relationship between pope and
artist was also without precedent.
Krautheimer emphasised that not only was the pontiff mad for architecture, but also that his madness involved the whole city. His plans for
improvement were not only directed at the most obvious places and monuments of Rome, but also extended to the suburbs, the so-called
disabitato, to use Krautheimers term, even if they were often populated by
the poor, the homeless, and vagabond Gypsies. The purpose was not only
to rationalise and embellish the chaotic web of medieval streets, but also to
resolve the growing problems of traffic created by that ultramodern vehicle
of transport, the horse-drawn carriage. The global aspect of this conception
showed itself in many subtle ways, including the maps of Roma alessandrina, characterised by accuracy and unprecedented completeness, or the lists
of commissions that were compiled and then reproduced in collections of
illustrated engravings. These lists include the projects that were not carried
out, giving an idea of what Alexander would have done if he had lived
longer and been able to disperse more money, and testifying at the same
time to the colossal amount of work that he did realise. There is perhaps no
better indication of both the dedication and comprehensiveness of
Alexanders vision than the fact that he kept for study in his private chambers a model of the city. It is interesting to speculate where his miniature
Rome fits in the history of city models; it was, I suppose, as complete and
accurate as the maps of Alexanders Rome, and it is the first model I can recall that was made for the purpose of urban planning. Evidently, the pope
not only thought about the city in a modern, comprehensive way; he also
had a modern, comprehensive way of representing it a new kind of
three-dimensional urban consciousness, one might say.
Krautheimer also considered Alexanders non-permanent architecture,
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that is, his planning of civic piazzas and public spaces of all types: markets,
theatrical stages, ephemeral spectacles, gardens, streets and tree lined avenues, every element pertinent to the so-called built environment, to use
the modem term for this comprehensive vision. In describing the popes attitude toward antique ruins, Krautheimer shows that, even if sometimes the
classical works were treated cavalierly, the principle objective was to integrate them into the modern city to the point that even these could
contribute ad maiorem gloriam Dei, in a manner that was deliberately theatricalthat is, on the model of contemporary scenography with a view
to impressing the distinguished visitor who arrived at the main entry to
Rome, coming from the north, and progressed through the city to the
Vatican. In the next to last chapter Krautheimer turns to the other side of
the medal, describing the decrepit and unkempt aspects of Rome, the aspects that illustrious visitors were not supposed to see. Alexandrian Rome
was beautiful for those who could appreciate it, but for many it was not a
very nice place to live.
If all this sounds rather Baroque, this was the intention of Krautheimers
work. The objective appears dramatically in the last chapter when he presents the guiding principle and what he conceived to be the political
motivation underlying Alexanders urban ambitions. The victories of the
Protestants and the rise in the industrial and mercantile power of the North,
coupled with the establishment and hegemony over European affairs of the
great national states, especially France, Spain and the Hapsburgs, dramatically reduced the effective power of the Catholic church. Faced with this
situation, the pope adopted a policy of over-compensation, aggrandising
and embellishing the physical power of the Holy City to make up for its loss
of political power. He sought to convince the world that the papacy remained a factor to be reckoned with by transforming Rome into a great
modern city, or at least a semblance of one. Implicit in Krautheimers view
is the fundamental paradox that the modern city was born, not from a fundamental transformation of mentality, but rather from a sort of deception.
In art-historical terms, the effect is to instrumentalise the Baroque, turning the style into an artifice of propaganda and representation, rather than
the authentic expression of a new world vision. As the idea of modernity
might suggest (note that I do not use the term modernity in an ironic sense
here), this concept of the Baroque as an artificial, bombastic and excessive
reaction to the challenge thrown down by the Protestants the Baroque
as art of rhetoric, exhibitionism, and theatrics coincides with the equal-
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ly traditional concept of seventeenth-century politics as the arrogant selfrepresentation of absolutism. Alexanders plan of urban renewal was conceived of the lite, by the lite, and for the lite.
Lorenzo Pizzatis Critique
I submit that there is another way of understanding Alexanders great
new urban development program, an ulterior motive not alternative but
complementary and I would say almost subversive to the traditional view
which might explain why, although clearly defined and publicly announced, it has been virtually ignored in this context. After all, the popolo
minuto of Rome represented a huge moral, economic and political force,
and in this sense Rome was no different from all the other cities in Europe,
where awareness of and attention to existing social problems had long been
on the increase. In a measure, Krautheimer grasped these developments, at least to the extent that his chapter on the reverse of the medal was
based on a document to which he was the first to call attention and whose
revelatory value he fully appreciated. The document in question was what
we would call a white paper, written between 1656 and 1659 by a certain
Lorenzo Pizzati from Pontremoli, a minor administrative functionary
otherwise quite without historical significance. Pizzati describes the execrable conditions under which day-to-day life in the city was lived,
outlining the piteous state of the less privileged strata of the population, and
proposing drastic and utopian measures for alleviating their misery. His call
to reform is the first text I would like to submit as testimony in my appeal
for reconsideration of the significance of modem Baroque Alexandrine
Rome. Here are a few of Pizzati s often awkward and ungrammatical complaints and recommendations:
they should avoid evicting from small rooms, garrets and holes carved
into walls, without due notice . . . cultivated and correctly behaved people (like the undersigned). No one should be obliged to sleep in damp
or malodorous lodgings, in unsuitable company, on a butchers counter
or nude on the floor of a church or shop. And no decent man, particularly if he has been presented at Court [aulicus], should be given a damp
ground floor room, right next to the road, or in an absurd hole under
exposed roof beams, full of cracks and overrun by spiders, mice, scorpions and lizards . . . All of this happens because buildings that have been
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begun are not finished, while there are houses, palaces and pious institutions that are left empty.1 In order to help those who cannot find
lodgings, Pizzati suggests that . . . poor bishops and priests and other
. . . educated men should be housed in the uninhabited rooms of the
Oratorio and the Sapienza (Romes oratory and university). Even the
Lateran palace where your Holiness does not reside, could be turned
into a sort of residential hostel with a communal kitchen and pantry for
bishops and other needy and deserving people; the uninhabited parts
of the Quirinale and the Vatican buildings could be used in the same
way. Consequently, these huge factories [istae machinae] would be better preserved, instead of gradually falling into ruin through disuse, and
above all your Benevolence would procure better air and better living
conditions for us. Poor widows and abandoned wives could also be sheltered in disused palaces and church buildings, where they may find
refuge from corruption; formally, hospices and hospitals for beggars and
lodgings for penitent prostitutes should be set up and provided.
For Krautheimer, this document simply revealed a substratum of the reality which Alexander VIIs urban renewal program addressed as a sort of
cosmetic panacea for the benefit of visiting dignitaries. The improvements,
however, were far more than merely decorative, they were conceived also to
have equally important practical and beneficial effects, no less for the lowly
inhabitants than for the exalted visitors to the city.
Berninis Piazza and Porticoes (Fig. 4)
A primary testimonial to this fact, the second of the texts I would like to
submit, is, by contrast, one of the most important documents in all of art history, well-known to anyone interested in Baroque Rome, but still not well
enough appreciated in my view. I refer to the famous memorial concerning
Alexanders nascent project for the vast piazza in front of St. Peters, written by
Bernini in 165759 at the same time that Pizzati composed his diatribe.
Here the artist defines his concept or rather philosophy, or theology, or soAronberg Lavin 1994. Merz thinks that the report of the Genoese ambassador in
Rome, 166369, Il papa ha tutta Roma di legname in Camera distintissima e curiosissima,
come quello che non ha maggior sfera che di abbilire la Citt, otherwise undocumented, is
a metaphor rather than a real model (very unlikely, given the wording): Jrg Martin Merz,
review of Habel, in Kunstchronik, March 2004, 13941, esp. 141, col. b.
1
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ciology of the form and substance of the largest, most difficult and most
conspicuous of all Alexander VIIs undertakings. It was a crucial juncture in the
process that brought to completion the new centrepiece of Rome and the
church, begun a century and a half before. Bernini presented this brief in response to the many criticisms of his project for reasons of function, form and
finances. I quote some passages relevant to my theme.
In the year 1655, when Cardinal Fabio Chigi was preoccupied with the succession to the Throne of Peter, the incessant prayers of the Church and his
applause of the people gave birth to an Alexander. From this exalted position,
the pious prince did not lose sight of the needs of the creatures subject to his
greatness, nor was he attracted by that majesty, which being near to heaven
and to the angels, distances him from the earth and men. Indeed, with a
benevolent eye, he saw and contemplated the general miseries of the poor and
determined to alleviate them, remembering that as Fabio Chigi he had illustrated by example, now, as Alexander he must kindle with actions, the prince
being in this similar to the sun whose rays not only illuminate but also give
warmth.2 He immediately applied to the ills opportune remedies, and com2
Bibl. Vat., Cod. Chig. H II 22, fols. 1059v. The text was first published by Brauer and
Wittkower 1931, 70 n. 1, who date the statement 165960, whereas Krautheimer 1985,
174, gives 16578. It is indicative of the attitude the present essay is intended to counterbalance Brauer and Wittkowers omission of Berninis opening passage to this point, which
articulates the underlying motive for the project. The opening sentences were included in a
transcription published by Del Pesco 1988, 635, but without including other passages
omitted by Brauer and Wittkower. What follows here is the complete text, with passages
omitted by Brauer and Wittkower indicated by italics.
Preoccupava con il merito il Cardinal Fabio Chigi il Trono di Pietro, quando nellanno
1655 le Orationi incessanti della Chiesa, e glapplausi del Popolo partorirono un Alessandro.
Dall Altezza di questo posta non perd di uista il pietosissimo Prencipe le Creature soggette alla
sua grandezza, ne sinvagh di quella Maest, che per essere uicina al Cielo, et agli Angeli, lo rende
lontano dalla Terra e dagli huomini,. m con una occhiata benefica nell istesso tempo e vidde e
contempl le Communi miserie e saccinse sollevarle, riccordevole che se come Fabio Chigi
haueua illustrato collesempio, hora come Alessandro doueua riscaldare con le operationi, essendo
il Prencipe per questo assimigliato ai sole che con i raggi non solamente illumina, m riscalda.
Applic subito ai mali glopportuni remedii, e compassionando la povert, che non solo
priva dimpiego errava vagabonda per la Citta, ma languiva oppressa da una carestia, che
quanta pi affligeva il Popolo, tanto maggiormente doveva far spiccare la sua piet, si volse
a distribuire grandma quantit doro, benche la scarsezz dell erario fosse un argine opposto al
torrente di questa devota munificenza. Portato il nostro liberalissimo Prencipe dalla piena
Carit ben previdde, che laprire semplicemente a beneficia commune i Tesori era un fomentare lotio, et un nudrire i vitii. Onde quellistesso antidoto che sapplicava per la salute
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passionate with the poor who, not only wandered unemployed about the city
like vagabonds, but languished in oppression by a famine which the more it
afflicted the people the more it brought forth his pity, he turned to distributing large amounts of gold, although the scarcity of groin placed a levee against
this torrent of pious munificence.
poteva essere un tossico pi potente per avvelenarla. Cos dunque represse quella fiamma
di Carit, non per estinguerla, ma acci maggiormente pro de suoi sudditi si dilatasse,
quindi pens dar principia ad una gran fabrica, mediante la quale seccitasse limpiego nei
vagabondi, e si sovvenisse con il giro di grossa somma di denaro aIle correnti necessit.
Aggionse stimoli al pio desiderio di S. Santita linclinatione al fabricare, e lintelligenza, che
al pari di qualsivoglia Architetto teneva in questa professione, perch sin da fanciullo era solita quelle hore, nelle quali per lo piu si nausea ogni fatica, impiegarle in questi, et in altri
virtuosi trattenimenti, quasi sin dallora Iddio che lo destinava all Imperio supremo landasse
habilitando in tutte quelle attioni, che possono rendere un Prencipe glorioso.
Determinata dunque per sollievo commune la fabrica, lanimo di N. Signore imbeuuto
sin dalle fascie di piet e totalmente disinteressato verso se stesso, non seppe rivolgersi ad
innalzare s le mine di molte habitationi magnifici Palazzi, ne restringere in un Giardino
solo le delitie hereditarie di pi famiglie, ma risolse di principiare una mole, che ridondasse
ad honore di Dio, e de suoi Santi, et benefitio commune.
Fr la fertilissima miniera di machine heroiche che Alessandro racchiudeva nella mente,
la Piet, e la magnificenza quasi che irresolute non sapevano scieglerne la pi grande al fine
giudicarono, che il fare un Portico alla Chiesa di S. Pietro fosse un opera conveniente alla
Piet dun Pontefice, e propria alla grandezza dun Alessandro. Queste gara gli suggerivano
limpresa esser stata stimata cos degna, che molti suoi Antecessori serano impegnati sino
fame i disegni, m che atteriti dalla sua grandezza, e disperando di sopravivere all opera,
che poteva assorbire pi Pontificati ne trascurarono leffettuatione, e con permissione particolare dIddio che haveva eletto un animo maggiore di quest opera per pi gloriosamente
terminarla.
E perche i due fini principali delle fabriche sono lutilit, e lornamento, nello stabilito
disegno queste unitamente concorrevano. Imperci che si vedeva situata la Chiesi di S. Pietro
in una Piazza cos grande esposta continuamente i raggi del sole, e senza alcun riparo
dallimpeto delle pioggie, siche quel Tempio dove per adorare il Sepolcro de SS. Apostoli concorrono schiere numerose de devoti era poco menD che abbandonato per esseme
impratricabile laccesso, oltre che le continue funtioni Pontificie si rendevano agl assistenti
scommodissime per non haver le Carrozze, et i pedoni il necessario ricovero.
Secondariamente pareva essere inconveniente, che stasse quasi che sepolto in una Piazza fuor
dogni regola dArchitettura il Tempio di S. Pietro, che per la sua mole, e bellezza stimato
un prodigio dell arte, per la cui perfettione hanno stimato tanti poppoli vera ricchezza limpouerire per adornarlo, non inuidiando all piet della primitiua Chiesa in offerire al suo Sepolcro
gi che non gl era permisso i suoi piedi inuolontario tributo i patrimonij.
S aggiungeua che il formare un Portico, non solo apportava maggior bellezza e decoro
al Tempio ma veniva a coprire molte imperfettioni di quello, essendo che la facciata che per
se stessa di forma quatta haverebbe spiccata, et in certo modo si sarebbe sollevata sopra se
stessa.
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Our most liberal Prince, inclined to complete charity, saw clearly that
simply to open the treasuries for the common good was a fomentation
to idleness and a nourishment of vice. He was thus limited in his charity but also realised that by giving money to the needy, he was
inadvertently encouraging them in idleness and vice. Whence the very
antidote that was applied for health, could be a more powerful toxin to
poison it. He thus suppressed the flame of charity, not to extinguish it,
but to insure that it be spent to the greater benefit of his subjects,
whence he thought to begin a great structure, through which the home-
Impressionato, e capacissimo di questa verit il Papa, command al Cavr Bernino

Architetto suo, e della Chiesa di S. Pietro, che ne facesse il disegno. Consider subito il
Bernino la grandezza dell opera la vastit della Piazza, e la vicinanza della gran mole di S.
Pietro, e per questo giudic molto fallace chiudersi in una camera e restringere in un foglio
una machina cos grande, m scielse la maggior Casa che fosse in da Piazza, et in grande vi
segn due archi con i suoi pilastri, cornice, et balaustrata, acci S. Santita dalla grandezza del
sito ne giudicasse la proportione ricordevole che il Buonarroti prima di principiare il
Cornicione del Palazzo Farnese ne fece il modello di legno e messolo nell altezza del suo sito
riusci cos piccolo, che lo accrebbe quasi la met, il che diede occasione quel suo bellissimo detto che la lontananza era un inimico, con il quale bisogna va combattere a campo
aperto.
F stimato assai prudente il Bernini far il disegno in grande nell istesso sito, dove
doveva farsi lopera, ma molto pi avanti pass il giuditio di S. Santit, poiche conoscendo
che non si pu accertatamente dar giuditio dell altezza, se prima non si vede la sua longhezza, ordino all Architetto che sopra molti travi dritti facesse ricorrere una traversa tanto longa
quanta fosse la longhezza del Portico non comportando ne il tempo ne la spesa il farme un
intiero modello.
Si port N. Sigre a vedere questa dimostratione, e con ingegno pili che humano, non solamente determin laltezza dell opera, ma ne giudic la forma, cosa che fece stupire listesso
Architetto invecchiato in questa professione, imperciche poco si ferm vedere se voleva
essete pi bassa, pi alta ma al solita di quell ingegni, che non hanno confine, e terminano
con le stelle and ad antivedere con una sola occhiata case grandi, e penetr in un momenta tutte le difficolt che pi suggerire una gran lunghezza di tempo, et una perretta esperienza
della professione, perche seppe (che e quello che in queste materie importa il tutto) arrivate
vedere leffetto che haverebbe ratio la fabrica prima che fosse perfettionata.
Antivedde subito gl inconvenienti che sincontravano in fare il Portico in forma quadrata, impercioche la sua altezza in quella forma haverebbe impedito al Popolo la veduta del
Palazzo, et al Palazzo il prospetto della Piazza, accresciendosi linconveniente merc che
solendo il Papa dalle fenestre dare la Benedittione ai Pellegrini, e processioni che lanno
Santo vengono per riceverla in questo modo non poteva benedirli se non in grandissima lontananza, oltre che si veniva ad impiccolire, e dividere la Piazza, lasciando fra il Palazzo, et il
Portico un sito marta, quale facilmente riempito dimmonditie haverebbe trasmissi al Palazzo
vapori assai dannosi.
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less would be encouraged to work, and large sums of money would be

spent to meet current needs. His Holinesss inclination to build added
stimulus to his pious wishes, and the intelligence that he possessed in
this profession beyond that of any architect, because from his childhood
he was wont to spend the hours when most are sick with fatigue, he devoted to these and other virtuous diversions, almost as if even from then
God who had destined him for the supreme empire, was giving him
training in all those occupations that can render a prince glorious.
* * *
And because the two principal goals of building were understood to
be usefulness and ornament, these aspects were both present within the
design chosen.
* * *
He immediately foresaw the disadvantages of making the portico
square, inasmuch as its height in this shape would have impeded the
populaces view of the palace, and palaces view of the piazza; there was
also the added disadvantage that the pope would not be able, as was his
custom, to bestow his blessing from the windows to the pilgrims and the
Holy Year processions that come to receive it, except from a very great
distance. It would also reduce in size and divide the piazza, leaving a
dead area between the palace and the portico that would easily fill up
with rubbish, giving off unhealthy fumes in the direction of the Palace.
Having therefore instantly foreseen the difficulties that would incur
if the portico were built as a square, with formidable judgement His
Havendo dunque in un istante antiveduto S. Santita gl inconvenienti che sincorrevano
nel far do Portico in forma quadra con giuditio pi che humano risolse farlo in forma ovata.
Certo chi non sapesse linconvenienti sopradetti pensarebbe che a questa forma ovata si fosse
S. Santita solamente appresa in risguardo del bello, essendo questa la maraviglia, che seppe
unire con il bello, il proprio, et il necessaria. Il bello essendo questa forma circolare pi grata
all occhio pi perretta in se stessa, e pi maravigliosa farli massime con Architravi piani
sopra colonne isolate. II proprio perche essendo la Chiesa di S. Pietro quasi matrice di tutte
le altre doveva haver un Portico che per lappunto dimostrasse di ricevere braccia aperte
maternamente i Cattolici per confermarli nella credenza, gl Hererici per riunirli alla Chiesa,
e gl Infedeli per illuminarli alIa vera fede; et il necessaria essendosi superate le sopradette
difficolta.
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Holiness resolved to make it oval. Certainly, whoever was not aware of

the aforementioned disadvantages might suppose that His Holiness was
concerned only with beauty, the marvel being that he was able to unite
beauty with the proper and the necessary: beauty, in that this circular
form is more pleasing to the eye, more perfect in itself, and more marvellous especially to make them with flat architraves set over
freestanding columns; proper, because the church of St. Peter, being as
it were the matrix of all others, ought to have a portico that expressly appears to receive maternally with open arms Catholics to confirm them
in belief, heretics to reunite them with the Church, and unbelievers to
illuminate them to the true faith; and necessary, in overcoming the
aforesaid difficulties.
The projects submitted before and in competition with Berninis recalled the most conspicuous example of this kind of dual functionality on a
colossal scale, Saint Marks Square in Venice: a rectilinear courtyard or piazza surrounded by porticos surmounted and flanked by accessible spaces
that served practical uses. (Figs. 5, 6) Berninis project succeeded in uniting
ecclesiastical and urban traditions in a different way, through a radically
new architectural formula specific to Saint Peters: an oval colonnade, freestanding and surmounted by statues, without functional structures either
above or behind (Fig. 7). Generally speaking, attention has been focused on
Berninis text mainly from the point of view of the formal and iconographic elements of design, in particular the famous metaphor of the curving
portico as expressing the universal embrace of Mother Church
(Fig. 8). But two other factors were important and specific to Saint Peters,
and to my mind interdependent: the special role of the Corpus Domini
procession traditionally led by a bishop, in this case Christs own vicar on
earth; and the more conspicuous manifestation of the personal relationship
between the Pope and the people, that is, his communications and benedictions from his private apartments in the Vatican palace, which
determined the height of the porticoes. These considerations motivated
Alexanders absolute conviction that the colonnades should not have any
practical function, except to provide shelter from bad weather during the
Corpus Domini procession (Fig. 9), and to enhance the private view of the
pope at his window (Fig. 10). The porticos were thus purely representational, and what they represented was purely devotional, corresponding to
a profound need whose practicality was not material but spiritual. The
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other factor that stands out is the projects practical value in another sense,
not as a source for financial benefit nor for the administrative use of the
clergy, but rather as a work of charity aimed at benefiting poor and unemployed Roman citizens. The Piazza San Pietro project served as a
cornerstone in the construction campaign that aimed at solving the same
problems mentioned by Pizzati; the response, in an entirely modern spirit
of social welfare, was to provide work for the poor as the most efficient use
of public charity funds at the service of the public welfare.
I believe that this last consideration, which we can call the social responsibility of the project, could have directly affected the design of the
colonnades. Besides the oval plan, perhaps the most conspicuous and frequently noted aspect falls completely within the stylistic paradox implicit in
the subtitle of this series of lectures, Baroque art and the classical ideal. I
refer to the exceptional simplicity and sobriety of the colonnade that has
impressed many observers who expected from Bernini, indeed above all
from Bernini, a more elaborate style, i.e., a more Baroque style. In fact, the
most renowned and perspicacious of Bernini scholars, Rudolph Wittkower,
said of the Piazza San Pietro: No other Italian structure of the postRenaissance era shows an equally deep affinity with Greece. The
observation was more apt than Wittkower may have thought. In a very careful study, Daniela Del Pesco revealed the painstaking scholarly research
carried out for the project in order to recreate the fabled porticos with three
corridors, described in the sources, built by the ancient Greeks to organise
and embellish their cities (Fig. 11). The Greek colonnades, however,
flanked public thoroughfares and the central passage was open to the sky,
while Bernini closed it with a long, curving barrel vault reminiscent of the
corridors of the Colosseum (Figs. 12, 13). In fact, it can be said that in this
sense Bernini seems to be more Greek than the Greeks, because his order,
based on the Doric the quintessentially Greek architectural mode is
missing its most distinctive features, the decorative frieze of metopes and
triglyphs. Here too, Augusto Roca de Amiciis has noted the relationship
with the lower order of the Colosseum (Fig. 14).3 Reference to the ancient
amphitheatre was amply justified on formal grounds, given the oval shape
of the Piazza. But the Colosseum was appropriate also from the ideological
point of view, as a place sanctified by the martyrdom of a great many saints.
These Christian gladiators were, so to speak, brought to life again at
3
Roca de Amicis 2000, 294 f.
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St. Peters by the legion of saintly statues placed on top of the portico, making up the triumphal guard of the piazza itself. It is obvious that the
relatively low single storey and the simplicity of the porticos served by contrast (Bernini preferred the word contrapposto to describe these visual
subtleties), to augment the imposing stature and opulence of the Maderno
faade (Fig. 15). The juxtaposition also reiterates the traditional increase in
elaboration with the superimposition of the orders, most famously exemplified by the Colosseum. But finally, the visual severity and austerity of the
porticos design also matches the solemnity of the Corpus Domini procession, an event that, from the beginning of his reign, Alexander had made
far more solemn and rigorous than in earlier times: rejecting the Popes traditional sedan chair, he insisted on appearing on his knees and absolutely
immobile for the entire, hours-long, exhausting devotion.(Fig. 16). Finally,
the Doric order corresponded to the request also on the part of Pizzati
for keeping the work simple in the interests of the public utility. Bernini
used a sort of visual-architectural rhetoric of moral austerity, equivalent to
and perhaps even inspired by the unadorned modus orandi the ancient
rhetors called Attic.4
What was true of the Piazza San Pietro was true of Pope Alexanders entire urban project which, it was rightly said, had almost emptied the papal
coffers. The pope was not motivated simply by extravagant and spendthrift
vanity on the popes part. The enterprises arose in part from a nascent form
of what we would call today a program of public works for social welfare
and rehabilitation (the cost of which then, as frequently today
climbed far beyond what the economic system upon which it was based
could bear). Consonant with this attitude is the fact that Alexander strongly opposed direct donations to the poor, not only because the practice
encouraged dependence on charity but also because it was humiliating. He
preferred instead to help those in need by offering them work, for which
they would be paid and thus maintain their Christian dignity. In
Alexanders eyes, this concept of charity as an ennobling means to improvement, instead of simple handouts, was a genuine policy of
4
Indicative of Berninis attitude toward the Colosseum is his insistence that it be preserved intact, in a project to construct within it a temple honoring the martyrs, for the
jubilee of 1675 (Di Macco 1971, 824, Hager 1973, 3235). I suspect that this project may
have been related to the one for the Lateran hospice, discussed below. The Colosseum was
closely related to the Lateran, even to the extent of serving as a hospital under the confraternity of the Sanctum Sanctorum.
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government, thus defined by his friend and biographer, the Jesuit Sforza
Pallavicino, who repeated almost word-for-word what Bernini said on the
relationship between beauty and utility: workers must be paid for their industry, so that by their labours the subsidies can contribute to civil life they
can join in civil life . . . and not be used for the arrogant delight of capricious luxury and sterility. . . Indeed, the works ordered by the prince be like
those of nature, the government of which is the idea of all governments, and
which in clothing the hills and fields with trees and fruit unites ornament
with usefulness.5
I do not want to exaggerate. Alexander was the product of his time, not
of ours. He had his defects, many of his projects were left unfinished, while
many of those he did carry out failed to achieve their purposes. But just as
the splendid projects of papal aggrandisement represent the obverse of the
medal, bearing fruit in the future of architecture and city planning, so the
social ideas pertaining to the reverse left their imprint on the succeeding
period. In fact, Alexander was the first pope of the modern era to work seriously to end the long-standing tradition of nepotism; and toward the end
of the century his effort inspired the great reformer Innocent XII
(16911700), who completely abolished the practice.
The Lateran Hospice
Two decades later, the kinds of socio-ethical policy that motivated
Alexander VII came to fruition in another great project of urban unification
and consolidation in a different sphere, where Bernini was again deeply involved. This development, which created the basis for a new principle upon
which a state-sponsored social welfare system would be built, began with
the huomo piccolo himself, Lorenzo Pizzati. It is not known whether
Alexander ever received or read Pizzatis first appeal, but if nothing else, he
was persistent. He submitted the project again at the beginning of the reign
of Clement IX (16701676). The outcome of this attempt is unknown, but
coincidentally, in 1670, the cause was taken up in an almost official capacity by the Order of the Oratorio, founded by St. Filippo Neri with the
. . . dovendosi stipendiar lindustria degli operarj, affinch cosuoi lavori saggiunga alla
vita civile quesussidj . . . e non perch simpieghi per superba delizia della ricchezza capricciosa
a sterilit . . .: anzi le opere ordinate dal principe conv[iene]enir, che siena come quelle della
natura, il cui governo e lidea di tutti i governi, la quale in vestire i colli ed i campi dalberi e di
frutti congiunge lornamento col giovamento. Sforza Pallavicino 183940, II, 177 f.
5
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specific mission to represent the Roman people. The principle promoter of

the Oratorio cause was Mariano Sozzini, who wrote an urgent appeal for
the reform of the clergy and the ecclesiastical administration of the city, calling it The Present Miseries of the Papacy. In September 1676, after the
election of Innocent XI (16761689), Sozzini offered a new, much longer
and more ambitious reform proposal. In November of the same year,
Bernini was appointed to restructure the Lateran Palace to make it usable as
a hospice for the poor the same idea that had been put forward twenty
years earlier by Lorenzo Pizzati, when Bernini was planning the layout of
Piazza San Pietro with Alexander VII.
Sozzinis proposal remained confined to paper, but the theme of socioreligious reform stayed close to the heart of the Oratorians until it was
actually carried out, still under their auspices. This event took place in the
autumn of 1692 when Innocent XII (16911700), elected with the support
of the so-called Zelanti party, declared a new great war on poverty. This
pope issued a dramatic edict requiring all the indigent people of Rome, with
their families, to present themselves at a central meeting point where they
would be interviewed and provided with clothes before being directed to
their new home. There, each would take part in a structured program of
daily activities, including apprenticeships and employment in useful tasks,
with instruction and religious devotions of all sorts. Those family members
who were not physically able to present themselves at the hospice were authorised to remain in their own houses, if any, where they would receive
suitable care, and perform services and devotions, within the limits of their
capacities. The edict took effect on Saturday, November 30, 1692, with a
great procession of the poor to their new lodgings, in the palace of the popes
at the Lateran (Fig. 17).
For better or for worse, Innocent XIIs great social adventure was a sad
and almost immediate failure. The charity foundation was instituted in
1692 and only four years later, in 1696, recruiting was interrupted. The
hospice continued to function for a little while longer, at a slower and slower rate, until the original experiment ended with the abandonment of a key
provision, namely the forced internment of the poor. Residence at the hospice was no longer compulsory, and the homeless returned to their previous
vagabond state. From the point of view of the benefactors, the project was
too expensive to maintain. Income from gifts and investments never came
close to meeting costs; the concept of self-sufficiency proved to be unrealistic, and the State was unable to cover the enormous deficit. Although the
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hopes in this experiment ended sadly, the Lateran project nevertheless had
an important and lasting effect, setting in train a series of similarly intended government measures, beginning with the hospices immediate successor,
the huge Albergo dei Poveri San Michele along the bank of the Tiber
(Fig. 18).6
Along with these institutional survivors, there was also an important
residue for the history of art. This legacy comes in the form of a series of
sculptures, seven monumental reliefs with the bust of the Saviour, that once
served as emblems of this welfare movement (Fig. 19). The reliefs were
gathered together, probably for the first time since their creation, in an extraordinary exhibition (1988) organised by my sorely missed colleague and
friend, Bruno Contardi, together with Elena di Gioia (then at the Rome
Museum, now curator at the Musei Capitolini) at the Castel SantAngelo in
Rome. The important studies carried out by Contardi and Di Gioia not
only brought these statues to light and demonstrated their consanguinity
but also revealed their common provenance from various buildings around
the city, some of considerable importance. All the buildings and their sculptures were connected, either through documentation or inscriptions, to the
Lateran hospice enterprise. Contardi and Di Gioia also clarified how this
extraordinary gallery of divine simulacra (or better, icons) created by a team
of more or less well-known sculptors in late-Baroque Rome, was created
during a single campaign from 1694 to 1695. The reliefs were mounted on
exterior facades, as ensigns to declare that the income from the buildings to
which they were affixed served to support the hospice, along with major
contributions from the papal treasury and private donations all other
charities were prohibited. In effect, the reliefs dedicated the buildings to the
mission of Charity, in imitation of Christ.
The recuperation of the group of sculptures and the identification of its
relationship to the Apostolic Hospice for the poor made it possible to reconstruct one of the most remarkable episodes in the modem artistic and
social history of Rome, and, I venture to say, of Europe generally. For it became immediately apparent that all these works were intended to recall one
model in particular, Berninis last work, the famous Bust of the Saviour, an
over-life size white marble sculpture with a base of Sicilian jasper, originally supported by a wooden pedestal consisting of two kneeling angels. This
On San Michele, see Sisinni 1990, Bevilacqua Melasecchi 2001.
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huge, quasi-iconic image, long known from preparatory studies and replicas, was thought to be lost (Fig. 20). Berninis biographers report that he left
the sculpture as a token of their mutual esteem to his friend Queen
Christina of Sweden, in whose palace it was noted by Nicodemus Tessin, Jr.,
on his visit to Rome in 168788. When Christina died in 1689 she in turn
left the work to Pope Innocent XI Odescalchi (167689), and it is last
recorded in a 1713 inventory of the Palazzo Odescalchi. The sculpture, including the jasper base recorded in the inventory but not the pedestal, came
to light recently in the sacristy of the chapel of Pope Clement XI Albani
(170021), in San Sebastiano fuori le mura (Fig. 21).7
The man who formulated the concept of the Hospice adopted by
Innocent XII, the person who contributed to the organisation and administration of the Hospice and was charged with its management, was none
other than Berninis well-loved nephew, the priest Francesco Marchese, a
leading member of the Oratorians. After the death of the artist (1680),
Marchese became an increasingly influential figure in the intellectual and
religious life of the city, with a marked interest in its social problems. He
was appointed Predicatore Apostolico (preacher to the pope) in 1689, and in
1691 wrote a treatise to describe his proposal, which comprised only part
of a much broader programme of reform. It was obviously Padre Marchese
who suggested that Berninis Bust of the Christ should serve as the Hospices
emblem. His purpose was not simply to promote his uncles work, which
was hardly necessary. He had understood that Berninis image and the
Apostolic Hospice were profoundly linked, both having been motivated by
the same new ideal of genuinely universal charity.
I am not, however, totally convinced that the idea originally came from
Marchese. Perceived as a superhuman vision, a miraculous apparition offered to the spectator by a pair of divine messengers, it cannot be
coincidental that the concetto is most closely comparable to Berninis own
design for the display of the Sacred Eucharist in St. Peters (Fig. 22).
Moreover, Berninis bust is related to two representations of Christ, among
the most important in Rome, both closely connected to San Giovanni in
Laterano. The church was originally dedicated to the Saviour in memory of
the bust-length image in the centre of the apse, which was reputed to have
appeared in heaven reciting the Pax Vobis benediction to the people on
November 9, 324, the day Pope Sylvester I consecrated the basilica on the
7
On the bust in San Sebastiano, see Lavin 2003.
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1.abc. Commemorative medals of Piazza S. Pietro, 1657, 1661, 1666.

Biblioteca Vaticana, Rome.

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Page 18
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2. Map of Rome showing Alexanders street corrections,

piazzas and buildings. (after Krautheimer 1985, 18f., fig.7).

Page 19
1105
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1106
3. Plan of Rome under Sixtus V in the form of a star (after Bordini 1588, 44).
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1107
4. St. Peters
and Piazza.
Rome.
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1108
5a. Canaletto, view of Piazza San Marco. Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge MA.
5b. Plan of Piazza San Marco.
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6. Papirio Bartoli, Project for Piazza San Pietro, engraving.

1109
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7. Colonnade of Piazza San Pietro.
8. Gianlorenzo Bernini, St. Peters and the colonnades as the pope

with embracing arms, drawing. Biblioteca Vaticana, Rome.
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9. Anonymous, Corpus Domini procession, ca. 1640.

Museo di Palazzo Venezia, Rome.
10. Pope at Window of Vatican Palace seen from Piaza San Pietro.
1111
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1112
11. Plan of Oval Piazza and

colonnaded thoroughfares.
Palmyra, Syria
(after Browning 1979, 125).
12. Colonnade of Piazza

San Pietro, annular vault.
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13. Jean Grandjean, Annular vault of the Colosseum, 1781, watercolor

(after Luciani 1993, 24).
1113
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1114
14. Colosseum. Rome.
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15. St. Peters faade and flanking porticoes.
1115
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1116
16ab. Alexander VII kneeling in the Corpus Domini procession.

a. Engraving, 1655.
b. Decennial medal, 1664. Biblioteca Vaticana, Rome.
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17. The Lateran palace as hospice for the poor, engraving

(after Piazza, 1693, frontispiece).
1117
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18. San Michele a Ripa Grande. Rome.
1118
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1119
19ab. Reliefs of the Savior. Rome, Palazzo di Montecitorio, Rome.
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1120
20ab a. Gianlorenzo Bernini, study for the bust of the Savior, drawing. Gabinetto
nazionale dell stampe, Rome.
b. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Study for the upper part of the pedestal of the bust of the Savior,
drawing. Museum der bildenden Knste, Leipzig.
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22. Gianlorenzo Bernini, study for a Monstrance,

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21. Gianlorenzo Bernini, bust of the Savior.

S. Sebastiano fuori le mura, Rome.

Page 35
1121
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23. Apse mosaic, detail. S. Giovanni in Laterano.
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24. Emblem of the

Archconfraternity of the SS.
Salvatore ad Sancta Sanctorum.
Hospital of S. Giovanni in
Laterano, Rome.
25. Gianlorenzo Bernini, caricature of Innocent XI, drawing.

Museum der bildenden Knste, Leipzig.
1123
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authority of the Emperor Constantine the Great (Fig. 23). The second
image was linked to the Venerabile Compagnia dell Imagine pi Sacra del
Santissimo Salvatore nel Sancta Sanctorum. This noble confraternity, one of
the oldest in Rome, was given the task of protecting the icon of Christ
housed in the Sancta Sanctorum. It was also responsible for overseeing the
administration of the great hospital for the poor and sick that was annexed
to the Lateran church in the late Middle Ages. The emblem of this confraternity was a bust of Christ, reminiscent of the mosaic image in the apse,
with the addition of a base decorated as a parapet (Fig. 24). The emblem
was printed on the confraternitys documents and, in the form of sculptured
reliefs, were affixed to the buildings serving the hospital. These likenesses
and their associations surely inspired Innocent XII to use Berninis image
for the Hospice.
I suspect, however, that Bernini himself had been inspired to make his
bust of the Saviour in allusion first and foremost to the images of Christ at
the Lateran, as the project for the new Hospice was being discussed; and
that he conceived of his own image being used exactly as it was used twenty years later, the model for the other ensigns representing the Hospices
Charity. This hypothesis, in turn, throws light on a problem connected to
the biographers account of the history of Berninis sculpture. They report
that he executed the bust when he was 80 years old (1678), and that he left
it in a legacy to Queen Christina. Considering the heroic scale of the work,
standing overall some ten feet (300 cm) high, it was better suited to a public monument than to a private devotional image, even for the use of a
Queen. It is tempting to suppose that Bernini had already thought of the
bust in 1676, with the idea of placing it in the new Hospice to be set up in
the Lateran Palace, according to Sozzinis restructuring project. The inability, or rather the refusal of Innocent XI Odescalchi to bring the project to a
conclusion could have been one of the reasons why Bernini made the devastating caricature of Innocent as a shrewish hypochondriac, the No-Pope,
Papa-Minga in his popular Lombard dialect nickname (Fig. 25).
It is astonishing in retrospect to grasp a common thread running
through this almost fifty-year period of Roman social reform. One figure
may be traced through the long history of the idea of housing in the Lateran
palace of the popes a hospice for the poor, from its inception under
Alexander VII to its realisation by Francesco Marchese, that of Gianlorenzo
Bernini himself. Perhaps it is far-fetched to suggest that a mere artist might
have contributed to the invention as well as the definition and realisation of
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this great venture in the development of the modern city. In any case, in the
Piazza San Pietro Bernini certainly approached the burgeoning problems of
unemployment with a new vision, and in the bust of the Saviour created a
new image of the model of charity that inspired it.
Bibliography
Aronberg Lavin, Marylin, Representations of Urban Models in the
Renaissance, in Henry Millon and Vittorio Magnago Lampugnani. The
Renaissance from Brunelleschi to Michelangelo. The Representation of
Architecture, exhib. cat., Milan, 1994, 6478.
Bevilacqua Melasecchi, Olga, Il complesso monumentale del San Michele.
Dalle origini agli interventi di Clemente XI, in Giuseppe Cucco, Papa
Albani e le arti a Urbino e Roma. 17001722, Venice, 2001, 1213.
Bordini, Giovanni Francesco, De rebus praeclare gestis a Sixto V Pon. Max.,
Rome, 1588.
Brauer, Heinrich, and Rudolf Wittkower, Die Zeichnungen des Gianlorenzo
Bernini, Berlin, 1931 (Rmische Forschungen der Bibliotheca
Hertziana, Band IX).
Browning, Iain, Palmyra, London, 1979.
Del Pesco, Daniela, Colonnato di San Pietro. Dei Portici antichi e la loro diversit. Con un'ipotesi di cronologia, Rome, 1988
Di Macco, Michela, Il Colosseo. Funzione simbolica, storica, urbana, Rome,
1971.
Hager, Helmut, Carlo Fontana's Project for a Church in Honour of the
Ecclesia Triumphns in the Colosseum, Rome, Journal of the Warburg
and Courtauld Institutes, XXXVI, 1973, 31937.
Krautheimer, Richard, The Rome of Alexander VII (16551667), Princeton,
1985.
Lavin, Irving, The Roma Alessandrina of Richard Krautheimer, in In
Memoriam Richard Krautheimer, Rome, 1997, 10717.
____ Bernini's Bust of the Savior and the Problem of the Homeless in
Seventeenth-Century Rome, Italian Quarterly, XXXVII, 2000, 20951.
____ La mort de Bernin: visions de rdemption, in Alain Tapie, ed.,
Baroque vision jesuite. De Tintoret a Rubens, exhib. cat., Paris, 2003,
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10519.
____ Bernini at Saint Peters: SINGULARIS IN SINGULIS, IN OMNIBUS UNICUS, in W. Tronzo, ed., St. Peters in the Vatican,
Cambridge and New York, 2005, 111243.
Luciani, Roberto, Il Colosseo, Milan, 2000.
Piazza, Carlo Bartolomeo, La mendicit proveduta nella citt di Roma,
collospizio publico fondata dalla piet e beneficenza di Nostro Signore
Innocenzo XII pontefice massimo con le riposte allobiezioni contro simili
fondazioni, Rome, 1693.
Roca de Amicis, Augusto, La piazza e il colonnato, in Antonio Pinelli, ed.,
La basilica di San Pietro in Vaticano, 4 Vols., Modena, 2000, Saggi,
283301.
Sforza Pallavicino, Della vita di Alessandro VII, 2 Vols., Prato, 183940.
Sisinni, Francesco, ed., Il San Michele a Ripa Grande, Rome, 1990.
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XXVII
The Rome of Alexander VII

Bernini and the Reverse of the Medal*
FEEL I must first forewarn you that I will not today be speaking directly to the general theme of court art, at least not in the sense in which the
notion of court art is generally conceived in the period called, in stylistic
terms, the Age of the Baroque, in political terms the Age of Absolute
Monarchy. That is, court art as quintessentially elite, magnificent, magniloquent, and extravagant in terms of form as well as cost. Instead, I want to
talk about the other side of the medal, a phrase I have borrowed from the
title of one of the chapters in Richard Krautheimers magisterial book, The
Rome of Alexander VII 16551667, published in 1985. The phrase alludes,
ironically, as we shall see, to the splendid series of portrait medals the pope
regularly issued to advertise and commemorate on their reverses his many
projects for embellishment of the city (Fig. 1). My referent derives from
what might be called the inverse of the main point of Krautheimer s book,
which was to demonstrate how Alexander made the city of Rome itself into
a grandiose work of international court art, masking the reality of life in the
city on the other side of the medal. By reconsidering two important texts
one long well-known, the other newly discovered and published by
Krautheimer himself I want to suggest that the reverse actually had another aspect, intimately related to the obverse but positive in effect, and
with a no less important legacy for the future of Europe.
* Except for a few references given in the notes, the material on which this essay is based
will be found in the following works: Krautheimer 1985, Brauer and Wittkower 1931, Lavin
1997, Lavin 2000, Lavin 2005.
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The ancient metaphorical identification of Rome with the church of

Saint Peter, as an institution and as a structure, began to acquire a new
physical reality with the great entrepreneurial popes of the Renaissance.
However, it can be said without too much exaggeration that the explicit,
programmed materialisation of this metaphorical relationship culminated
in the mid-seventeenth century when Fabio Chigi was crowned Pope
Alexander VII. The scale and pervasiveness of his enterprises were so great
that the eternal city acquired three new epithets, Roma Moderna and
Roma Alexandrina, coined by contemporaries, and Roma barocca a term
that was added in our own epoch (Fig. 2). The coincidence and significance
of these three new visions, chronological, papal, and stylistic, constitute the
fundamental theme of Krautheimers urban history of the city.
In the seventeenth century the term modern was generally understood in
the Petrarcan sense of post-medieval and as distinct from classical antiquity.
And for Krautheimer the extravagant projects of embellishment undertaken by
the Chigi pope epitomised the process of transforming the chaotic and squalid
medieval remnant of the antique city into the splendid new capital of the
Christian world. Alexander was certainly not the first pope to be obsessed with
reconstruction, nor was he the first to consider Rome as a projection of his own
person and his vocation. Sixtus V, who set an important example for
Alexander, certainly had a comprehensive view of the city, but conceived in
broadly symbolic terms still linked to medieval tradition: the main roads connecting the patriarchal basilicas to each other formed a star that reproduced the
popes family crest and the star of Bethlehem (Fig. 3). Alexander, on the other
hand, had a functional vision of the urban fabric in which the city and its monuments should respond to compelling needs both ideological and, at the same
time, politically strategic.
Through his ten chapters, Krautheimer leads the reader along a sequence that begins in the career and personality of Alexander VII, his
training, his culture, his nonchalance in relation to money, and, above all,
his love for architecture, his veritable building mania. Alexander was not a
patron of the arts in the somewhat vulgar sense of the nouveaux riches
Renaissance Maecenases, but scion of an illustrious family and a man of rare
intelligence and vast culture. Krautheimer shows the pope personally following all the work, participating in the minute details of each project, and
showing a passion that could have grown only from innate gifts and a cultivated taste. Krautheimer was able to focus on these characteristics because
he had appreciated the importance of a private diary the pope maintained
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in his own hand, publishing the many passages that deal specifically with
art and artists. Alexander surely took as a model the personal but much
more formal memoires, Commentaries on the Memorable Things that affected his Times (Commentarii rerum memorabilium que temporibus suis
contigerunt), of his Sienese compatriot, Pius II. The private quality of
Alexanders chronicle is truly extraordinary and, as far as I am aware, contains a record of intimate thoughts, feelings and activities expressed by no
previous pope. Especially significant in our context are the astonishingly
numerous entries that concern Gian Lorenzo Bernini as his constant companion, consulting and planning together in weekly, sometimes even more
frequent meetings. This degree of personal relationship between pope and
artist was also without precedent.
Krautheimer emphasised that not only was the pontiff mad for architecture, but also that his madness involved the whole city. His plans for
improvement were not only directed at the most obvious places and monuments of Rome, but also extended to the suburbs, the so-called
disabitato, to use Krautheimers term, even if they were often populated by
the poor, the homeless, and vagabond Gypsies. The purpose was not only
to rationalise and embellish the chaotic web of medieval streets, but also to
resolve the growing problems of traffic created by that ultramodern vehicle
of transport, the horse-drawn carriage. The global aspect of this conception
showed itself in many subtle ways, including the maps of Roma alessandrina, characterised by accuracy and unprecedented completeness, or the lists
of commissions that were compiled and then reproduced in collections of
illustrated engravings. These lists include the projects that were not carried
out, giving an idea of what Alexander would have done if he had lived
longer and been able to disperse more money, and testifying at the same
time to the colossal amount of work that he did realise. There is perhaps no
better indication of both the dedication and comprehensiveness of
Alexanders vision than the fact that he kept for study in his private chambers a model of the city. It is interesting to speculate where his miniature
Rome fits in the history of city models; it was, I suppose, as complete and
accurate as the maps of Alexanders Rome, and it is the first model I can recall that was made for the purpose of urban planning. Evidently, the pope
not only thought about the city in a modern, comprehensive way; he also
had a modern, comprehensive way of representing it a new kind of
three-dimensional urban consciousness, one might say.
Krautheimer also considered Alexanders non-permanent architecture,
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that is, his planning of civic piazzas and public spaces of all types: markets,
theatrical stages, ephemeral spectacles, gardens, streets and tree lined avenues, every element pertinent to the so-called built environment, to use
the modem term for this comprehensive vision. In describing the popes attitude toward antique ruins, Krautheimer shows that, even if sometimes the
classical works were treated cavalierly, the principle objective was to integrate them into the modern city to the point that even these could
contribute ad maiorem gloriam Dei, in a manner that was deliberately theatricalthat is, on the model of contemporary scenography with a view
to impressing the distinguished visitor who arrived at the main entry to
Rome, coming from the north, and progressed through the city to the
Vatican. In the next to last chapter Krautheimer turns to the other side of
the medal, describing the decrepit and unkempt aspects of Rome, the aspects that illustrious visitors were not supposed to see. Alexandrian Rome
was beautiful for those who could appreciate it, but for many it was not a
very nice place to live.
If all this sounds rather Baroque, this was the intention of Krautheimers
work. The objective appears dramatically in the last chapter when he presents the guiding principle and what he conceived to be the political
motivation underlying Alexanders urban ambitions. The victories of the
Protestants and the rise in the industrial and mercantile power of the North,
coupled with the establishment and hegemony over European affairs of the
great national states, especially France, Spain and the Hapsburgs, dramatically reduced the effective power of the Catholic church. Faced with this
situation, the pope adopted a policy of over-compensation, aggrandising
and embellishing the physical power of the Holy City to make up for its loss
of political power. He sought to convince the world that the papacy remained a factor to be reckoned with by transforming Rome into a great
modern city, or at least a semblance of one. Implicit in Krautheimers view
is the fundamental paradox that the modern city was born, not from a fundamental transformation of mentality, but rather from a sort of deception.
In art-historical terms, the effect is to instrumentalise the Baroque, turning the style into an artifice of propaganda and representation, rather than
the authentic expression of a new world vision. As the idea of modernity
might suggest (note that I do not use the term modernity in an ironic sense
here), this concept of the Baroque as an artificial, bombastic and excessive
reaction to the challenge thrown down by the Protestants the Baroque
as art of rhetoric, exhibitionism, and theatrics coincides with the equal-
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ly traditional concept of seventeenth-century politics as the arrogant selfrepresentation of absolutism. Alexanders plan of urban renewal was conceived of the lite, by the lite, and for the lite.
Lorenzo Pizzatis Critique
I submit that there is another way of understanding Alexanders great
new urban development program, an ulterior motive not alternative but
complementary and I would say almost subversive to the traditional view
which might explain why, although clearly defined and publicly announced, it has been virtually ignored in this context. After all, the popolo
minuto of Rome represented a huge moral, economic and political force,
and in this sense Rome was no different from all the other cities in Europe,
where awareness of and attention to existing social problems had long been
on the increase. In a measure, Krautheimer grasped these developments, at least to the extent that his chapter on the reverse of the medal was
based on a document to which he was the first to call attention and whose
revelatory value he fully appreciated. The document in question was what
we would call a white paper, written between 1656 and 1659 by a certain
Lorenzo Pizzati from Pontremoli, a minor administrative functionary
otherwise quite without historical significance. Pizzati describes the execrable conditions under which day-to-day life in the city was lived,
outlining the piteous state of the less privileged strata of the population, and
proposing drastic and utopian measures for alleviating their misery. His call
to reform is the first text I would like to submit as testimony in my appeal
for reconsideration of the significance of modem Baroque Alexandrine
Rome. Here are a few of Pizzati s often awkward and ungrammatical complaints and recommendations:
they should avoid evicting from small rooms, garrets and holes carved
into walls, without due notice . . . cultivated and correctly behaved people (like the undersigned). No one should be obliged to sleep in damp
or malodorous lodgings, in unsuitable company, on a butchers counter
or nude on the floor of a church or shop. And no decent man, particularly if he has been presented at Court [aulicus], should be given a damp
ground floor room, right next to the road, or in an absurd hole under
exposed roof beams, full of cracks and overrun by spiders, mice, scorpions and lizards . . . All of this happens because buildings that have been
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begun are not finished, while there are houses, palaces and pious institutions that are left empty.1 In order to help those who cannot find
lodgings, Pizzati suggests that . . . poor bishops and priests and other
. . . educated men should be housed in the uninhabited rooms of the
Oratorio and the Sapienza (Romes oratory and university). Even the
Lateran palace where your Holiness does not reside, could be turned
into a sort of residential hostel with a communal kitchen and pantry for
bishops and other needy and deserving people; the uninhabited parts
of the Quirinale and the Vatican buildings could be used in the same
way. Consequently, these huge factories [istae machinae] would be better preserved, instead of gradually falling into ruin through disuse, and
above all your Benevolence would procure better air and better living
conditions for us. Poor widows and abandoned wives could also be sheltered in disused palaces and church buildings, where they may find
refuge from corruption; formally, hospices and hospitals for beggars and
lodgings for penitent prostitutes should be set up and provided.
For Krautheimer, this document simply revealed a substratum of the reality which Alexander VIIs urban renewal program addressed as a sort of
cosmetic panacea for the benefit of visiting dignitaries. The improvements,
however, were far more than merely decorative, they were conceived also to
have equally important practical and beneficial effects, no less for the lowly
inhabitants than for the exalted visitors to the city.
Berninis Piazza and Porticoes (Fig. 4)
A primary testimonial to this fact, the second of the texts I would like to
submit, is, by contrast, one of the most important documents in all of art history, well-known to anyone interested in Baroque Rome, but still not well
enough appreciated in my view. I refer to the famous memorial concerning
Alexanders nascent project for the vast piazza in front of St. Peters, written by
Bernini in 165759 at the same time that Pizzati composed his diatribe.
Here the artist defines his concept or rather philosophy, or theology, or soAronberg Lavin 1994. Merz thinks that the report of the Genoese ambassador in
Rome, 166369, Il papa ha tutta Roma di legname in Camera distintissima e curiosissima,
come quello che non ha maggior sfera che di abbilire la Citt, otherwise undocumented, is
a metaphor rather than a real model (very unlikely, given the wording): Jrg Martin Merz,
review of Habel, in Kunstchronik, March 2004, 13941, esp. 141, col. b.
1
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ciology of the form and substance of the largest, most difficult and most
conspicuous of all Alexander VIIs undertakings. It was a crucial juncture in the
process that brought to completion the new centrepiece of Rome and the
church, begun a century and a half before. Bernini presented this brief in response to the many criticisms of his project for reasons of function, form and
finances. I quote some passages relevant to my theme.
In the year 1655, when Cardinal Fabio Chigi was preoccupied with the succession to the Throne of Peter, the incessant prayers of the Church and his
applause of the people gave birth to an Alexander. From this exalted position,
the pious prince did not lose sight of the needs of the creatures subject to his
greatness, nor was he attracted by that majesty, which being near to heaven
and to the angels, distances him from the earth and men. Indeed, with a
benevolent eye, he saw and contemplated the general miseries of the poor and
determined to alleviate them, remembering that as Fabio Chigi he had illustrated by example, now, as Alexander he must kindle with actions, the prince
being in this similar to the sun whose rays not only illuminate but also give
warmth.2 He immediately applied to the ills opportune remedies, and com2
Bibl. Vat., Cod. Chig. H II 22, fols. 1059v. The text was first published by Brauer and
Wittkower 1931, 70 n. 1, who date the statement 165960, whereas Krautheimer 1985,
174, gives 16578. It is indicative of the attitude the present essay is intended to counterbalance Brauer and Wittkowers omission of Berninis opening passage to this point, which
articulates the underlying motive for the project. The opening sentences were included in a
transcription published by Del Pesco 1988, 635, but without including other passages
omitted by Brauer and Wittkower. What follows here is the complete text, with passages
omitted by Brauer and Wittkower indicated by italics.
Preoccupava con il merito il Cardinal Fabio Chigi il Trono di Pietro, quando nellanno
1655 le Orationi incessanti della Chiesa, e glapplausi del Popolo partorirono un Alessandro.
Dall Altezza di questo posta non perd di uista il pietosissimo Prencipe le Creature soggette alla
sua grandezza, ne sinvagh di quella Maest, che per essere uicina al Cielo, et agli Angeli, lo rende
lontano dalla Terra e dagli huomini,. m con una occhiata benefica nell istesso tempo e vidde e
contempl le Communi miserie e saccinse sollevarle, riccordevole che se come Fabio Chigi
haueua illustrato collesempio, hora come Alessandro doueua riscaldare con le operationi, essendo
il Prencipe per questo assimigliato ai sole che con i raggi non solamente illumina, m riscalda.
Applic subito ai mali glopportuni remedii, e compassionando la povert, che non solo
priva dimpiego errava vagabonda per la Citta, ma languiva oppressa da una carestia, che
quanta pi affligeva il Popolo, tanto maggiormente doveva far spiccare la sua piet, si volse
a distribuire grandma quantit doro, benche la scarsezz dell erario fosse un argine opposto al
torrente di questa devota munificenza. Portato il nostro liberalissimo Prencipe dalla piena
Carit ben previdde, che laprire semplicemente a beneficia commune i Tesori era un fomentare lotio, et un nudrire i vitii. Onde quellistesso antidoto che sapplicava per la salute
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passionate with the poor who, not only wandered unemployed about the city
like vagabonds, but languished in oppression by a famine which the more it
afflicted the people the more it brought forth his pity, he turned to distributing large amounts of gold, although the scarcity of groin placed a levee against
this torrent of pious munificence.
poteva essere un tossico pi potente per avvelenarla. Cos dunque represse quella fiamma
di Carit, non per estinguerla, ma acci maggiormente pro de suoi sudditi si dilatasse,
quindi pens dar principia ad una gran fabrica, mediante la quale seccitasse limpiego nei
vagabondi, e si sovvenisse con il giro di grossa somma di denaro aIle correnti necessit.
Aggionse stimoli al pio desiderio di S. Santita linclinatione al fabricare, e lintelligenza, che
al pari di qualsivoglia Architetto teneva in questa professione, perch sin da fanciullo era solita quelle hore, nelle quali per lo piu si nausea ogni fatica, impiegarle in questi, et in altri
virtuosi trattenimenti, quasi sin dallora Iddio che lo destinava all Imperio supremo landasse
habilitando in tutte quelle attioni, che possono rendere un Prencipe glorioso.
Determinata dunque per sollievo commune la fabrica, lanimo di N. Signore imbeuuto
sin dalle fascie di piet e totalmente disinteressato verso se stesso, non seppe rivolgersi ad
innalzare s le mine di molte habitationi magnifici Palazzi, ne restringere in un Giardino
solo le delitie hereditarie di pi famiglie, ma risolse di principiare una mole, che ridondasse
ad honore di Dio, e de suoi Santi, et benefitio commune.
Fr la fertilissima miniera di machine heroiche che Alessandro racchiudeva nella mente,
la Piet, e la magnificenza quasi che irresolute non sapevano scieglerne la pi grande al fine
giudicarono, che il fare un Portico alla Chiesa di S. Pietro fosse un opera conveniente alla
Piet dun Pontefice, e propria alla grandezza dun Alessandro. Queste gara gli suggerivano
limpresa esser stata stimata cos degna, che molti suoi Antecessori serano impegnati sino
fame i disegni, m che atteriti dalla sua grandezza, e disperando di sopravivere all opera,
che poteva assorbire pi Pontificati ne trascurarono leffettuatione, e con permissione particolare dIddio che haveva eletto un animo maggiore di quest opera per pi gloriosamente
terminarla.
E perche i due fini principali delle fabriche sono lutilit, e lornamento, nello stabilito
disegno queste unitamente concorrevano. Imperci che si vedeva situata la Chiesi di S. Pietro
in una Piazza cos grande esposta continuamente i raggi del sole, e senza alcun riparo
dallimpeto delle pioggie, siche quel Tempio dove per adorare il Sepolcro de SS. Apostoli concorrono schiere numerose de devoti era poco menD che abbandonato per esseme
impratricabile laccesso, oltre che le continue funtioni Pontificie si rendevano agl assistenti
scommodissime per non haver le Carrozze, et i pedoni il necessario ricovero.
Secondariamente pareva essere inconveniente, che stasse quasi che sepolto in una Piazza fuor
dogni regola dArchitettura il Tempio di S. Pietro, che per la sua mole, e bellezza stimato
un prodigio dell arte, per la cui perfettione hanno stimato tanti poppoli vera ricchezza limpouerire per adornarlo, non inuidiando all piet della primitiua Chiesa in offerire al suo Sepolcro
gi che non gl era permisso i suoi piedi inuolontario tributo i patrimonij.
S aggiungeua che il formare un Portico, non solo apportava maggior bellezza e decoro
al Tempio ma veniva a coprire molte imperfettioni di quello, essendo che la facciata che per
se stessa di forma quatta haverebbe spiccata, et in certo modo si sarebbe sollevata sopra se
stessa.
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Our most liberal Prince, inclined to complete charity, saw clearly that
simply to open the treasuries for the common good was a fomentation
to idleness and a nourishment of vice. He was thus limited in his charity but also realised that by giving money to the needy, he was
inadvertently encouraging them in idleness and vice. Whence the very
antidote that was applied for health, could be a more powerful toxin to
poison it. He thus suppressed the flame of charity, not to extinguish it,
but to insure that it be spent to the greater benefit of his subjects,
whence he thought to begin a great structure, through which the home-
Impressionato, e capacissimo di questa verit il Papa, command al Cavr Bernino

Architetto suo, e della Chiesa di S. Pietro, che ne facesse il disegno. Consider subito il
Bernino la grandezza dell opera la vastit della Piazza, e la vicinanza della gran mole di S.
Pietro, e per questo giudic molto fallace chiudersi in una camera e restringere in un foglio
una machina cos grande, m scielse la maggior Casa che fosse in da Piazza, et in grande vi
segn due archi con i suoi pilastri, cornice, et balaustrata, acci S. Santita dalla grandezza del
sito ne giudicasse la proportione ricordevole che il Buonarroti prima di principiare il
Cornicione del Palazzo Farnese ne fece il modello di legno e messolo nell altezza del suo sito
riusci cos piccolo, che lo accrebbe quasi la met, il che diede occasione quel suo bellissimo detto che la lontananza era un inimico, con il quale bisogna va combattere a campo
aperto.
F stimato assai prudente il Bernini far il disegno in grande nell istesso sito, dove
doveva farsi lopera, ma molto pi avanti pass il giuditio di S. Santit, poiche conoscendo
che non si pu accertatamente dar giuditio dell altezza, se prima non si vede la sua longhezza, ordino all Architetto che sopra molti travi dritti facesse ricorrere una traversa tanto longa
quanta fosse la longhezza del Portico non comportando ne il tempo ne la spesa il farme un
intiero modello.
Si port N. Sigre a vedere questa dimostratione, e con ingegno pili che humano, non solamente determin laltezza dell opera, ma ne giudic la forma, cosa che fece stupire listesso
Architetto invecchiato in questa professione, imperciche poco si ferm vedere se voleva
essete pi bassa, pi alta ma al solita di quell ingegni, che non hanno confine, e terminano
con le stelle and ad antivedere con una sola occhiata case grandi, e penetr in un momenta tutte le difficolt che pi suggerire una gran lunghezza di tempo, et una perretta esperienza
della professione, perche seppe (che e quello che in queste materie importa il tutto) arrivate
vedere leffetto che haverebbe ratio la fabrica prima che fosse perfettionata.
Antivedde subito gl inconvenienti che sincontravano in fare il Portico in forma quadrata, impercioche la sua altezza in quella forma haverebbe impedito al Popolo la veduta del
Palazzo, et al Palazzo il prospetto della Piazza, accresciendosi linconveniente merc che
solendo il Papa dalle fenestre dare la Benedittione ai Pellegrini, e processioni che lanno
Santo vengono per riceverla in questo modo non poteva benedirli se non in grandissima lontananza, oltre che si veniva ad impiccolire, e dividere la Piazza, lasciando fra il Palazzo, et il
Portico un sito marta, quale facilmente riempito dimmonditie haverebbe trasmissi al Palazzo
vapori assai dannosi.
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less would be encouraged to work, and large sums of money would be

spent to meet current needs. His Holinesss inclination to build added
stimulus to his pious wishes, and the intelligence that he possessed in
this profession beyond that of any architect, because from his childhood
he was wont to spend the hours when most are sick with fatigue, he devoted to these and other virtuous diversions, almost as if even from then
God who had destined him for the supreme empire, was giving him
training in all those occupations that can render a prince glorious.
* * *
And because the two principal goals of building were understood to
be usefulness and ornament, these aspects were both present within the
design chosen.
* * *
He immediately foresaw the disadvantages of making the portico
square, inasmuch as its height in this shape would have impeded the
populaces view of the palace, and palaces view of the piazza; there was
also the added disadvantage that the pope would not be able, as was his
custom, to bestow his blessing from the windows to the pilgrims and the
Holy Year processions that come to receive it, except from a very great
distance. It would also reduce in size and divide the piazza, leaving a
dead area between the palace and the portico that would easily fill up
with rubbish, giving off unhealthy fumes in the direction of the Palace.
Having therefore instantly foreseen the difficulties that would incur
if the portico were built as a square, with formidable judgement His
Havendo dunque in un istante antiveduto S. Santita gl inconvenienti che sincorrevano
nel far do Portico in forma quadra con giuditio pi che humano risolse farlo in forma ovata.
Certo chi non sapesse linconvenienti sopradetti pensarebbe che a questa forma ovata si fosse
S. Santita solamente appresa in risguardo del bello, essendo questa la maraviglia, che seppe
unire con il bello, il proprio, et il necessaria. Il bello essendo questa forma circolare pi grata
all occhio pi perretta in se stessa, e pi maravigliosa farli massime con Architravi piani
sopra colonne isolate. II proprio perche essendo la Chiesa di S. Pietro quasi matrice di tutte
le altre doveva haver un Portico che per lappunto dimostrasse di ricevere braccia aperte
maternamente i Cattolici per confermarli nella credenza, gl Hererici per riunirli alla Chiesa,
e gl Infedeli per illuminarli alIa vera fede; et il necessaria essendosi superate le sopradette
difficolta.
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Holiness resolved to make it oval. Certainly, whoever was not aware of

the aforementioned disadvantages might suppose that His Holiness was
concerned only with beauty, the marvel being that he was able to unite
beauty with the proper and the necessary: beauty, in that this circular
form is more pleasing to the eye, more perfect in itself, and more marvellous especially to make them with flat architraves set over
freestanding columns; proper, because the church of St. Peter, being as
it were the matrix of all others, ought to have a portico that expressly appears to receive maternally with open arms Catholics to confirm them
in belief, heretics to reunite them with the Church, and unbelievers to
illuminate them to the true faith; and necessary, in overcoming the
aforesaid difficulties.
The projects submitted before and in competition with Berninis recalled the most conspicuous example of this kind of dual functionality on a
colossal scale, Saint Marks Square in Venice: a rectilinear courtyard or piazza surrounded by porticos surmounted and flanked by accessible spaces
that served practical uses. (Figs. 5, 6) Berninis project succeeded in uniting
ecclesiastical and urban traditions in a different way, through a radically
new architectural formula specific to Saint Peters: an oval colonnade, freestanding and surmounted by statues, without functional structures either
above or behind (Fig. 7). Generally speaking, attention has been focused on
Berninis text mainly from the point of view of the formal and iconographic elements of design, in particular the famous metaphor of the curving
portico as expressing the universal embrace of Mother Church
(Fig. 8). But two other factors were important and specific to Saint Peters,
and to my mind interdependent: the special role of the Corpus Domini
procession traditionally led by a bishop, in this case Christs own vicar on
earth; and the more conspicuous manifestation of the personal relationship
between the Pope and the people, that is, his communications and benedictions from his private apartments in the Vatican palace, which
determined the height of the porticoes. These considerations motivated
Alexanders absolute conviction that the colonnades should not have any
practical function, except to provide shelter from bad weather during the
Corpus Domini procession (Fig. 9), and to enhance the private view of the
pope at his window (Fig. 10). The porticos were thus purely representational, and what they represented was purely devotional, corresponding to
a profound need whose practicality was not material but spiritual. The
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other factor that stands out is the projects practical value in another sense,
not as a source for financial benefit nor for the administrative use of the
clergy, but rather as a work of charity aimed at benefiting poor and unemployed Roman citizens. The Piazza San Pietro project served as a
cornerstone in the construction campaign that aimed at solving the same
problems mentioned by Pizzati; the response, in an entirely modern spirit
of social welfare, was to provide work for the poor as the most efficient use
of public charity funds at the service of the public welfare.
I believe that this last consideration, which we can call the social responsibility of the project, could have directly affected the design of the
colonnades. Besides the oval plan, perhaps the most conspicuous and frequently noted aspect falls completely within the stylistic paradox implicit in
the subtitle of this series of lectures, Baroque art and the classical ideal. I
refer to the exceptional simplicity and sobriety of the colonnade that has
impressed many observers who expected from Bernini, indeed above all
from Bernini, a more elaborate style, i.e., a more Baroque style. In fact, the
most renowned and perspicacious of Bernini scholars, Rudolph Wittkower,
said of the Piazza San Pietro: No other Italian structure of the postRenaissance era shows an equally deep affinity with Greece. The
observation was more apt than Wittkower may have thought. In a very careful study, Daniela Del Pesco revealed the painstaking scholarly research
carried out for the project in order to recreate the fabled porticos with three
corridors, described in the sources, built by the ancient Greeks to organise
and embellish their cities (Fig. 11). The Greek colonnades, however,
flanked public thoroughfares and the central passage was open to the sky,
while Bernini closed it with a long, curving barrel vault reminiscent of the
corridors of the Colosseum (Figs. 12, 13). In fact, it can be said that in this
sense Bernini seems to be more Greek than the Greeks, because his order,
based on the Doric the quintessentially Greek architectural mode is
missing its most distinctive features, the decorative frieze of metopes and
triglyphs. Here too, Augusto Roca de Amiciis has noted the relationship
with the lower order of the Colosseum (Fig. 14).3 Reference to the ancient
amphitheatre was amply justified on formal grounds, given the oval shape
of the Piazza. But the Colosseum was appropriate also from the ideological
point of view, as a place sanctified by the martyrdom of a great many saints.
These Christian gladiators were, so to speak, brought to life again at
3
Roca de Amicis 2000, 294 f.
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St. Peters by the legion of saintly statues placed on top of the portico, making up the triumphal guard of the piazza itself. It is obvious that the
relatively low single storey and the simplicity of the porticos served by contrast (Bernini preferred the word contrapposto to describe these visual
subtleties), to augment the imposing stature and opulence of the Maderno
faade (Fig. 15). The juxtaposition also reiterates the traditional increase in
elaboration with the superimposition of the orders, most famously exemplified by the Colosseum. But finally, the visual severity and austerity of the
porticos design also matches the solemnity of the Corpus Domini procession, an event that, from the beginning of his reign, Alexander had made
far more solemn and rigorous than in earlier times: rejecting the Popes traditional sedan chair, he insisted on appearing on his knees and absolutely
immobile for the entire, hours-long, exhausting devotion.(Fig. 16). Finally,
the Doric order corresponded to the request also on the part of Pizzati
for keeping the work simple in the interests of the public utility. Bernini
used a sort of visual-architectural rhetoric of moral austerity, equivalent to
and perhaps even inspired by the unadorned modus orandi the ancient
rhetors called Attic.4
What was true of the Piazza San Pietro was true of Pope Alexanders entire urban project which, it was rightly said, had almost emptied the papal
coffers. The pope was not motivated simply by extravagant and spendthrift
vanity on the popes part. The enterprises arose in part from a nascent form
of what we would call today a program of public works for social welfare
and rehabilitation (the cost of which then, as frequently today
climbed far beyond what the economic system upon which it was based
could bear). Consonant with this attitude is the fact that Alexander strongly opposed direct donations to the poor, not only because the practice
encouraged dependence on charity but also because it was humiliating. He
preferred instead to help those in need by offering them work, for which
they would be paid and thus maintain their Christian dignity. In
Alexanders eyes, this concept of charity as an ennobling means to improvement, instead of simple handouts, was a genuine policy of
4
Indicative of Berninis attitude toward the Colosseum is his insistence that it be preserved intact, in a project to construct within it a temple honoring the martyrs, for the
jubilee of 1675 (Di Macco 1971, 824, Hager 1973, 3235). I suspect that this project may
have been related to the one for the Lateran hospice, discussed below. The Colosseum was
closely related to the Lateran, even to the extent of serving as a hospital under the confraternity of the Sanctum Sanctorum.
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government, thus defined by his friend and biographer, the Jesuit Sforza
Pallavicino, who repeated almost word-for-word what Bernini said on the
relationship between beauty and utility: workers must be paid for their industry, so that by their labours the subsidies can contribute to civil life they
can join in civil life . . . and not be used for the arrogant delight of capricious luxury and sterility. . . Indeed, the works ordered by the prince be like
those of nature, the government of which is the idea of all governments, and
which in clothing the hills and fields with trees and fruit unites ornament
with usefulness.5
I do not want to exaggerate. Alexander was the product of his time, not
of ours. He had his defects, many of his projects were left unfinished, while
many of those he did carry out failed to achieve their purposes. But just as
the splendid projects of papal aggrandisement represent the obverse of the
medal, bearing fruit in the future of architecture and city planning, so the
social ideas pertaining to the reverse left their imprint on the succeeding
period. In fact, Alexander was the first pope of the modern era to work seriously to end the long-standing tradition of nepotism; and toward the end
of the century his effort inspired the great reformer Innocent XII
(16911700), who completely abolished the practice.
The Lateran Hospice
Two decades later, the kinds of socio-ethical policy that motivated
Alexander VII came to fruition in another great project of urban unification
and consolidation in a different sphere, where Bernini was again deeply involved. This development, which created the basis for a new principle upon
which a state-sponsored social welfare system would be built, began with
the huomo piccolo himself, Lorenzo Pizzati. It is not known whether
Alexander ever received or read Pizzatis first appeal, but if nothing else, he
was persistent. He submitted the project again at the beginning of the reign
of Clement IX (16701676). The outcome of this attempt is unknown, but
coincidentally, in 1670, the cause was taken up in an almost official capacity by the Order of the Oratorio, founded by St. Filippo Neri with the
. . . dovendosi stipendiar lindustria degli operarj, affinch cosuoi lavori saggiunga alla
vita civile quesussidj . . . e non perch simpieghi per superba delizia della ricchezza capricciosa
a sterilit . . .: anzi le opere ordinate dal principe conv[iene]enir, che siena come quelle della
natura, il cui governo e lidea di tutti i governi, la quale in vestire i colli ed i campi dalberi e di
frutti congiunge lornamento col giovamento. Sforza Pallavicino 183940, II, 177 f.
5
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specific mission to represent the Roman people. The principle promoter of

the Oratorio cause was Mariano Sozzini, who wrote an urgent appeal for
the reform of the clergy and the ecclesiastical administration of the city, calling it The Present Miseries of the Papacy. In September 1676, after the
election of Innocent XI (16761689), Sozzini offered a new, much longer
and more ambitious reform proposal. In November of the same year,
Bernini was appointed to restructure the Lateran Palace to make it usable as
a hospice for the poor the same idea that had been put forward twenty
years earlier by Lorenzo Pizzati, when Bernini was planning the layout of
Piazza San Pietro with Alexander VII.
Sozzinis proposal remained confined to paper, but the theme of socioreligious reform stayed close to the heart of the Oratorians until it was
actually carried out, still under their auspices. This event took place in the
autumn of 1692 when Innocent XII (16911700), elected with the support
of the so-called Zelanti party, declared a new great war on poverty. This
pope issued a dramatic edict requiring all the indigent people of Rome, with
their families, to present themselves at a central meeting point where they
would be interviewed and provided with clothes before being directed to
their new home. There, each would take part in a structured program of
daily activities, including apprenticeships and employment in useful tasks,
with instruction and religious devotions of all sorts. Those family members
who were not physically able to present themselves at the hospice were authorised to remain in their own houses, if any, where they would receive
suitable care, and perform services and devotions, within the limits of their
capacities. The edict took effect on Saturday, November 30, 1692, with a
great procession of the poor to their new lodgings, in the palace of the popes
at the Lateran (Fig. 17).
For better or for worse, Innocent XIIs great social adventure was a sad
and almost immediate failure. The charity foundation was instituted in
1692 and only four years later, in 1696, recruiting was interrupted. The
hospice continued to function for a little while longer, at a slower and slower rate, until the original experiment ended with the abandonment of a key
provision, namely the forced internment of the poor. Residence at the hospice was no longer compulsory, and the homeless returned to their previous
vagabond state. From the point of view of the benefactors, the project was
too expensive to maintain. Income from gifts and investments never came
close to meeting costs; the concept of self-sufficiency proved to be unrealistic, and the State was unable to cover the enormous deficit. Although the
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hopes in this experiment ended sadly, the Lateran project nevertheless had
an important and lasting effect, setting in train a series of similarly intended government measures, beginning with the hospices immediate successor,
the huge Albergo dei Poveri San Michele along the bank of the Tiber
(Fig. 18).6
Along with these institutional survivors, there was also an important
residue for the history of art. This legacy comes in the form of a series of
sculptures, seven monumental reliefs with the bust of the Saviour, that once
served as emblems of this welfare movement (Fig. 19). The reliefs were
gathered together, probably for the first time since their creation, in an extraordinary exhibition (1988) organised by my sorely missed colleague and
friend, Bruno Contardi, together with Elena di Gioia (then at the Rome
Museum, now curator at the Musei Capitolini) at the Castel SantAngelo in
Rome. The important studies carried out by Contardi and Di Gioia not
only brought these statues to light and demonstrated their consanguinity
but also revealed their common provenance from various buildings around
the city, some of considerable importance. All the buildings and their sculptures were connected, either through documentation or inscriptions, to the
Lateran hospice enterprise. Contardi and Di Gioia also clarified how this
extraordinary gallery of divine simulacra (or better, icons) created by a team
of more or less well-known sculptors in late-Baroque Rome, was created
during a single campaign from 1694 to 1695. The reliefs were mounted on
exterior facades, as ensigns to declare that the income from the buildings to
which they were affixed served to support the hospice, along with major
contributions from the papal treasury and private donations all other
charities were prohibited. In effect, the reliefs dedicated the buildings to the
mission of Charity, in imitation of Christ.
The recuperation of the group of sculptures and the identification of its
relationship to the Apostolic Hospice for the poor made it possible to reconstruct one of the most remarkable episodes in the modem artistic and
social history of Rome, and, I venture to say, of Europe generally. For it became immediately apparent that all these works were intended to recall one
model in particular, Berninis last work, the famous Bust of the Saviour, an
over-life size white marble sculpture with a base of Sicilian jasper, originally supported by a wooden pedestal consisting of two kneeling angels. This
On San Michele, see Sisinni 1990, Bevilacqua Melasecchi 2001.
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huge, quasi-iconic image, long known from preparatory studies and replicas, was thought to be lost (Fig. 20). Berninis biographers report that he left
the sculpture as a token of their mutual esteem to his friend Queen
Christina of Sweden, in whose palace it was noted by Nicodemus Tessin, Jr.,
on his visit to Rome in 168788. When Christina died in 1689 she in turn
left the work to Pope Innocent XI Odescalchi (167689), and it is last
recorded in a 1713 inventory of the Palazzo Odescalchi. The sculpture, including the jasper base recorded in the inventory but not the pedestal, came
to light recently in the sacristy of the chapel of Pope Clement XI Albani
(170021), in San Sebastiano fuori le mura (Fig. 21).7
The man who formulated the concept of the Hospice adopted by
Innocent XII, the person who contributed to the organisation and administration of the Hospice and was charged with its management, was none
other than Berninis well-loved nephew, the priest Francesco Marchese, a
leading member of the Oratorians. After the death of the artist (1680),
Marchese became an increasingly influential figure in the intellectual and
religious life of the city, with a marked interest in its social problems. He
was appointed Predicatore Apostolico (preacher to the pope) in 1689, and in
1691 wrote a treatise to describe his proposal, which comprised only part
of a much broader programme of reform. It was obviously Padre Marchese
who suggested that Berninis Bust of the Christ should serve as the Hospices
emblem. His purpose was not simply to promote his uncles work, which
was hardly necessary. He had understood that Berninis image and the
Apostolic Hospice were profoundly linked, both having been motivated by
the same new ideal of genuinely universal charity.
I am not, however, totally convinced that the idea originally came from
Marchese. Perceived as a superhuman vision, a miraculous apparition offered to the spectator by a pair of divine messengers, it cannot be
coincidental that the concetto is most closely comparable to Berninis own
design for the display of the Sacred Eucharist in St. Peters (Fig. 22).
Moreover, Berninis bust is related to two representations of Christ, among
the most important in Rome, both closely connected to San Giovanni in
Laterano. The church was originally dedicated to the Saviour in memory of
the bust-length image in the centre of the apse, which was reputed to have
appeared in heaven reciting the Pax Vobis benediction to the people on
November 9, 324, the day Pope Sylvester I consecrated the basilica on the
7
On the bust in San Sebastiano, see Lavin 2003.
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1.abc. Commemorative medals of Piazza S. Pietro, 1657, 1661, 1666.


19:03
1104
Page 18
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2. Map of Rome showing Alexanders street corrections,

piazzas and buildings. (after Krautheimer 1985, 18f., fig.7).

Page 19
1105
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1106
3. Plan of Rome under Sixtus V in the form of a star (after Bordini 1588, 44).
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1107
4. St. Peters
and Piazza.
Rome.
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1108
5a. Canaletto, view of Piazza San Marco. Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge MA.
5b. Plan of Piazza San Marco.
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6. Papirio Bartoli, Project for Piazza San Pietro, engraving.

1109
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1110
7. Colonnade of Piazza San Pietro.
8. Gianlorenzo Bernini, St. Peters and the colonnades as the pope

with embracing arms, drawing. Biblioteca Vaticana, Rome.
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9. Anonymous, Corpus Domini procession, ca. 1640.

Museo di Palazzo Venezia, Rome.
10. Pope at Window of Vatican Palace seen from Piaza San Pietro.
1111
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1112
11. Plan of Oval Piazza and

colonnaded thoroughfares.
Palmyra, Syria
(after Browning 1979, 125).
12. Colonnade of Piazza

San Pietro, annular vault.
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13. Jean Grandjean, Annular vault of the Colosseum, 1781, watercolor

(after Luciani 1993, 24).
1113
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1114
14. Colosseum. Rome.
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15. St. Peters faade and flanking porticoes.
1115
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1116
16ab. Alexander VII kneeling in the Corpus Domini procession.

a. Engraving, 1655.
b. Decennial medal, 1664. Biblioteca Vaticana, Rome.
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17. The Lateran palace as hospice for the poor, engraving

(after Piazza, 1693, frontispiece).
1117
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18. San Michele a Ripa Grande. Rome.
1118
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1119
19ab. Reliefs of the Savior. Rome, Palazzo di Montecitorio, Rome.
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20ab a. Gianlorenzo Bernini, study for the bust of the Savior, drawing. Gabinetto
nazionale dell stampe, Rome.
b. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Study for the upper part of the pedestal of the bust of the Savior,
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22. Gianlorenzo Bernini, study for a Monstrance,

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21. Gianlorenzo Bernini, bust of the Savior.

S. Sebastiano fuori le mura, Rome.

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1121
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23. Apse mosaic, detail. S. Giovanni in Laterano.
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24. Emblem of the

Archconfraternity of the SS.
Salvatore ad Sancta Sanctorum.
Hospital of S. Giovanni in
Laterano, Rome.
25. Gianlorenzo Bernini, caricature of Innocent XI, drawing.

Museum der bildenden Knste, Leipzig.
1123
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authority of the Emperor Constantine the Great (Fig. 23). The second
image was linked to the Venerabile Compagnia dell Imagine pi Sacra del
Santissimo Salvatore nel Sancta Sanctorum. This noble confraternity, one of
the oldest in Rome, was given the task of protecting the icon of Christ
housed in the Sancta Sanctorum. It was also responsible for overseeing the
administration of the great hospital for the poor and sick that was annexed
to the Lateran church in the late Middle Ages. The emblem of this confraternity was a bust of Christ, reminiscent of the mosaic image in the apse,
with the addition of a base decorated as a parapet (Fig. 24). The emblem
was printed on the confraternitys documents and, in the form of sculptured
reliefs, were affixed to the buildings serving the hospital. These likenesses
and their associations surely inspired Innocent XII to use Berninis image
for the Hospice.
I suspect, however, that Bernini himself had been inspired to make his
bust of the Saviour in allusion first and foremost to the images of Christ at
the Lateran, as the project for the new Hospice was being discussed; and
that he conceived of his own image being used exactly as it was used twenty years later, the model for the other ensigns representing the Hospices
Charity. This hypothesis, in turn, throws light on a problem connected to
the biographers account of the history of Berninis sculpture. They report
that he executed the bust when he was 80 years old (1678), and that he left
it in a legacy to Queen Christina. Considering the heroic scale of the work,
standing overall some ten feet (300 cm) high, it was better suited to a public monument than to a private devotional image, even for the use of a
Queen. It is tempting to suppose that Bernini had already thought of the
bust in 1676, with the idea of placing it in the new Hospice to be set up in
the Lateran Palace, according to Sozzinis restructuring project. The inability, or rather the refusal of Innocent XI Odescalchi to bring the project to a
conclusion could have been one of the reasons why Bernini made the devastating caricature of Innocent as a shrewish hypochondriac, the No-Pope,
Papa-Minga in his popular Lombard dialect nickname (Fig. 25).
It is astonishing in retrospect to grasp a common thread running
through this almost fifty-year period of Roman social reform. One figure
may be traced through the long history of the idea of housing in the Lateran
palace of the popes a hospice for the poor, from its inception under
Alexander VII to its realisation by Francesco Marchese, that of Gianlorenzo
Bernini himself. Perhaps it is far-fetched to suggest that a mere artist might
have contributed to the invention as well as the definition and realisation of
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this great venture in the development of the modern city. In any case, in the
Piazza San Pietro Bernini certainly approached the burgeoning problems of
unemployment with a new vision, and in the bust of the Saviour created a
new image of the model of charity that inspired it.
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collospizio publico fondata dalla piet e beneficenza di Nostro Signore
Innocenzo XII pontefice massimo con le riposte allobiezioni contro simili
fondazioni, Rome, 1693.
Roca de Amicis, Augusto, La piazza e il colonnato, in Antonio Pinelli, ed.,
La basilica di San Pietro in Vaticano, 4 Vols., Modena, 2000, Saggi,
283301.
Sforza Pallavicino, Della vita di Alessandro VII, 2 Vols., Prato, 183940.
Sisinni, Francesco, ed., Il San Michele a Ripa Grande, Rome, 1990.
Lavin XXVIIIa. Revised.qxd:Layout 1
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XXVIII
The Young Bernini
N CERTAIN rare and delicate situations Richard Krautheimer was fond

of recalling the words of one of the most distinguished French art historians of the preceding generation, Marcel Aubert, who, with a long beard
and aulic dignity, began a grand, formal lecture to the general assembly of
the Academie Franaise, of which he was a member, with the immortal declaration, Eh bien, je me suis tromp! Speaking on this occasion on this
subject in this city, I take a certain perverse pleasure in being able to join
the august ranks of Marcel Aubert and Richard Krautheimer and proclaim
Moi aussi, je me suis tromp! In a lecture delivered over thirty years ago,
January 1966, at the American Academy in Rome and published two years
later in a long article in The Art Bulletin, I presented five new sculptures by
Gianlorenzo Bernini, two of which I had discovered and the others newly
identified (one of these by Marilyn Aronberg Lavin)1. Four of the sculptures
were securely dated by documents, and, as it happened, all belonged to the
earliest period of Berninis creative life (Fig. 1). One of these, the portrait of
Giovanni Coppola in San Giovanni dei Fiorentini is a terrifying work, not
only because of its stark and cadaverous portrayal, based on a death mask,
of an old man who had recently died at age seventy-nine; the work is also
terrific because it was commissioned in March and completed in August
1612, when Bernini was thirteen years old (he was born in December
1598). The discovery of the portrait and the relevant documentation pro1
Lavin (Irving), Five Youthful Sculptures by Gianlorenzo Bernini and a Revised
Chronology of his Early Works, The Art Bulletin, L, 1968, pp. 223248; unless otherwise
noted, the documentation referred to here will be found in that article. Unless otherwise
noted, the translations are mine.
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vided direct confirmation of the essential validity of the tradition reported

by Berninis early biographers and by the artist himself, that he was a veritable child prodigy who won early fame because of his uncanny ability to
make likenesses and carve marble at an incredibly young age. Both
Baldinucci and Domenico Bernini in their biographies of the artist, and
Bernini himself, as recorded by Chantelou in his diary of the artists visit to
Paris in 1665, report that Berninis first public commission was a portrait
bust, and that he won acclaim when he was brought before an incredulous
Pope Paul V, for whom Gianlorenzos father, Pietro, was then executing
important commissions; the boy demonstrated his ability by drawing a
head of St. Paul before the popes very eyes.
Portraits
Baldinucci:
The first work to emerge from his chisel in Rome was a marble head that
was placed in the Church of S. Potenziana. Bernini had then scarcely
completed his tenth year. Paul V, greatly impressed by the acclaim
aroused by such merit, wished to see the youth. He called for him and
asked in jest, if he could sketch a head. Giovanni Lorenzo in reply asked
which head he wished. If this is the case, the Pope remarked, you know
how to do everything, and ordered him to sketch a St. Paul. This he did
to perfection with free bold strokes in half an hour to the keen delight
and marvel of the Pope.2
2
Baldinucci (Filippo), The life of Bernini, translated from the Italian by Catherine
Enggass, University Park, PA, 1966, p. 9. La prima opera, che uscisse dal suo scarpello in Roma
fu una testa di marmo situata nella chiesa di S. Potenziana; avendo egli allora il decimo anno di
sua et appena compito. Per la qual. cosa maravigliosamente commosso Paolo V dal chiaro grido
di cotanta virt, ebbe vaghezza di vedere il giovanetto; e fattoselo condurre davanti, gli domand,
come per ischerzo, se avesse saputo fargli colla penna una testa; e rispondendogli Giovan Lorenzo
che testa voleva, soggiunse il pontefice Se cos, le sa far tutte e ordinatogli che facesse un S. Paolo,
gli di perfezione in mezzora, con franchezza di tratto libero e con sommo diletto e maravglia
del papa. (Baldinucci [Filippo], Vita del Cavaliere Gio. Lorenzo Bernino, 1st ed. Florence,
1682, ed. Sergio Samek Ludovici, Milan, 1948, p. 74.)
It is worth noting that the subject referred not only to the popes namesake but also to
the relic of the beheaded saint whose body, together with that of St. Peter, was divided
between and Lateran and St. Pauls Outside the Walls. See Lavin (Irving), Bernini and the
Crossing of Saint Peters, New York, 1968, p. 1.
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THE YOUNG BERNINI
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Domenico:
The pope, who by nature had a venerable aspect, wanted to test the
courage of the youngster by frightening him further, and, turning to
him with a grave voice commanded him there in his presence to draw a
head. Gianlorenzo, boldly taking pen in hand and spreading the paper
on the Popes own table, hesitated at tracing the first line; modestly
inclining his head toward the Pope he asked, What head he desired, a
man, a woman, young, old, and in any case what expression, sad, happy,
disdainful or pleasant? If this is so, the pope observed, then you can do
them all, and he ordered him to do that of St. Paul. In a few strokes of
the pen and with an admirable boldness of hand he finished it quickly
with such mastery that the Pope was impressed and remarked to some
cardinals who happened to be present, This boy will be the
Michelangelo of his time.3
Domenico:
This first, honorable entrance into the Apostolic Palace, the welcome
accorded him by the Cardinal, and the praise received from the Pope,
made him celebrated in Rome, universally acclaimed and pointed to by
all as a young man of not ordinary promise. He had already begun to
work at sculpture, and his first work was a head of marble situated in the
church of S. Pudenziana, and such other small statues as his young age
permitted, and they all appeared so masterfully executed that the celebrated Annibale Carracci, having seen some of them, said, He had
3
Il Pontefice, Venerabile per natura di aspetto, volle provar lintrepidezza del Giovane,
con affettargli ancora il terrore, & a lui rivolto con suono grave di voce gli command, che
quivi in sua presenza disegnasse una Testa. Gio: Lorenzo presa con franchezza n mano le
penna, e spianata sopra il Tavolino medesimo del Papa la Carta, nel dar principio alla prima
linea, si fermalquanto sospeso, e poi chinando il capo modestamente verso il Pontefice,
richieselo, Che Testa voleva, se di Huomo, d Donna, di Giouane, di Vecchio, e se pur
qualche una di esse, in quale atto la desiderava, se mesta, allegra, se sdegrosa, piaceuole?
Se cos, soggiunse allhora il Papa, le s far tuttee, & ordinatogli, che facesse quella di S.
Paolo, in pochi tratti di penna, e con una franchezza ammirabile di mano la tir subbito a
fine con maestria tale, che ne rest ammirato il Papa, e quanto sol disse ad alcuni Cardinali,
che quivi allhora presenti a caso si ritrovarono, Questo Fanciullo sar il Michel Angelo del
suo tempo . . . (Bernini [Domenico], Vita del Cavalier Gio. Lorenzo Bernini, Rome, 1713,
pp. 89).
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arrived in art at that young age, where others might vaunt to reach in
old age.4
Chantelou:
The Cavaliere (said that) at the age of eight (he) had done a head of St.
John which was presented to Paul V by his chamberlain. His Holiness
could not believe that he had done it and asked if he would draw a head
in his presence. He agreed and pen and paper were sent for. When he
was ready to begin he asked His Holiness what head he wished him to
draw. At that the Pope realized that it was really the boy who had done
the St. John, for he had believed that he would draw some conventional
head. He asked him to draw 5
Chantelou:
He said that at six years, he had done a head in a bas-relief by his
father, and at seven another, which Paul V could hardly believe was by
him; to satisfy his own mind, he asked him if he would draw a head for
him. When the paper had been brought he asked His Holiness boldly
what head he should do, so that he should not think he was going to
Questa prima entratura tanto honorevole, che egli hebbe nel Palazzo Pontoficio, le
accoglienze a lui fatte dal Cardinale, e la lode ricevuta dal Papa, lo resero cos celebre per
Roma, che da tutti universalmente era acclamato, e mostrato a dito, come Giovane di non
ordinaria espettazione. Haveva gia egli dato principio a lavorare di Scultura, e la fua prima
opera f una Testa di marmo situata nella Chiesa di S. Potenziana, & altre picciole Statue,
quali gli permetteva let in cui era di dieci anni, e tutte apparivano cos maestrevolmente
lavorate, che havendone qualcheduna veduta il celebre Annibale Caracci, disse, Esser egli
arrivato nell arte in quella icciola et, dove altri potevano gloriarsi di giungere nella
uecchiezza. (Bernini, Vita . . ., ibidem, pp. 910.)
5
Chantelou (Paul Frart de), Diary of the Cavaliere Berninis Visit to France, ed. Anthony
Blunt and George C. Bauer, Princeton, 1985, p. 102, August 5. Le Cavalier a dit . . . qu
huit ans mme il avait fait un chef de Saint-Jean qui fut prsent Paul V par son mitre de
chambre: que Sa Saintet ne voulait pas croire quil let fait, et lui demanda sil pourrait dessiner
une tte en sa prsence: quayanat rpondu quoui, Sa Saintet lui avaiat fair apporter une plume
et du papier et que, prt commencer, il lui demanda quelle tte Sa Saintet voulait quil
dessint; qu cela elle avait connue que ctait lui qui avait fait un chef de Saint-Jean, pensant
auparavant quil allait dessiner quelque tte de manire; que le Pape lui demanda une tte de
Sant-Paul quil dessina en sa prsence. (Chantelou [Paul Frart de], Journal du Cavalier Bernin
en France, ed. Ludovic Lalanne, Paris, 1885, p. 84.)
4
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THE YOUNG BERNINI
1131
work from memory; then the Pope realized that is was indeed he who
had done it and asked him to do St. Paul.6
All the documents concerning the Coppola bust were in the name of
Pietro Bernini, who was indeed a marvelous sculptor, literally marvelous
according to Bagliones account of his astonishing ability to carve complex
statues directly in the marble, without a model:
Pietro handled marble with such assurance that he had few rivals in this
respect. One day in Naples I myself saw him make a few marks with
charcoal on a piece of marble and immediately set to work with his
chisel; without any further design, he carved three figures from nature,
creating a capricious fountain. It was amazing to behold the facility with
which he worked. Had he been better at design, his technical facility
would have brought him much further.7
In fact, this fabled technical facility of Berninis father, which was surely
what first brought him to the attention of Paul V, is in itself one of the
strongest reasons to lend credence to the reports of the sons prodigious virtuosity. But, quite apart from the character and quality of the Coppola bust,
there is ample historical evidence to indicate that the person who actually
carved it was Gianlorenzo. In 1612 Pietro was 50 years old with a long
record of accomplishments in Florence, Naples, and Rome, which continued until his death in 1629 and earned him Bagliones admiring, if quali6
Blunt-Bauer, Diary . . ., cited in note 5, p. 260, 6 October. Il a dit qu six ans il fit une
tte dans un bas-relief di son pre, sept ans une autre, ce que Paul V ne voulait pas croire quand
il la vit: que pour sen claircir il demanda sil dessinerait bien une tte, quil rpondit Sa
Saintet quoui, et que lui ayant t apport du papier, il demanda hardiment au pape quelle tte
il voulait quil fit, afin quil ne crt pas quil en fit une de mmoire, qualors Sa Saintet dit quil
voyait bien quil lavait faite, et lui dit de fair un saint Paul. (Chantelou, Journal . . ., cited in
note 5, p. 247.)
7
Pietro con ogni franchezza maneggiaua il marmo s, che in ci pochi pari egli hebbe. Et vn
giorno in Napoli, io stesso il vidi, che prendendo vn carbone, e con esso sopra vn marmo facendo
alcuni segni, subito vi messe dentro i ferri, e senzaltro disegno vi cau tre figure dal naturale, per
formare vn capriccio da fontana, e con tanta facilit il trattaua, che era stupore il vederlo. E se
questhuomo hauesse hauuto maggior disegno, per la facilit delloperare si sarebbe assai auanzato.
(Baglione [Giovanni] Le vite de pittori scultori et architetti dal pontificato di Gregorio XIII. del
1572. In fino atempi di Papa Urbino Ottovo nel 1642, Rome, 1642; ed. Valerio Mariani,
Rome, 1935, p. 305.)
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fied, biography. In all this abundant documentation there is not a single

record of Pietro Bernini ever having carved a portrait bust, not a single one,
not in Florence, not in Naples, and never in Rome. Portraiture, after all, is
not every artists cup of tea; another well known sculptor who never made
portraits was Michelangelo Buonarroti. Conversely, in the years immediately following the Coppola bust and continuing until Pietros death, there
are no less than four documented instances in which father and son worked
together on commemorative monuments, and in every instance it was the
father who carved the accompanying figures, while Gianlorenzo carved the
portrait busts. The series begins in the Barberini chapel in Sant Andrea
della Valle, where documents for various works appear in Pietros name
beginning in 1614 and continue thus until Gianlorenzos name appears
early in 1619, when he received payments for the busts of Maffeo
Barberinis mother (Fig. 2) and father (now lost); the busts were actually
placed in the chapel but were soon removed for display in the Barberini
palace. Subsequently, father and son worked together on three more such
monuments, where exactly the same thing happened: Pietro created the
accompanying figures, Gianlorenzo made the busts: Cardinal Dolfin in
Venice (Fig. 3), Cardinal Escoubleau de Sourdis in Bordeaux (Fig. 4), and
Cardinal Bellarmine in Rome (Fig. 5).
Mirabile dictu, the Coppola bust is not even the first work of this kind
by Bernini. Baldinucci and Domenico report that Berninis first public
work was a marble head in S. Pudenziana, universally identified with the
famous bust of Giovanni Battista Santoni (Fig. 6). I have always suspected
that, perhaps owing to some misunderstanding, Chantelous report that
Bernini said he had made a head of San Giovanni at age eight, might in fact
refer to the Santoni portrait. In any case, the dates assigned to the bust by
the artist and his biographers were consistently dismissed by modern scholars, who neglected to follow the lead offered by the inscription on the tomb
itself. The text states that Giovanni Battista Santoni had been Bishop of
Tricarico in Calabria and died in 1592, and that the monument was commissioned by his nephew Giovanni Antonio, who was Bishop of Policastro.
Giovanni Battista, in other words, had long been dead; what was the occasion that elicited the nephews gesture of posthumous commemoration?
The obvious explanation is that Giovanni Antonio was also commemorating his own elevation to the same high rank attained by his uncle. Giovanni
Battista Santoni was made bishop in April 1610. Fifty years later Bernini
misremembered or exaggerated when he said he was eight years old. But in
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THE YOUNG BERNINI
1133
April 1610 he had indeed scarcely completed his tenth year, exactly as
Baldinucci and Domenico report.8 The dates are incontrovertible and the
only alternative to concluding that Bernini deserved his reputation as an
astonishingly gifted prodigy, is to assume that the portraits of Coppola and
Santoni were the work of the father, as some have done, despite the fact that
one cannot point to another portrait bust by Pietro, either before or after,
and despite the fact that the son began his career as a prodigious portraitist
and went on to become one of the greatest portrait sculptors in the history
of art.
In the final analysis, however, what makes the Coppola bust an unforgettable image is its extraordinary effect of somber, almost spectral antiquity. The quality has sometimes been explained by the fact that, as we
know from the documents, it was made from a death mask, as if the model
made the task of portraiture in marble somehow easier, more mechanical,
more realistic than the living sitter. In fact, the work is a deliberate existential pun: it represents exactly what it is, a posthumous portrait of frail
but heroic old age. Psychologically, the bust is a profound, one might well
say mythic evocation of the dead past in the living present; typologically, it
is an unprecedented evocation of classical antiquity in its revival of a pose
and drapery arrangement familiar from Roman funerary portraiture (Fig.
7). The form and content together bespeak a new era, in statu nascendi.
Coronation of Clement VIII
Ironically, the first of the failings in which je me suis tromp is a lamentable oversight concerning one of Berninis most egregious exaggerations,
precisely in the domain of portraiture. I must say at the outset, however, that
in the end the oversight turns out to be another confirmation of the essential truth of Berninis claim to youthful prowess. Discussing Gianlorenzos
early portraiture I considered the one and only work by Pietro that does contain a portrait, his depiction of the coronation of Clement VIII on that
popes tomb in S. Maria Maggiore (Figs. 8, 9). I pointed out that the sharply
individualized head of the pope is completely unlike those of the other fig8
My dating based on the inscription, which I offered in my original lecture (January,
1966), was followed by Cesare dOnofrio, who was present in the audience! (DOnofrio
[Cesare], Roma vista da Roma, Rome, 1967 [finito di stampare December 1967, cf. p. 455],
p. 116. A report was published in Life, LXII, no. 2, January 20, 1967, pp. 6674.
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ures in the relief, which instead bear a marked similarity to each other and
to Pietros generic repertory of male types. I tentatively suggested that the
popes head might actually be the work of the son. Much to my chagrin I
failed to recall then the crucial passage concerning this very work recorded
in the account, quoted above, that Bernini gave to Chantelou of his early
encounter with Paul V: He said that at six years, he had done a head in a
bas-relief by his father, and at seven another.
Much more important than the age reported here, is the fact that the
passage must indeed refer to the S. Maria Maggiore relief, and not just
because this is Pietro Berninis only relief containing a portrait. When
Bernini speaks of executing two portraits in consecutive years, he was telling
a truth that only he could have recalled, because the documents record the
extraordinary fact that two reliefs were indeed actually carried out and
installed, one after the other. On November 2, 1612, Pietro was paid 249
scudi:
per rifare di novo da Pietro Eernino scultore la Historia
della lncoronazione della bo: me: di Papa Clemente Ottavo per servitio del
Deposito suo nella Capella che S. S.ta ha fato fare in S.ta Maria Maggiore
And on January 19, 1614, he received 600 scudi:
per resto et intiero pagamento delle due Historie di marmo
della Incoronatione della felice memoria di papa Clemente
da lui fatte una di quali posta nel Deposito di esso papa
Clemente in la capella che S. S. ha facto fare in S.ta
Marie Maggiore . . .9
We have no idea why the first version was replaced, but it was certainly
completed by November 1612, and the second by January 1614. While
Bernini after 50 years may well have misremembered and, consciously or
not, exaggerated his youth at the time, it would be unthinkably cynical to
suppose that he would claim for his own the work of his father, and equally
unthinkable that he could have imagined his listeners in Paris or posterity
would realize that the work in question was the relief in S. Maria Maggiore,
9
The documents are cited after Muoz (Antonio), Il padre del Bernini. Pietro Bernini
scultore (15621629), in Vita darte, IV, 1909, pp. 469470.
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THE YOUNG BERNINI
1135
much less that it was executed in two versions in the years 16121614. The
portrait of Clement is thus certainly not tentatively by Gianlorenzo,
and follows by a few months the bust of Antonio Coppola, for which Pietro
received payments from March 8 through August 10, 1612. Gianlorenzo
was then not six or seven, as he claimed, but between thirteen and fifteen
still young enough to be proud of, I would say! A similar and synchronous case is that of a now lost portrait of Alessandro Ludovisi (later Gregory
XV) which Domenico Bernini (p. 20) reports his father made before
Ludovisi left Rome to take up his new post as archbishop of Bologna.
Writing a century later, Domenico cannot have expected his readers to
recall that Ludovisi was elected archbishop in March 1612.
St. Sebastian and St. Lawrence
The discovery of the Coppola bust and the early date for that of Santoni
led me to reconsider the dates traditionally assigned to other juvenile works
by Gianlorenzo. For example, Italo Faldi had discovered the payment in
1615 for a pedestal for the Capra Amaltea, which established a terminus ante
quem for that work (Fig. 10). But the same payment also includes a pedestal
for a very similar, anonymous sculpture that was paid for much earlier, in
1609 (Fig. 11). If that was also the case with the Capra Amaltea, then
Bernini was 10 years old when he made it. And why not? especially since
many scholars have suggested that it must have been among the picciole
statue, much admired by the celebrated painter Annibale Carracci, which
Domenico Bernini says his father carved immediately after the Santoni
bust.
What neither Bernini himself nor Domenico Bernini can have anticipated was that his readers would know that Annibale Carracci died in July
1609, when Bernini was ten. In my opinion, such a perfect coordination of
independently determined dates, reported by the biographers and deducible
from the facts the date of the Santoni bust, that of the likely acquisition
of the Capra amaltea, and the terminus ante quem established by the
encounter with Carracci cannot be simply fortuitous. Much more reasonable simply to assume that Bernini was indeed able to do certain kinds
of things earlier, much earlier, than most people thought and still think
credible!
On the other hand, the wonderful discovery by Patrizia Cavazzini of the
payments to Pietro Bernini for two works by his son the Boy defeating a
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Marine Dragon now in the Getty Museum, listed in a Barberini inventory

as an opera puerile of Gianlorenzo, and the St. Sebastian calls for a radical reformulation of other elements of the chronology I proposed for his
early work (Figs. 12, 13).10 I placed both these sculptures earlier than had
been assumed, about 1614 and 1615, respectively, whereas in fact Pietro
Bernini received payment for them in December 1617.11 The discovery is
important for many reasons. What the discovery does not do, however, is
invalidate the relative chronology and the claims to precocity of the young
Bernini. Rudolph Wittkower emphatically maintained that the St.
Lawrence preceded the St. Sebastian, dating them 16161617, 16171618
respectively. In recognizing that the St. Lawrence was earlier Wittkower was
surely correct: the question is, by how much? It is significant that neither
Baldinucci nor Domenico Bernini mentions a date for the St. Sebastian, but
both record that Bernini made the St. Lawrence when he was fifteen, that is,
in 1614:
Meanwhile, still in his fifteenth year, he carved the figure of St.
Lawrence on the gridiron for Leone Strozzi, which was placed in the
Strozzi villa.12
. . . at age fifteen he portrayed in himself the true torment of a St.
Lawrence in to order carve a feigned one . . . and among the many per-
10
The discovery is reported by Sebastian Schtze in Bernini scultore. La nascita del
Barocco in Casa Borghese (exhib. cat. Rome), Rome, 1998, p. 83. The documents were discovered by Patrizia Cavazzini, who also published them in Effigies & Ecstasies. Roman
Baroque Sculpture and Design in the Age of Bernini, exhib. cat., Edinburgh, 1998, p. 90. The
closely associated payments in themselves testify that the sculptures are by Gianlorenzo.
Moreover, both Schtze and Cavazzini conveniently suppress the explicit attribution of the
Boy with the Marine Dragon to Gianlorenzo by Niccol Menghini in a 1632 inventory of the
Barberini collection: Un putto qual tiene un drago alto palmi 21/2 fatto dal Cavalier Bernini.
(Lavin, Five Youthful Sculptures, cited in note 1, p. 230). Menghini was himself a sculptor
closely associated with Bernini, for whom he worked extensively at St. Peter's. He certainly
knew whereof he wrote, and his attribution stayed with the sculpture when it became a
diplomatic gift in 1702 from Cardinal Carlo Barberini to Philip V of Spain.
11
una Statuetta di Marmo bianco di un putto sopra un drago Marino 114.20; una Statua
di Marmo bianco di un San Sebastiano 114.50.
12
Baldinucci, The Life . . ., cited in note 2, p. 12. Correva egli intanto il quindicesmo di
sua et quando e fece vedere scolpita di sua mano la figura di S. Lorenzo sopra la graticola per
Leone Strozzi, che fu posta nella lor villa. (Baldinucci, Vita . . ., cited in note 2, pp. 77 f.)
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THE YOUNG BERNINI
1137
sons who convened, the most noble Leone Strozzi was so taken with it
that he acquired it, and today it is to be seen in his delightful villa on
the Viminal.13
These statements also confirm the priority of the St. Lawrence. The
sculpture was owned by Leone Strozzi, whose uncle, Cardinal Lorenzo (d.
1571), was buried in the Strozzi family chapel, across the nave in
SantAndrea della Valle from the Barberini chapel, which covered the site
where Saint Sebastian was supposed to have been thrown into the Cloaca
Maxima, and which replaced an earlier church called San Sebastianello.
According to Baldinucci Gianlorenzo made the St. Lawrence for Leone
Strozzi, while Domenico suggests that Strozzi acquired it only after seeing
it. In the latter case, Bernini may have begun the work as a play on his own
name, or with the intention of selling it to Strozzi as an avuncular commemoration for his family chapel; the two motivations are by no means
incompatible. The altar wall of the Strozzi chapel displays bronze statues
copied after Michelangelo, bearing the date 1616 (Fig. 14). If the St.
Lawrence was intended for the Strozzi chapel, 1616 would then be a terminus ante quem and the sources dating of 1614 may not be too far off. It can
scarcely be coincidental that the two closely connected families should have
closely similar and virtually contemporaneous works by the same artist at
the same time that both families were creating family chapels across the
nave from each other in the same church, one containing a commemoration of St. Sebastian, the other including the tomb of an important member of the family named Lorenzo. We know in fact that Maffeo Barberini
withheld for himself a painting by Ludovico Carracci he had commissioned
for the chapel, and that he actually removed two of the four cherubs (Fig.
15) as well as the busts of his mother and father, all made by Bernini and
mounted in the chapel, to display them at home in the family palace; the
Strozzi may have done the same. The most likely hypothesis is that the two
saintly images were similarly intended for the patrons respective chapels,
but never actually installed.
13
. . . in eta di quindici anni . . . ritrasse in se il tormento di un S. Lorenzo vero per iscolpirne
un finto . . . e fr quegli innumerabili Personaggi, che vi concorsero, Leone Strozzi Nobilissimo
Romano se ne invagh in modo, che lo volle per se, e presentemente si vede nella sua deliziosa Villa
del Viminale. (Bernini, Vita . . ., cited in note 2, pp. 15 f.).
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1138
Payments
The relationship between father and son is extraordinary, indeed unique,
to my knowledge, in another way. We now have a whole series of instances
in which payments for works by the young Bernini were received by his
father. This had been known to be the case with the bust of Coppola and
the Angels in the Barberini chapel, and now we have the Boy Defeating a
Marine Dragon and the St. Sebastian. In fact, no payments to Gianlorenzo
are recorded from this early period and I do not believe it was simply a
matter of greed or parental arrogance on Pietros part. I suspect, rather, that
it was a legal matter: Gianlorenzo could not sign contracts or receive payment for work as a professional sculptor until he had reached the age of
maturity and entered the sculptors guild as a master. Bernini is recorded
as saying that he had become a master at an early age, at the time he was
assiduously studying Michelangelos Florentine Piet, which was then in
Rome. As I pointed out long ago, the effects of this study are clearly visible in the figure of St. Sebastian, for which Pietro received payment in
December of 1617. At the Barberini chapel Pietro signed all the documents, including the contract in which he guarantees his sons participation in the execution, until Gianlorenzo began to receive payments in his
own name, after which Pietro is never again mentioned. The hypothesis
that Gianlorenzo came of age professionally in 1618 is consistent with his
own report that he had become a maestro early, since admission to the
sculptors guild normally took place between the ages of 20 and 25, and
Bernini would have celebrated his twentieth birthday on December 7,
1618. (Bernini was in fact a member of the sculptors guild, to which he
made generous contributions during his lifetime.) The date is supported in
the precedent chronology by the fact that Pietro took payment in 1617 for
the Boy defeating a Marine Dragon and the St. Sebastian and continued to
do so for the work at SantAndrea delta Valle until July 1618; the next payment, in April 1619, was to Gianlorenzo and included all the works that
he may have made . . . together with his father up to the present day.
Heretofore unpublished documents dated December 5, 1618, and January
6, 1619, seem to be the first recorded payments to Gianlorenzo Bernini as
an independent artist. On those dates he received a total of 250 scudi for
another statue of St. Sebastian, commissioned by Pietro Aldobrandini, presumably for a niche above the entrance to the chapel dedicated to that
saint in the left wing of the famous nymphaeum in the Villa Aldobrandini
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THE YOUNG BERNINI
1139
at Frascati (Fig. 16).14 This St. Sebastian was instead kept in the
Aldobrandini palace at Magnanapoli in Rome, where it is described in an
inventory of 1682 and included in Baldinuccis list of Berninis works.15
N.B.: These documents were first presented in my paper Bernini giovane at the Villa
Medici conference in February 1999; in the meanwhile, a series of parallel documents concerning the Aldobrandini St. Sebastian has been published, with similar observations and
phraseology, by Laura Testa, Documenti inediti sullo scomparso San Sebastiano
Aldobrandini del giovane Gian Lorenzo Bernini, in Bollettino darte, LXXXVI, 2001, pp.
131135. Testa found important additional documentation that the following year Ippolito
Buzio made another figure of St. Sebastian, which was in fact installed at Frascati (payment
for transportation cited below), whereas that by Bernini remained in Rome. It seems likely
that Bernini's figure was first intended for the niche at Frascati, but upon seeing it the patron
decided to keep it at home, commissioning a substitute for the original location. The situation would thus astonishingly duplicate what happened at virtually the same moment with
two of the four putti Gianlorenzo made for the Barberini chapel in Sant Andrea della Valle:
Maffeo removed them to his own house and commissioned substitutes for the chapel, evidently from Francesco Mochi. The coincidence also extends to Berninis two St. Sebastians,
not only in subject matter but in the fact that the Barberini figure must likewise have originated in relation to the Saint Sebastian commemoration adjoining the family chapel but was
kept as part of the private art collection. (See above, and Lavin, Five Youthful Sculptures,
cited in note 1, pp. 232237.) One suspects a deliberate collusion and/or competition
among the patrons (Barberini, Strozzi, Aldobrandini) for the work of the young prodigy!
Rome, Archivio Doria Pamfili; Fondo Aldobrandini (see Vignodelli Rubrichi [Renato],
Il Fondo Aldobrandini nellarchivio Doria Landi Pamphili, in Archivio della societ
romana di storia patria, no. XCI, 1969)
Busta 19, Reg. de Mandati, Card. Pietro Aldobrandini H 16181620
fol. 39 recto: a di detto [5 xbre 1618] paga.ti a Gio: Lorenzo Bernini scultore sc. 100 m.a
et sono a buon c.to duno S.to Bast.o di Marmo che ha fatto p. s.vitio di Casa nrasc 100
fol. 42 verso:
a di detto [8 di Genn.o 1619] pag.ti a Gio: Lorenzo Bernini scultore sc 150 m.a et sono a
complim.to di sc 250 p.to [per resto] et intero pagam.to duno S.to Bast.o di marmo fattoci p.
s.vitio di casa nra che rest.o sc 100 seli sono fatti pag.re sotto di 5 di xbre pass.to che con sua ric.ta
vi si fan.o bonisc 150
restino di
fol. 60 verso:
a di detti [x di Giug.no 1619] pag.a a Bern.do Carrettiere sc 18 m.a et sono p. la vett.ra di
12 cavalli che anno portato alla nra Villa di belv.re 2 statue di marmo che p.a S. bast.o e laltra
Venere a g.l [giuli] 15 p. cavallosc 18
fol. 63 verso:
et adi detti [p.o di luglio 1619] pag.ti a Bern.do Carrettiere sc 18 m.a et sono p la vett.ra di
12 cavalli che anno p.tato a la nra Villa di belv.re dua statue di marmo che una di S.to Bast.no
e la altra una Venere a g.li 15 p. cavallosc 18
in margin: non ha hauto effetto che ha pag.to il monte
15
Busta 30.a.15311682, Inventario di beni di Olimpia Aldobrandini Pamphilj, a. 1682
fol. 535 recto (Villa Belvedere, Frascati):
14
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Putto Morsicato
Je me suis tromp also in another sense. By a remarkable coincidence there
came to light at the same time as the Getty sculpture a closely related work,
a sort of miserable alter ego of the graceful and smiling Boy defeating a
Marine Dragon commissioned by Maffeo Barberini (Fig. 17), showing a
Boy struggling in agony with a different kind of marine monster that takes
a ferocious bite out of his leg (Figs. 18, 19).16 Taken together, as in some
sense they must be, the sculptures seem to have been born together as contrasting offspring of the putti in the Bacchic group in the Metropolitan
Museum, to be considered presently. They display Berninis astonishing
psychological precocity emphasized in Domenico Berninis description
of the episode with Paul V and evident already in the Capra Amaltea.
Absolutely without parallel in the work of Pietro Bernini, they foreshadow
the high psycho moral drama of the Anima Beata and Anima Dannata that
Gianlorenzo carved for a tomb monument in 1619, at age 21. I suggested
that the sculpture now in Berlin was identical with one recorded in several
inventories of the Ludovisi family collection, and described by Bellori. I
cited three Ludovisi inventories:17
1623: Un Puttino di marmo bianco, qual piange che una vipera la morsicato alto p.i 21/2 in circa
Al Teatro.
Nellentrare nella Cappella di S. Sebastiano.
Una statua di Marmo di S. Sebastiano dentro la Nicchia, alto a proportione della medema
nicchia, attacato ad un tronco frezzato, descritta nellInventario sudetto del S.re Cardinale
foglio 651.
fol. 366 recto (palazzo a Magnanapoli):
Camera sopra la strada
Un S. Sebastiano di marmo legato ad un tronco, con armatura alto palmi otto, incirca, con
piedestallo di legno bianco, e cornice dorata, come a detto Inventario a N.o 109).
Baldinucci, Vita . . ., cited in note 2, p. 178: S. SebastianoPrincipessa di Rossano
(Olimpia Aldobrandini, Jr., deceased owner of the palace).
The sculpture was last mentioned in an inventory of 17091710 (Testa, cited in n. 14,
p. 135, n. 38).
16
On this work see most recently Bernini scultore . . ., cited in note 10, pp. 96101. The
original complementarity of the sculptures may have been reflected in the fact that in the
1960s both were sold under temporary import licenses by the same Florentine dealer,
Francesco Romano.
17
Lavin, Five Youthful Sculptures, cited in note 1, p. 232, note 67.
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THE YOUNG BERNINI
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1633: Un puttino di marmo piangente a sedere in una mappa di fiori

morzicato da una vipera, sopra una base di marmo mischio mano del
Caval. re Bernino
1641: Un Putto moderno opra del Sig.r Cavalier Bernino, siede tra lherba
morso da un serpe.
Since that time Jennifer Montagu has found the work in two later
Ludovisi inventories. These new descriptions of the extraordinary motif add
a crucial and unequivocal detail that identifies the work even more distinctly the boy was bitten on the leg:
1665: et altra sedente sopra fronde in atto languente con un serpe, che gli
morde una gamba . . .
1705: Un puttino assiso sopra certi fiori, il quale vienrnorsicato nella
gamba da una Vipera lavoro originale del Cavalier Bernino.18
There can be no reasonable doubt that the Berlin sculpture is indeed the
one that belonged to the Ludovisi. The sinuous, indeed serpentine movement and strangely distorted expression recall Pietros mannerisms and
relate it closely to one of the putti in the Metropolitan sculpture. It may not
be coincidental that in 1642 Baglione records certain statues and groups
made by Pietro Bernini for Leone Strozzi to be seen in the garden of the
villa which Strozzi had purchased from the Frangipani family,
Alcune statue, a gruppi per il Signor Leone Strozzi al Giardino de Signori
Frangipani a Termini19
and that a sculpture similar in subject and size was recorded in a 1641
inventory of Mario Frangipani, the patron of Algardi:
Un putto moderno che lo morde un serpe alto palmi due e mezzo in circa.20
Montagu (Jennifer), Alessandro Algardi, 2 Vols., New Haven, 1985, p. 419.

Baglione, Le vite . . ., cited in note 7, p. 305.
20
Montagu, Alessandro Algardi . . ., cited in note 18, p. 239, n. 28.
18
19
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Apart from the attribution to Gianlorenzo, the importance of the identification of the Ludovisi sculpture lies in the explanation Bellori gives of its
iconography, which he calls a representation of Fraud, or insidia, in contrast
to which Algardi made one of his earliest sculptures, now lost, showing a
boy riding on a tortoise:
Algardi made [for the Villa Ludovisi] a putto of marble seated on a tortoise, sounding a reed pipe, understood as Security, of which the tortoise
is the symbol, and the innocence of the boy, who plays and sits securely.
This was commissioned by the Cardinal to accompany another putto
[characteristically for Bellori, no mention of Bernini!] who cries bitten
by a serpent hidden in the weeds, understood as fraud and insidiousness.
It is described here as one of the first things that Alessandro worked in
marble, although it is wanting in excellence.21
This interpretation was doubtless inspired by the carnivorous action of
the animal, and the conspicuous presence of the plant, described in two of
the inventories as flowers, in the others and by Bellori as erba, or weeds,
suggesting the idea of a treacherous snake hidden in the vegetation, and
hence the identification of the animal as a serpent or viper. In fact, the
thick-leaved plant, part flower, part weed, is a botanical fantasy. And the
appendages of the serpentine creature also suggest a marine animal, something like a dolphin, which is how modern scholars have identified it. But
who ever heard of a dolphin biting people? Dolphins are, on the contrary,
mans best marine friends. And who ever heard of a dolphin swimming on
land, among flowers, weeds, or any other plants? Strange dolphin indeed,
since the sculpture clearly refers with puckish irony to the famous story of
the boy Arion, who was saved from the sea by a dolphin that transported
him to shore on its back. An ancient sculptural group at the Borghese,
restored in the sixteenth century and surely known to Bernini, recalls Arion
21
Fecevi [Algardi for the Villa Ludovisi] dinventione un putto sedente di marmo, appoggiato ad una testundine, e si pone li calami alla bocca, per suonare, inteso per la sicurezza; di cui
il simbolo la testundine, e linnocenza del fanciullo, che suona, e riposa sicuro. Questo gli f
fatto fare dal Cardinale, per accompagnamento di unaltro putto che duolsi morsicato da un
Serpente ascoso fr lherba, inteso per la fraude, e per linsidia; e si qui descritto per essere delle
prime cose, che Alessandro lavorasse in marmo, bench fuori delleccellenza. (Bellori [Giovanni
Pietro], Le vite de pittori, scultori et architetti moderni, Rome, 1672, ed. Evelina Borea, Turin,
1976, pp. 401 f.)
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THE YOUNG BERNINI
1143
(the figure has satyrs ears) as a smiling cavalier confidently leading his swift
and obedient marine steed across the waves, dominating it by grasping its
tail and mouth (Fig. 20). The classical work was aptly cited in relation to
the motif of the Berlin Putto morsicato by Ursula Schlegel,22 but I believe it
was the touchstone that inspired all three modern sculptures in a veritable
paragone of Ovidian physical and psychological metamorphosis. At the
Getty the animal is transformed into an ugly aero-amphibian beast (water
at the front of the base, rocks behind), winged and with a fishs tail, and the
happy boy hero, instead of grasping, tears apart the mouth of the squawking dragon. At Berlin the classical fish is transformed into an insidious and
sinuous terrestrial (all rocks) aquatic beast, and the mouth becomes a terrible instrument of revenge against the temerarious would be dominator. The
snake was indeed a traditional symbol of insidious deception and fraud, but
to show a quasi dolphin in this role made the animal doubly insidious. One
perceives the ingredients of a very sophisticated allegory, and it is impossible to resist the temptation to consider these three closely connected sculptures, made for closely interconnected, in this case often competing patrons,
in relation to one another. Perhaps the sculptures were witty barbs in some
political emblematic intrigue: Maffeo Barberinis happy boy victorious over
the harmless little dragon (a Borghese symbol); the Ludovisi child betrayed
by the swift but treacherous serpentine dolphin (a Barberini symbol); and,
ten years later, the second Ludovisi putto, by Algardi, riding triumphantly
upon a slow but dependable tortoise.
Sesto Fiorentino
Our knowledge of the relationship between the young Bernini and his
father has been greatly increased in recent years by the discovery, or recovery, of an amazing series of sculptures all belonging to the period when
Bernini was still officially an apprentice of his father. In the cases where the
documents are preserved, Pietro received the payments regardless of who
actually executed the work. Outstanding among these is the magnificent
Faun and Putti now in the Metropolitan Museum, which was in Berninis
house when he died (Fig. 21).23 The group is recorded in several successive
22
Schlegel (Ursula), Zum Oeuvre des jungen G. L. Bernini, in Jahrbuch der Berliner
Museen, IX, 1967, pp. 274294.
23
First published by Olga Raggio (A New Bacchic Group by Bernini, in Apollo, no.
CVIII, 1978, pp. 406417); see Bernini scultore . . ., cited in note 10, pp. 5261.
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1144
inventories of his possessions, and, most tellingly, in a description by

Nicodemus Tessin who knew Bernini personally and visited the house in
16731674, while the artist was still alive. In none of these documents is
the work actually attributed to Bernini, nor is it mentioned by Baldinucci
or by Domenico Bernini, both of whose biographies must rely heavily on
the artists own testimony. By contrast, Veritas, which was also in the house,
is always attributed to him, in his own testament, in the inventories, and in
the biographies. In fact, I have always believed that the sculpture was conceived and executed by Pietro Bernini, assisted in relatively minor ways by
his son.24 The virtuoso technique, and dynamic, expansive, perforated
design were clearly among the important legacies of Pietro. Gianlorenzo, on
the other hand, even in works closest to his fathers, like the Aeneas and
Anchises, sought to simplify and organize Pietros upward striving, artificially contrived, awkwardly contorted and intertwining forms into relatively
clear, simple, logical structures. Since its publication the Metropolitan
sculpture has become like a brilliant sun encircled by a number of closely
related works that fully justify Bagliones enthusiastic homage to Pietro
Berninis technical facility. There are the herms from the Villa Borghese now
also in the Metropolitan, executed in the spring and summer of 1616, concerning which Jacomo Manilli, who published a description of the villa in
1650 and must have known the truth since he was Cardinal Scipiones
household manager, said that Bernini assisted his father in executing the
baskets of fruit (Fig. 22). There are the four Seasons at the Villa
Aldobrandini at Frascati discovered and published by Zeri, concerning
which no documentation has come to light (Fig. 23). There is the figure of
Autumn in a private collection in New York (Fig. 24). There is a group once
in the Palazzo Altemps, recorded in an early engraving (Fig. 25). Finally,
there is in Berlin a fountain group with a satyr seated astride a panther and
holding aloft a great mass of grapes (Fig. 26).25 All these works are obviously
by the same hand, as everyone who has dealt with them agrees. Taken
together they constitute a coherent body of work, a veritable iron chain
conceptually and stylistically, that holds the key to the relationship between
Pietro and Gianlorenzo Bernini. Only in the Metropolitan sculpture, in my
24
I said so in a letter to the Director of the Metropolitan when the museum was considering the sculpture for purchase.
25
All these works are discussed in Bernini scultore . . ., cited in note 10, pp. 1837,
5261.
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THE YOUNG BERNINI
1145
opinion, did Gianlorenzos mind and hand intervene, and not in the basic
conception, but in two secondary, yet interrelated and highly significant
ways: in the delicate, pellucid rendering of different tones and textures in
the treatment of the marble surfaces, and in the extraordinary psychological counterpoint played out between the smiling, impudent and terrified
putti the kind textural and tonal subtlety and intellectual and emotional
psychodrama that have no counterparts in the work of Pietro but became
defining characteristics of Gianlorenzos art.
The whole issue of authorship and chronology is thrown into crisis by
new evidence concerning the fountain in Berlin, which I offer here for the
first time, as I offered the five new early works by Bernini in my lecture in
Rome long ago. The Berlin sculpture was purchased in Florence in 1884 by
the then Director of the Berlin Museum, Wilhelm Bode from the well
known dealer Bardini. Frida Schottmller in 1933 catalogued the fountain
as the work of an unknown Tuscan sculptor of the early seventeenth century.26 The matter rested there until Olga Raggio, in publishing the
Metropolitan piece, related it to the Berlin fountain, which she also labeled
as Tuscan, early seventeenth century.27 Since then there has been an increasing tendency to attribute all these works, including the Berlin fountain, to
Gianlorenzo.28 They certainly are all inspired by the same guiding spirit.
The fact is, however, that the Berlin fountain it is not a Roman work at all,
but Florentine, that is to say precisely, it came from the Villa Corsi Salviati
at Sesto Fiorentino, a once famous property of the Corsi bankers and still
fairly well preserved. Quite by accident, on a visit to the villa some years
ago, I discovered an exact copy of the Berlin fountain in an open loggia
in the east wing of the garden faade (Figs. 2730).29 I have uncovered
26
Schottmller (Frieda), Kaiser-Friedrich Museum. Die italienischen und spanischen
Bildwerke der Renaissance und des Barock, Berlin, 1933, p. 209.
27
Raggio, A new Bacchic Group . . ., cited in note 23, p. 413.
28
A notable exception is Maurizio Fagiolo dellArco, who attended my presentation of
this paper at the Villa Medici (February 19, 1999) and adopted my attribution to Pietro
Bernini of the Sesto fountain and the related sculptures in the exhibition he subsequently
organized with Maria Grazia Bernardini: Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Regista del barocco (exhib. cat.
Rome), Rome, 1999, p. 18, ill., 33, n. 19.
29
Our Fig. 27 is part large album, preserved at the villa, consisting of Alinari photographs of the family and the villa, with an affectionate manuscript dedication by Bardo to
his daughter Francesca, dated 11 November 1888; Alinari dates the photo 1885. I am greatly
indebted to the veteran custodian of the villa, Bruno Bruscagli, for his generous help with
this and other matters. On our Figs. 28, 29, 30, a drawing by Giuseppe Zocchi for the
Lavin XXVIII. Revised:CHAPTER 23
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Page 20
1146
1. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Bust of Antonio Coppola.

Rome, S. Giovanni dei Fiorentini
21:36
THE YOUNG BERNINI
3. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Bust of Cardinal Dolfin.

Venice, S. Michele allIsola (photo: Bhm, Venice).
15/10/08
2. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Bust of Camilla Barbadori.

Copenhagen, Statens Museum for Kunst.

Page 21
1147
21:36
5. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Bust of Cardinal Bellarmino.

Rome, Church of the Ges (photo: ICCD).
15/10/08
4. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Bust of Cardinal Escoubleau de

Sourdis. Bordeaux, Muse des Beaux-Arts
(photo: Giraudon, Paris).

Page 22
1148
21:36
THE YOUNG BERNINI
6. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Bust of Giovanni Battista Santoni.

Rome, S. Prassede (photo: Foto Unione, Rome).
15/10/08
7. Roman portrait.
Rome, Museo delle Terme.

Page 23
1149
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21:36
Page 24
1150
8. Pietro Bernini, Coronation of Clement VIII.

Rome, S. Maria Maggiore (photo: Alinari).
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THE YOUNG BERNINI
9. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Portrait of Clement VIII (detail of Fig. 8).

Rome, S. Maria Maggiore (photo: Alinari).
10. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Amalthean Goat.
Rome, Galleria Borghese (photo: Alinari).
1151
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Page 26
1152
11. Three Sleeping Putti. Rome, Galleria Borghese (photo: Alinari).

12. Gianlorenzo Bernini, St. Sebastian. Lugano, Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection.
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THE YOUNG BERNINI
13. Gianlorenzo
Bernini,
St. Lawrence.
Florence,
Contini-Bonacossi
Collection
(photo: ICCD).
1153
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Page 28
1154
14. Strozzi Chapel. Rome, S. Andrea della Valle.
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THE YOUNG BERNINI
15. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Cherubs. Rome, S. Andrea della Valle,

Barberini Chapel.
1155
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Page 30
1156
16. Giovanni Battista Falda, Veduta e prospetto del granteatero dellacque della Villa
Aldobrandini di Belvedere Frascati, engraving, detail, entrance to the chapel of St.
Sebastian of the nymphaeum (Falda [Giovanni Battista], Le fontane nelle ville di Frascati nel
Tuscolano, Rome, 1684, pl. 6).
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THE YOUNG BERNINI
17. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Boy defeating a Marine Dragon.

Los Angeles, CA, J. Paul Getty Museum
(photo: L. A. Foersterling, St. Louis).
1157
21:36
19. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Boy bitten by a serpe, side view.

Berlin, Staatliche Museen.
15/10/08
18. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Boy bitten by a serpe.

Berlin, Staatliche Museen.

Page 32
1158
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THE YOUNG BERNINI
20. Arion-Satyr riding on a Dolphin. Rome, Galleria Borghese.
1159
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Page 34
1160
21. Pietro Bernini, assisted by Gianlorenzo. Bacchic Group.

New York, Metropolitan Museum.
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THE YOUNG BERNINI
22. Pietro Bernini, Herms. New York, Metropolitan Museum.
1161
21:36
24. Pietro Bernini, Autumn. New York,

Private Collection.
15/10/08
23. Pietro Bernini, Autumn. Frascati,

Villa Aldobrandini.

Page 36
1162
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THE YOUNG BERNINI
1163
25. Bacchic Group from the Palazzo Altemps, Rome, drawing. Eton (Berkshire), Eton
College Library.
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Page 38
1164
26. Pietro Bernini, Satyr with a Panther. Berlin, Staatliche Museen.
21:36
THE YOUNG BERNINI
28. Copy after Fig. 26. Sesto Fiorentino, Villa Corsi Salviati
(photo: Marilyn Lavin July 2005).
15/10/08
27. Copy after Fig. 26. Sesto Fiorentino, Villa Corsi

Salviati (photo: Alinari No. 32494, dated 1885, detail).

Page 39
1165
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21:36
29. Giusppe Zocchi, Villa di Sesto delli SS:ri Marchesi Corsi, drawing. New York, Pierpont Morgan Library.

Page 40
1166
21:36
Page 41
1167
THE YOUNG BERNINI
30. Detail of
Fig. 29.
15/10/08
31. Map of the Prato Fiorentino.
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Page 42
1168
32. Eros and Pan Vintaging. London, British Museum

(photo: British Museum).
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THE YOUNG BERNINI
33. Dionysiac group (detail). Rome, Villa Albani

(photo: Deutsches archaeologisches Institut).
1169
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Page 20
1170
no record of the substitution as such, but we know that the Marchese Bardo
Corsi sold some of his art (including a bronze Mercury by Zanobi Lastricati
and Ciani Campagni in 1879) to finance a major renovation of the villa,
most especially the garden, which was his passionate interest, before the
turn of the century. This was the circumstance under which Bode acquired
the piece for the Berlin Museum in 1884, and the replacement with a very
accurate copy must have been part of the arrangement. Thanks to a recent
publication of the fountain by Michael Knuth attributing the work to
Gianlorenzo, we now know that that it was first mentioned in the records
of the Berlin Museum on March 19, 1883, as actually belonging to
Marchese Corsi.30
Since Pietro Bernini was himself a native of Sesto Fiorentino, the provenance of the work in itself proves beyond any reasonable doubt that he was
the sculptor. However, neither in the biographical record nor in the documents concerning his career in Naples, South Italy and Rome, where he settled definitively with his family in 16051606, is there any indication of his
having received a commission from his native town. Much of the Corsi
archive is preserved, and a very substantial monograph on the villa, built in
the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century, was published in 1937 by
the Marchese Giulio Guicciardini Corsi Salviati.31 But there are many lacunae and no record of our fountain has come to light. We know, however,
that Pietro spent a brief interlude in Florence during 15941595 working
with Giovanni Battista Caccini. In fact, the problem of the origin of the
sculpture is resolved, happily or unhappily depending on your point of
view, by a single, seemingly quite innocent document published by
Pasquale Rotondi in 1933, and almost completely overlooked since then.
The solution, in my opinion, radically alters the history of early Baroque
view of the villa in his Vedute delle ville, e daltri luoghi della Toscana, Florence, 1757, see Dee
(Elaine Evans), Views of Florence and Tuscany by Giuseppe Zocchi. 17111767. Seventy-seven
Drawings from the Collection of the Pierpont Morgan Library. New York (exhib. cat.), New
York, 1968, no. 47. The sculpture in Sesto is exactly the same size as that in Berlin, 138 cm.
high, and must have been copied from the original by the mechanical technique of pointing
off.
30
Knuth (Michael), Eine Brunnen-Skulptur von Gian Lorenzo Bernini in Bildende
Kunst, IV, 1989, p. 58; his attribution was followed by Schtze, Bernini scultore . . ., cited in
note 10, p. 58, with further references.
31
Guicciardini Corsi Salviati, (Giulio), La villa Corsi a Sesto, Florence, 1937; on the decorations of the villa, Manini, (Maria Pia), Comune di Sesto Fiorentino. La decorazione in villa
tra Sesto e Castello nel XVI e XVII secolo (grottesche, allegorie, emblemi), Sesto Fioretno, 1979.
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THE YOUNG BERNINI
1171
sculpture. Rotondi found a reference to a tax notice of August 1595, which

reads:
M.o Pietro di Lorenzo Bernino, lavora sul Prato di
scultura, Angelica di Giovanni di Giovanni Galanti, lanno
1595 in Gabella T. 5 Notif. 87.32
Rotondi, who makes no mention of the Berlin sculpture, understandRotondi (Pasquale), Leducazione artistica di Pietro Bernini, in Capitolium, XI, 1933,
p. 397. The document cited by Rotondi is a later abstract from the original tax records,
which I have traced in the Archivio di Stato, Florence. Because he had been resident in
Naples, where he married, and was unfamiliar with the laws of Florence, Pietro had submitted a petition, for a delay in the payment of taxes due on the dowry of his wife. The petition
was rejected, but he was permitted to re-submit with proof of the size of the dowry.
Gabella dei Contratti, Suppliche e rappresentanze dirette al regio trono e risolute con rescritto
sovrane.
Busta 1261 bis. fol. 46 recto:
Ser.mo Gran Ducha.
Pietro di Lorenzo Bernini fiorentino schultore servo di V.A.S. con Reverenzia li espone come
essendo stato circa, a hannj dieci a napoli dove a preso moglie oggi desidera impatriarsi, e non
sapendo luso di questa citta non a pagato la Gabella della dote, dove, ne stato achusato, di sc 200
di dote li quali non ha hauto e p. cio ricorre a V.A.S. con pregarla gli faccia Grazia di dua Mesi
di tempo, accio possi produrre fede hautentiche di Napoli della quantit che il d.o ebbe p. dote e
di quel tanto pagarne la gab.a come, e il solito obligandosi a pregarle l notro Sig.re Iddio.
p/ ogni sua Maggiore felicita.
19 di Ag 95.
di su.to di pagar il giustficato et presto glislel[?] il fra due mesi a fare le sue giustificationi.
Busta 1261 is, 159597, fol. 45 recto:
VS. Ser.mo gran duca.
Piro a L.zo bernini scultore, h esposto a V.A. desser stato circa dieci anni napoli, et
havervi preso moglie, et come desidera rimpatriarsi, ma p. non havere saputo luso della citt non
h pagato la gabella della dote essendo stato accusato p. sc. 200 che non h havuto.
Supplica a V.A.S. farli gratia di due mesi di tmpo poter p.durre fede auttiche di Napoli
della vera qut.t di d.a dote.
Per informatione diciamo a V.A.S. come sotto d 12 del pnte mese di Ag.o d.o supplicante f
notificato da un notificatore segreto a libro V O/5 88 dhaver tolto moglie in Napoli con dota di
sc 200, che per essere egli fiorentino obligato secondogli ordini a pagarne la gabella p. quella
vera qtit che li sar stata promessa secondo le giustifiationi auttiche ch egli deve fare venire di
Napoli, e p.che da unmese in l chspira alle 12 di settmbre e pu essere gravato, et n se li pu
fare da noi dilatione alcuna per ricorso V.A. p. gratia di dua mesi di tempo et a quella
humilmente ci raccomandiamo de gabella.
il di 30 d Agosto 1595
Gio: ba con 2 di sett.bre 95.
32
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1172
ably took prato to mean the quarter of Florence inside the city walls toward
the Porta al Prato and he sought in vain to relate the document to the
Palazzo Corsini located there. But the term in this case clearly refers to the
vast area northwest of Florence from which the city of Prato takes its name.
Sesto Fiorentino lies in the virtual center of this plain, and the villa Corsi is
located on the Prato road just before Sesto (Fig. 31).33 It is important to
note that the fountain for Villa Corsi must have had a precursor in a similar sculpture, now lost, for which Pietro was paid in May 1589, while he
was in Naples:
una statua di marmo attacata con un albero con un puttino sopra nome del
bacco che fa il moto di spremere luva.34
So began a long series that continued through the works he made subsequently in Rome.
Apart from their common subject matter, two distinctive formal characteristics define these impassioned and awe inspiring sculptures: their intertwining, upward spiraling action, and their brilliant display of perforated,
cantilevered forms. They are technically and psychologically mannered,
formulaic and repetitive in a way inconceivable for Gianlorenzo Bernini at
any age, in my opinion. On the other hand, their qualities constitute a new
departure in the history of Italian sculpture. The likes had not been seen
since antiquity, and indeed they clearly depend upon the rediscovery of a
particular phase of Roman art known to modern scholars as the Antonine
Baroque (Figs. 32, 33).35 Works of this period provide the only real prece33
Rotondi even speculated, but then rejected the thought that the reference could be to
a work at Sesto: Infrutuose sono riuscite le nostre ricerche dei lavori che Pietro pot eseguire
in quella parte di Firenze, che, per essere un giorno poco abitata, aveva appunto il nome di
Prato; ma dubitiamo che si tratti di opera di decorazione o di restauro, che lancor giovine
scultore poteva fornire allerigenda villa dei Principi Corsini, che si andava compiendo in
quel tempo sotta la direzione dello stesso architetto della facciata di Santa Trinita: il
Buontalenti. Rotondi, ibidem, pp. 397 f., 392398.
34
Ceci (Giuseppe), Per la biografia degli artisti des XVI e XVII secolo. Nuovi documenti. II. Scultori, Napoli nobilissima, no. XV, 1906, p. 117, cited by Raggio, A new
Bacchic Group . . ., cited in note 17, p. 417, n. 28.
35
On the works illustrated here, see Strong (Eugenie Sellers), Antiques in the Collection
of Sir Frederick Cook, Bart., at Doughty House, Richmond, in The Journal of Hellenic
Studies, XXVIII, 1908, pp. 32 f., Muthmann (Fritz), Statuensttzen und dekoratives Beiwerk
an griechischen und rmischen Bildwerken. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der rmischen
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THE YOUNG BERNINI
1173
dents for Pietro Berninis dramatic innovations, and it is important to realize that the fathers appropriation of ancient models paved the way for his
sons very different reprise of classical tradition. The Sesto fountain proves
that Pietro Bernini, then 32 years old, was perfectly capable of designing
and executing such works before his son was born. Gianlorenzo would
retain his fathers lessons, but from the beginning he would temper their
excesses and subject them to a rigorous formal structure and emotional
rationality. The relationship between Bernini father and son was curiously
repeated in that between Mozart father and son, who composed creditable,
and recognizable, music at age six. For both cases, Pietro Bernini gave the
appropriate comment when, as Gianlorenzo later recalled, the future Pope
Urban VIII warned the proud father that his prodigious child would surpass him: Your Excellency, in that game he who loses wins!36
Kopistenttigkeit, Heidelberg, 1951, pp. 86 f., Bol (Peter), ed., Forschungen zur Villa Albani.
Katalog der antiken Bildwerke III, Berlin, 1992, pp. 363366, with excellent details.
36
Sappi V. E. che in quel gioco chi perde vince (Blunt-Bauer, Diary . . ., cited in note 5,
p. 15, June 6, 102, August 5; Chantelou, Journal . . ., cited in note 5, pp. 18, 84).
Lavin XXIX. Revised:Layout 1
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XXIX
Bozzetto Style
The Renaissance Sculptors Handiwork*
T takes most people much time and effort to become proficient at

manipulating the tools of visual creation. But to execute in advance
sketches, studies, plans for a work of art is not a necessary and inevitable
part of the creative process. There is no evidence for such activity in the
often astonishingly expert and sophisticated works of Paleolithic art, where
images may be placed beside or on top of one another apparently at random, but certainly not as corrections, cancellations, or improved replacements. Although I am not aware of any general study of the subject, I venture to say that periods in which preliminary experimentation and planning
were practiced were relatively rare in the history of art. While skillful execution requires prior practice and expertise, the creative act itself, springing
from a more or less unselfconscious cultural and professional memory,
might be quite autonomous and unpremeditated. A first affirmation of this
hypothesis in the modern literature of art history occurred more than a century-and-a-half ago when one of the great French founding fathers of modern art history (especially the discipline of iconography), Adolphe Napolon
* This contribution is a much revised and expanded version of my original, brief sketch
of the history of sculptors models, Irving Lavin, Bozzetti and Modelli. Notes on Sculptural
Procedure from the Early Renaissance through Bernini, in Stil und berlieferung in der
Kunst des Abendlandes, Akten des 21. internationalen Kongresses fr Kunstgeschichte in
Bonn 1964 (Berlin, 1967), vol. 3, 93104. In abbreviated form this version was presented
at a symposium titled Creativity: The Sketch in the Arts and Sciences, organized by myself and
Henry A. Millon at the Institute for Advanced Study and the National Gallery of Art in May
2001.
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BOZZETTO STYLE
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Didron, made a discovery that can be described, almost literally, as monumental. In the introduction to his publication the first Greek-Byzantine
treatise on painting, which he dedicated to his friend and enthusiastic fellow-medievalist, Victor Hugo Didron gave a dramatic account of a
moment of intellectual illumination that occurred during a pioneering
exploratory visit to Greece in August and September 1839 for the purpose
of studying the medieval fresco and mosaic decorations of the Byzantine
churches.1 He had, he says, wondered at the uniformity and continuity of
the Greek pictorial tradition, and upon reaching Mount Athos, with its
innumerable monastic churches covered with decorations, he was stunned
by a creative spectacle he witnessed, quite by chance, at the very outset of
his visit to the Holy Mountain.
The first convent we entered at Mount Athos was that of the
Esphigmnou. The great church, recently constructed, was at that
very moment scaffolded; a painter from Caria, aided by his brother,
by two students, and by two young apprentices, covered with narrative frescos the entire interior porch preceding the nave. The first of
the students, who was a deacon and the eldest, was to take over the
shop at the death of the master.
My joy was great at this happy chance that seemed to reveal to me
the secret of these paintings and painters, and that thus responded to
the useless questions I had asked at Salamis and in the city of Athens.
I climbed up on the scaffold and I saw the artist, surrounded by his
pupils, decorating the narthex of the church with frescos. The young
brother spread the mortar on the wall; the master sketched the picture; the first student filled the contours traced by the master in the
scene, which he had not had time to complete; a young student
gilded the nimbuses, painted the inscriptions, made the ornaments;
the two others, younger, ground and mixed the colors. Yet the master painter sketched his pictures as from memory or inspiration. In
1
Adolphe Napolon Didron, Manuel diconographie chrtienne, grecque et latine, avec une
introduction et des notes par M. Didron. Traduit du manuscrit byzantin, le guide de la peinture
par Paul Durand (Paris, 1845). A valuable edition of the text in English translation was published by Paul Hetherington, The Painters Manual of Dionysius of Fourna. An English translation of cod. gr. 708 in the Saltykov-Shchedrin State Public Library (Leningrad and London
1974). On Didron see the apt remarks of Hans Belting, Likeness and Presence. A History of
the Image before the Era of Art (Chicago and London,1994), 1719.
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1176
an hour, before our eyes, he traced on the wall a picture showing

Christ giving to his followers the mission to evangelize and baptize
the world. Christ and the eleven other personages were about life
size. He executed his sketch from memory, without a cartoon, without a drawing, without a model. Examining the other pictures he
had terminated, I asked him if he had executed them himself; he
responded affirmatively, and added that he very rarely effaced a
design once he had done it.
We were astonished because these paintings were incontestably superior to those of our second-rank artists who make religious paintings.
Some people, including myself, would place the Mount Athos
painter on the line with our best living artists, especially when they
make religious painting.
This alert painter astonished me even further with his prodigious
memory. Not only did he trace his sketches and complete them without a drawing or cartoon, but I saw him dictating to his second student the inscriptions and sentences that were intended for the pictures and various personages. He recited all that without a book or
notes, and all that was exactly the text of the sentences and inscriptions that I had seen in Attica, in the Peloponnesus and at Salamis. I
expressed to him my admiration, but my surprise also greatly astonished him, and he responded, with what I think was rare modesty,
that it was quite simple and much less extraordinary than I thought.
Then he went quietly back to work.2
2
Didron (as in n. 1) XVIXVIII
Le premier couvent o nous entrmes, en pntrant dans le mont Athos, fut celui
dEsphigmnou. La grande glise, nouvellement btie, tait en ce moment mme
chafaude; un peintre de Kars, aid par son frre, par deux lves et deux jeunes apprentis, couvrait de fresques histories tout le porche intrieur qui prcde la nef. Le premier des
lves, qui tait diacre et le plus g, devait reprendre latelier la mort du matre.
Ma joie fut grande de ce hasard heureux qui paraissait me livrer le secret de ces peintures et de ces peintres, et qui rpondait ainsi aux inutiles questions que javais faites
Salamine et dans la ville dAthnes. Je montai sur lchafaud du matre peintre, et je vis
lartiste, entour de ses lves, dcorant, de fresques le narthex de cette glise. Le jeune frre
tendait le mortier sur le mur; le matre esquissait le tableau; le premier lve remplissait les
contours marqus par le chef dans les tableaux que celui ci navait pas le temps de terminer;
un jeune lve dorait les nimbes, peignait les inscriptions, faisait les ornements; les deux
autres, plus petits, broyaient et dlayaient les couleurs. Cependant, le matre peintre esquissait ses tableaux comme de mmoire ou dinspiration. En une heure, sous nos yeux, il traa
sur le mur un tableau reprsentant Jsus Christ donnant ses aptres la mission dvangliser
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BOZZETTO STYLE
1177
1. Taddeo Gaddi and Workshop, Transfiguration. Badia, Florence.
18:43
3. Unfinished group, Dionysus and Satyr. National

Museum, Athens.
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2. Masaccio, Trinity, detail (head of the Virgin showing incised grid).

Santa Maria Novella, Florence.

Page 6
1178
18:43
BOZZETTO STYLE
5. Unfinished archaic Kouros. National Museum, Athens.
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4. Unfinished statuette of a Youth. Museum of the

Agora, Athens.

Page 7
1179
18:43
7. Attributed to Donatello, Forzori altar, terracotta. Victoria and Albert

Museum, London.
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6. Unfinished statuette. Cathedral Museum, Orvieto.

Page 8
1180
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Page 9
BOZZETTO STYLE
1181
8. Donatello, Christ before Pilate and Caiaphas. Pulpit, San Lorenzo,

Florence.
9. Benedetto da
Maiano,
Confirmation of
the Order of St.
Francis, terracotta. Victoria
and Albert
Museum,
London.
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1182
In the course of the interview Didron discovered the explanation for

this ordinary extraordinary pictorial feat when the Carian painter, Joasaph,
mentioned to him a manuscript in which detailed prescriptions for such
work were laid forth, The Painters Guide. The text itself, a translation of
which Didron published in 1845, was recent, but it clearly codified the
cumulative, unwritten experience of a millennial tradition of the painters
craft. Didron extrapolated that such guidebooks lay at the heart of medieval
art generally, although he was fully aware that art in the West varied much
more than that of the East, from place to place and from time to time.
(Hence, it is clear in any case that neither the spontaneous procedure nor
the guidebook he discovered could in themselves be held responsible for the
conservative character of Byzantine art.) Didrons insight, inspired by his
accidental encounter with a living tradition of what would come to be
called alla prima execution of monumental wall paintings, was repeated a
century later through a purely deductive process from the historical evidence of early Italian painting, by the German art historian Robert Oertel.3
In a drastically revisionary essay published in 1940, Oertel came to an
exactly parallel conclusion, transforming our understanding of the amount
et de baptiser le monde. Le Christ et les onze autres personnages taient peu prs de
grandeur naturelle. Il fit son esquisse de mmoire, sans carton, sans dessin, sans modle. En
examinant les autres tableaux qu il avait termins, je lui demandai sil les avait excuts de
mme; il rpondit affirmativement, et ajouta quil effaait trs rarement un trait quil avait
une fois trac.
Nous tions dans ltonnement, car ces peintures taient incontestablement suprieures
celles de nos artistes de second ordre qui font des tableaux religieux. Par quelques personnes, et je suis de ce nombre, le peintre du mont Athos pourrait tre mis certainement
sur la ligne de nos meilleurs artistes vivants, surtout lorsquils excutent de la peinture
religieuse.
Ce peintre si alerte mtonnait encore par sa prodigieuse mmoire. Non seulement il
traait ses esquisses et les achevait sans dessin ni carton; mais je le voyais dictant son second lve les inscriptions et les sentences que devaient porter les tableaux et les divers personnages. Il dbitait tout cela sans livre ni notes, et tout cela tait rigoureusement le texte des
sentences et des inscriptions que javais releves dans lAttique, dans le Ploponnse et
Salamine. Je lui tmoignai mon admiration; mais ma surprise ltonna beaucoup lui-mme,
et il me rpondit, avec ce que je croyais une rare modestie, que ctait bien simple et beaucoup moins extraordinaire que je ne le pensais. Puis il se remit tranquillement loeuvre.
3
Robert Oertel, Wandmalerei und Zeichnung in Italien, Mitteilungen des kunsthistorischen Instituts in Florenz, 5 (1940): 217314; also his Early Italian Painting to 1400 (New
York and Washington, 1966), 7077. The essential validity of Oertels observations may be
gauged from the vast literature and physical evidence gathered in the postwar period, surveyed Paolo Mora et al., Conservation of Wall Paintings (London 1987).
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1183
and kind of preparation that lay behind the great mural decorations of the
trecento. In the West, too, the fresco was executed directly on the wall, overlaying a rough sketch that served merely as a guide, not as a preliminary
study, like the design first laid down by the master painter at Mount Athos.
Oertel, however, took a very different view of the process that lay behind
the execution of the wall painting. He questioned the fundamental role traditionally ascribed to the western artists model book, the visual equivalent
of the Byzantine painters handbook that explained for Didron the wondrous, unpremeditated process he had witnessed on the Holy Mountain.
Oertels intuition was confirmed with the discovery in the aftermath of
World War II of great numbers of sinopias, the monumental and often
astonishingly sketchy drawings executed directly on the wall beneath the
fresco, not as a study but as a guide to the artist who covered it as he painted
the fresco on top (Fig. 1).4 Oertel demonstrated, as well, that a new order
was introduced by Masaccio who first used a grid and a full-size cartoon
traced on the wall (Fig. 2).5 The old view that the medieval painter in the
West worked by a more or less mechanical method of copying from prescribed models and patterns can no longer be maintained. Indeed, the chief
controversy has been reduced at present to the question whether even small
scale compositional sketches were used before the Renaissance. There has
taken place what amounts to a fundamental reversal in our understanding
of how works of art were conceived. The medieval artist, formerly thought
of as being bound by an ironclad system of servile copying, now emerges as
the paragon of direct and unpremeditated creation. It was the Renaissance
that sought to objectify and rationalize the artistic process into a fixed
method and body of rules.
A corollary of this development is that the rules that emerged in the
Renaissance and flourished in a great body of theoretical as well as practical
art-literature were of an entirely different nature than those prescribed in
the medieval handbooks. The latter were essentially of two kinds, often
4
On the fresco by Taddeo Gaddi, see Millard Meiss, The Great Age of Fresco. Discoveries,
Recoveries, and Survivals (New York,1970), 5657; Andrew Ladis, Taddeo Gaddi. Critical
Reappraisal and Catalogue Raisonn (Columbia, MO, 1982), 1567, No. 17
5
Eve Borsook interprets the grid, which occurs only in the figure of the Madonna, as a
scheme for calculating the foreshortening of the head (The Mural Painters of Tuscany from
Cimabue to Andrea del Sarto [Oxford, 1980], 6970). This explanation, however, does not
preclude the use of the grid in conjunction with a cartoon, and in any case does not affect
Oertels demonstration of Masaccios innovative approach to mural painting.
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combined in a single treatise. One format was technical, consisting essentially of recipes and other directions, including geometric prescriptions, for
actually constructing and executing the work of art; the second type was
essentially iconographical, providing by way of description or illustration
details of how a given subject was to be represented. What the Renaissance
created were guides to the creative process itself, conceived as a progressive
articulation and refinement of a preliminary thought to a finished prototype, of which the final work was, insofar as possible, a permanent duplicate. The Renaissance evolution was rooted in a fundamental paradox. On
the one hand, there emerged for the first time in the history of art what can
properly be called an articulate theory of creation that would lead the practitioner step by step from the set task to the final execution, in a reasoned
and orderly fashion. On the other hand, by the same token, the process
elicited and led to the conscious preservation of a more or less complete
repertory of preliminary studies that record what might be called the artists
inner dialogue with the problems presented by the task at hand. What
became visible, as never before, and part and parcel with the elaborate theoretical structure, was the artists premeditation, the process of planning,
whether spontaneous or self-conscious, that led from an initial idea to the
final work.
These phenomena have their counterparts in sculpture, though they
have received far less attention in this domain. A useful point of departure
is provided by the pioneering study by Carl Bluemel of Greek sculptural
technique, first published in 1927.6 On certain unfinished pieces of ancient
statuary there is preserved a number of small protuberances or knobs, with
tiny holes in the center (Fig. 3, especially on the head and above the knees;
Fig. 4, on the chest and knee). By analogy with modern sculptural practice,
it is evident that these knobs are what are called points, fixed reference
marks by means of which measurements are made in copying from a model
or another sculpture. Such examples prove beyond question that a system
6
Carl Bluemel, Griechische Bildhauerarbeit, Jahrbuch des deutschen archologischen
Instituts, Ergnzungsheft XI (Berlin, 1927): 178, published independently thereafter (third
edition, Berlin 1940) though omitting valuable documentation; English edition, Greek
Sculptors at Work (London 1955). Further observations by Bluemel appear in Modelle zu
griechischen Giebelskulpturen, Archologischer Anzeiger 54 (1939): 30213. For a general
survey of sculpural procedure from antiquity to modern times, see Rudolf Wittkower,
Sculpture. Processes and Principles (New York, 1977).
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of mechanical pointing off was known and used in antiquity.7 On this basis,
Bluemel made an observation that is of fundamental significance. It concerns an inherent difference in procedure between sculpture that is executed
free and directly in the stone, and sculpture produced by pointing off from
a model. In the former case, characteristic of archaic and classical Greece,
the artist tends to carve the statue uniformly in the round (Fig. 5). He
removes, as it were, a series of skins from the figure, and at any given stage
in the execution it will show a more or less uniform degree of finish. With
the technique of pointing off, particularly by the Romans for copying Greek
statuary, the tendency is to work the figure from one side at a time, and to
bring some parts to a state of relative completion before others.
What little evidence there is for the practice of medieval sculptors comes
mainly from the Gothic period.8 But the limited evidence is of great value
because it speaks with a single and unequivocal voice. Bluemel himself cited
several unfinished sculptures, such as the small female figure, probably an
allegory of Fortitude, from the late fourteenth century in Orvieto (Fig. 6).
The technique is basically similar to that of archaic Greek sculpture; indeed,
all the medieval examples show the characteristics of direct carving, without
pointing from a model.9 Even more striking is the consistency of the docu-
7
Recent bibliography and examples: Peter E. Corbett, Attic Pottery of the Late Fifth
Century from the Athenian Agora, Hesperia 181 (1949): 305306, 341; Gisela M. A.
Richter, Ancient Italy (Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1955), 105111; Evelyn B. Harrison, New
Sculpture from the Athenian Agora, 1959, Hesperia 29 (1960): 370, 382; Gisela M. A.
Richter, How were the Roman Copies of Greek Portraits Made?, Rmische Mitteilungen 69
(1962): 5258.
8
An important extension of Bluemels analysis to the development of Egyptian sculpture
was made by Rudolf Anthes, Werkverfahren gyptischer Bildhauer, Mitteilungen des
deutschen Instituts fr gyptische Altertumskunde in Kairo 10 (1941): 79125.
9
After Bluemel see Theodor Mller in Reallexikon zur deutschen Kunstgeschichte, 9 vols.
(Stuttgart 1937 ), vol. 2, 608614, s.v. Bildhauer; also Fritz V. Arens in the same volume,
10621066, s.v. Bosse, Bossenkapitell. On medieval sculptural procedure generally, see
Pierre du Colombier, Les chantiers des cathedrales (Paris, 1973), 11334, with bibliography,
though much more study is necessary. Needless to say, considerable variation in
degree of surface finish on a given work is possible within the general principle of uniform,
in the round carving in medieval sculpture. Yet, there are real exceptions. On certain incomplete Romanesque capitals, parts were brought to a final finish before the rest of the carving
was even roughed out (suggesting the use of a repeated pattern?); Jean Trouvelot, Remarques
sur la technique des sculpteurs du moyen Age, Bulletin monumental 95 (1936): 103108.
John White, in his exemplary study of the Orvieto facade reliefs, showed that a uniform
working technique was used only in the initial stages of blocking out; execution of
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1186
mentary evidence, which for the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, particularly in Italy, is rather extensive. We have the abundant
records of both Florence and Milan cathedrals. And they show by repeated
instances, and without exceptions, that the monumental sculptures of these
buildings were executed at this period not from models but from drawings.
The drawings were not provided by the executing sculptors themselves but
by other artists; and these other artists were usually not sculptors at all, but
painters.10 The evidence concords perfectly with what the preserved examples suggested, for sculpture executed exclusively from drawings is of necessity carved directly.
This then was the situation in the period immediately preceding the
emergence of the great masters of the early Renaissance, and it was the system under which they grew up. It is astonishing how rapidly and completely things changed. We cannot even remotely conceive of Ghiberti or
Donatello or Luca della Robbia executing sculpture as a general practice
after someone elses drawings, especially a painters. And as the sculptor
began to provide his own designs, the documents show with equal consistency that these designs now normally took the form of models.11 Drawings
the subsequent stages progressed at varying rates (The Reliefs on the Facade of the Duomo
at Orvieto, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 20 [1959]: 254302). In this case
however, we are not dealing with an artists creative procedure, but, as White concludes,
with a workshop system in which specific kinds of secondary tasks were assigned to specialists once the main forms had been established by the leading masters.
10
On sculptors drawings generally Harald Keller, in Reallexikon (as in n. 9), vol. 2,
625639, s. v. Bildhauerzeichnung. On the painters drawings for sculpture in Milan and
Florence, Oertel (as in n. 3), 267270. (also, for Milan, Ugo Nebbia, La scultura del Duomo
di Milano [Milan,1910], 457, 5966). This suggests a link between the Milanese and
Florentine series of giganti as regards working procedure, as well as program (Raghna and
Nicolay Stang, Donatello e il Giosue per il Campanile di S. Maria del Fiore alla luce dei documenti, Acta ad archaeologiam et artium historiam pertinentia. Institutum Romanum Norvegiae
1 [Rome 1962] 119). Needless to say, drawings by sculptors are documented in the trecento:
Nino Pisano, Scherlatti tomb, Pisa, 1362, Igino B. Supino, Arte Pisana (Florence, 1904):
230231; wooden choir stall, Siena cathedral, 1377ff., Gaetano Milanesi, Documenti per la storia dellarte senese, vol.1 (Siena, 1854 56), 332, 356, etc., Richard Krautheimer, A drawing for
the Fonte Gaia in Siena, Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art 10 (1952): 272. It must
be emphasized that, regardless of who made them, the question whether there were true
preparatory studies, as distinct from commission or working drawings, remains open.
11
On models and bozzetti generally, see Harald Keller and Anton Ress, in Reallexikon (as
in n. 9), vol. 2, 10811098, s. v. Bozzetto, and Theodor Mller, Reallexikon (as in n. 9),
vol. 2, 600607 This writer must report that so far he has encountered no certain example,
either preserved or documented, of a model in whatever scale for monumental stone figural
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continue to be used, of course, but they are no longer the distinctive basis
upon which works were commissioned or appraised.12
The first evidence we have of what must be regarded as a methodological and conceptual sea-change comparable to that inaugurated by Masaccio
the painter, is a documentary notice referring to one of the famous series of
colossal statues, or giganti, commissioned for the cathedral of Florence, the
series that resulted ultimately in the David of Michelangelo. A partial payment was made in 1415 jointly to Donatello and Brunelleschi for a small
figure of stone, draped with gilt lead (una figuretta di pietra, vestita di
piombo dorato); they were to execute the figure for a test and illustration of
the large figures that are to be made upon the buttresses (per pruova e mostra
sculpture before the fifteenth century. It should be emphasized, however, that there was an
important trecento practice of making models for architectural elements which may or may
not have included sculptured decorative details (documented at Prague, Xanten, Bremen,
Milan, Florence, and Bologna; see Keller (as above) and Ludwig H. Heydenreich, in
Reallexikon (as in n. 9) , vol. 1, 918940, s. v. Architekturmodell); to this tradition presumably belongs the plaster model made by Claus Sluter for the maconerie et facon of the
fountain at Dijon (Henri David, Claus Sluter, [Paris 1951], 86). Terracotta sculpture, including models, was the subject of a recent exhibition, Bruce Boucher, ed., Earth and Fire. Italian
Terracotta Sculpture from Donatello to Canova, exh. cat. (New Haven and London, 2001). On
wax models in particular, see Charles Avery, La cera sempre aspetta: Wax Sketch Models
for Sculpture, Apollo 119 (1984): 16676.
12
Jeno Lanyi was apparently the first to draw attention to this fact, and stressed the
marked contrast between the Florentine masters on the one hand and on the other Jacopo
della Quercia, in whose work drawings play a leading role (Quercia Studien, Jahrbuch fr
Kunstwissenschaft 23 [1930]: 2563). But in this effort to establish Quercias originality,
Lanyi overlooked the fact that, in this respect at least, Quercia was carrying on a medieval
tradition that was no less firmly rooted in trecento Siena than it had been in Florence and
Milan (Oertel, as in n. 3, 263). Lanyi was right, however, in emphasizing Quercias departure, along with the Florentines, from the late trecento tradition of monumental sculpture
executed on the basis of drawings supplied by painters. Lanyi ( as in n. 12, 5354) also misinterpreted the passage in which Vasari discusses Quercias equestrian monument for the
catafalque of Giovanni dAzzo Ubaldini (Rosanna Bettarini and Paola Barocchi, eds., Le vite
de pi eccellenti pittori, scultori e architettori : nelle redazioni del 1550 e 1568 [Florence,
196697], Testo, III , 2122) to mean that Vasari attributed to Quercia the invention of the
full scale sculptors model. Vasari in fact is referring specifically to the material construction
of the piece, which in the sixteenth century was used for large models. Quercias monument,
however, was not a model in the sense of being preparatory to execution in more permanent
form, but belongs to the category of large scale decorations executed in temporary materials
for special occasions such as funerals and festivals. The subject of early Renaissance sculptors
use of drawings and models has been surveyed recently by Gary M. Radke, Benedetto da
Maiano and the Use of Full Scale Preparatory Models in the Quattrocento, in Verrocchio
and Late Quattrocento Italian Sculpture, ed. Stephen Bule, et al. (Florence 1992), 21724.
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delle figure grandi che sanno a fare in su gli sproni)13. As far as I can discover
this is the first reference to a model made in preparation for a piece of freestanding monumental sculpture since classical antiquity. The chief reason
for making the model was probably of a technical nature. We know that
considerable difficulties were experienced with the giant that Donatello had
made a few years earlier out of terracotta; it had to be repaired on several
occasions within a few years after it was completed.14 Chances are that
Donatello and Brunelleschi were trying out what would indeed have been
a novel combination of stone with a protective cover of metal in the form
of drapery. But even if it was primarily a technical rather than an aesthetic
experiment it represents a radical new departure in the way of conceiving a
work of sculpture.15
From the foregoing it should be clear that in order to grasp fully the
nature and significance of the creative process as it evolved in the
Renaissance, it is important to understand that sculpture of the highest
order can be created without first making a model of any kind, indeed without any externally manifested premeditation at all. The model is an invention and has a history of its own, and a corollary of this fact is that it
embodies a history of style in its own right, related to, but also independent of that of the finished work for which it was made. One strand of this
history is the development of what might be called the prototypical style,
in which the model is conceived as a fully developed preconception of the
final work. Here it is important to note that the preliminary designs,
whether drawings or models, mentioned in the documents were made as
the basis for commissions and were often intended to be kept as a standard
against which the completed work would be judged, and hence it seems
probable that they were highly finished.16 This assumption receives some
Giovanni Poggi, Il Duomo di Firenze (Berlin, 1909), doc. no. 423.

Horst W. Janson, Giovanni Chellinis Libro and Donatello, in Studien zur toskanischen Kunst. Festschrift fr Ludwig Heinrich Heydenreich, eds. Wolfgang Lotz and Lise L.
Mller (Mnchen,1964), 134; reprinted in his 16 studies (New York. 1973), 10716.
15
Brunelleschis participation and the fact that what was being planned was, after all, a
piece of architectural sculpture, may not be fortuitous. It is my feeling that this experiment,
and the development of the sculptors model generally was closely related to the earlier tradition of architectural models (see n. 11 above).
16
See for examples Cesare Guasti, Il pergamo di Donatello pel Duomo di Prato (Florence
1887), 13; Allan Marquand, Luca della Robbia (Princeton, 1914), 78, 197; Poggi (as in n.
13), doc. 1099.
13
14
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support from examples from the second half of the century that have a (by
no means certain) claim to be regarded as authentic models. Whatever the
terracotta Forzori altar attributed to Donatello may be, it coincided perfectly with the rough and sketchy character of Donatellos version of the
rilievo stiacciato (Figs. 7, 8);17 at the opposite end of the scale, but equally
undistinguishable from the version as executed, are the highly finished
models of Benedetto da Maiano related to the reliefs on his pulpit in S.
Croce of around 1475; the executed sculptures show only slight variations
from the models (Figs. 9, 10).18 In the end, it seems likely that the models
of the early Renaissance were presentation pieces, illustrations or try-outs,
rather than preliminary studies.
One begins to get the sense of a distinctive sketch style with Verrocchio
who, in addition to modeling the forms smoothly, used a sharp tool to trace
certain shapes in the soft clay with the same vigor and impetuosity that permeates all his work (Fig. 11). His terracotta model in the Victoria and
Albert Museum for the Forteguerri monument in Pistoia (c.1475), though
hardly a sketch, is very different from such highly finished models as those
of Benedetto da Majano.19 And if the London relief was actually a presentation piece, submitted for the patrons approval, it marks the appearance of
a new attitude in this domain. I think it not coincidental, however, that the
first true bozzetto-style, that is, a preliminary manner of execution in a
preliminary study, should have been developed by Michelangelo, the first
sculptor who made the preliminary model a deliberate, integral, and consistent part of his creative process. Michelangelos small figures in wax and
clay have the quality of directness that prompts us to speak for the first time
of real sculptured sketches, or bozzetti (Figs. 12, 20).20 In the terracotta
torso in the British Museum, the creative act is everywhere evident in the
very personal striated surface treatment that was, in a manner of speaking,
See Boucher (as in n. 11), 108111.
Radke 1992; Boucher (as in n. 11), 136138.
19
On the model for the Forteguerri monument see Boucher (as in n. 11), 12629.
20
This usage is, however, anachronistic. Following such root forms as boza and abbozzare, which focus on the preliminary or unfinished state of a work, the diminutive
bozzetto, referring to a small, rapidly executed sketch, in contradistinction to a modello,
became current only in the eighteenth century. See Oreste Ferrari, La fortuna (e sfortuna)
critica del bozzetto nel Settecento, in Studi in onore di Giulio Carlo Argan (Florence, 1994),
253258. For a succinct discussion of earlier terminology for preparatory works in sculpture,
see Dario Covi, Reinterpreting a Verrocchio Document, Source. Notes in the History of Art,
12, No. 4 (1993): 512.
17
18
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Michelangelos creative signature. Throughout the whole prior history of

European sculpture there is nothing that conveys in this way the sense of
being confronted with the artists most inward and private searchings.
Moreover, the sources and preserved examples together leave no doubt that
he made such studies regularly for all sorts of projects in painting as well
as in sculpture so it can also be said that with Michelangelo the three
dimensional sketch became an essential part of the artists creative machinery. His bozzetti so impressed his contemporaries as characteristic of his
modus operandi and as models of inspiration, that they included one as the
chief attribute of the allegory of Painting (sic!) on his tomb in Santa Croce
(Fig. 13).21
Nor is it coincidental that this technique coincides with Michelangelos
development of a preliminary manner in other media. It would seem that
at the beginning of his career, in his very first drawings, copies after Giotto
and Masaccio, Michelangelo went back to the very origins of modeling in
the modern sense of suggesting three-dimensional form, and invented a revolutionary new technique for doing so (Figs. 14, 15). The intersecting grids
of parallel cross-hatchings suggest, without fully describing, the shapes they
represent and thus explicitly declare their preliminary nature in so many
words, or so many lines, as it were. The same graphic style became literally
incisive in the preliminary stages of his work in sculpture, the claw-toothed
tool animating the surfaces of his unfinished marbles, and his models (Fig.
16).22 The interdisciplinarityof this technique in Michelangelos uvre
makes it quite impossible to attribute priority to one medium or the other;
and the degree to which this autonomous, purely graphic manner was a
21
See Ludwig Goldscheider, A Survey of Michelangelos Models in Wax and Clay (London,
1962) (with many problematic attributions), esp. Note on the Frontispiece, and notes on
figs. 12, where Michelangelos use of sketch-models for work in both media is emphasized.
On the history of the tomb and its ideology, see Zygmunt Wazbinski, LAccademia medicea
del disegno a Firenze nel cinquecento: idea e istituzione, 2 vols. (Florence, 1987), vol. 1,
155176; Kathleen Weil-Garris Brandt, Michelangelos Monument : an Introduction to an
Architecture of Iconography, in Architectural studies in memory of Richard Krautheimer, ed.
Cecil L. Striker (Mainz, 1996), 2731. The use of a sculptural model for Painting was
among contemporaries, and continues to be a subject of debate (see Herbert von Einem, Ein
verlorenes Sklavenmodell Michelanglos?, Rivista darte, 28 (1953): 145155.
22
On Michelangelos graphic mode in drawing and sculpting, see the article and corrective addendum by my former student Martha Dunkelman Michelangelos Earliest
Drawing Style, Drawing 1 (1980): 12126 and Correction to Michelangelos Earliest
Drawing Style, Drawing 2 (1980): 7.
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deliberate, conscious, invention is evident from an astonishing drawing in

which Michelangelo drew his own right hand in the act of drawing the
cross-hatched rendering of a left hand clutching a soft material, which coincides with the left hand grasping the cloth of the perizonium in the newly
rediscovered first version of the Risen Christ for S. Maria sopra Minerva in
Rome (Figs. 17, 18).23
At the opposite end of preparation is the equally dramatic fact that with
Michelangelo we are able, again for the first time since antiquity, to prove
the use of large scale models for monumental stone sculpture. I refer of
course to the Medici tombs; large models for the figure sculptures are amply
documented in Michelangelos own Ricordi, and one, the River God in the
Accademia is still preserved (Fig. 19).24 Here, too, the procedural revolution
coincided with a corresponding innovation in technique. Michelangelo also
developed a new plastic modeling style at the opposite end of the preliminary scale from the line-based, graphic mode: using his fingers to mould
the clay or wax he created continuous, consistent, smooth undulations that
replace the grids as the surface, suggesting instead a sort of skin that pneumatically envelops the volume beneath (Fig. 20). Similarly, on paper, again
using his fingers and eschewing lines altogether, he rubbed and modeled
charcoal to create carefully finished and smoothly undulating forms. The
result is something between a preliminary drawing and a fully developed
painting or sculpture, a sort of intermediate formal and conceptual category
in its own right (Fig. 21). The sheets were in fact conceived as independent
23
Silvia Danesi Squarzina, ed., Caravaggio e i Giustiniani. Toccar con mano una collezione
del seicento, exh. cat. (Milan, 2001), 246251. On the attribution of the famous and muchdiscussed drawing of hands, see Charles de Tolnay, in Le Cabinet dun grand amateur, P.-J.
Mariette, 16941774, dessins du XVe sicle au XVIIIe sicle. exh. cat. (Paris, 1967), 245.
24
For the Ricordi, see Lucilla Bardeschi Ciulich and Paola Barocchi, eds., I ricordi di
Michelangelo (Florence, 1970). The frequency with which he used large models for sculpture
is not so evident as with the bozzetti; Cellini (cited in n. 25 below) says that Michelangelo
had worked both with and without full scale models, and that after a point he used them
regularly. On the other hand, in a letter of 1547 Bandinelli reports Pope Clement as having
said that Michelangelo could never be persuaded to make such models (Giovanni Bottari,
Raccolta di lettere sulla pittura, scultura ed architettura scritte da pi celebri personaggi dei secoli XV, XVI, e XVII, ed. Stefano Ticozzi, 8 vols. [Milan, 182225], vol. 1, 71). But that
Michelangelo himself thought of them as a means of facilitating the work is apparent from
his letter of April 1523 concerning full scale models for the Medici tombs: Paola Barocchi
and Renzo Ristori, Il carteggio di Michelangelo. Edizione postuma di Giovanni Poggi (Florence,
196573), vol. 2, 366367.
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works of art, and Michelangelo actually presented them to his friends as

such. Michelangelos smoothly executed models surely inspired the perfectly
executed small bronze sculptures, many of them actual models for monumental works, that were then coming much into vogue, especially at the
hands of Giovanni Bologna.
Both these innovations should be kept in mind when one considers still
another aspect of Michelangelos working procedure. This is his habit,
described by Vasari and Cellini and confirmed by the works themselves, of
attacking the block from one side only, uncovering the projecting forms
first and proceeding only gradually deeper into the block (Fig. 16).25 The
significance of this technique has not I think been clearly grasped, though
Vasari himself supplies the explanation. He says that its purpose was to
avoid errors by leaving room at the back of the block for alterations. In
other words, should the artist encounter any flaws in the marble as he proceeds, should he make a mistake, should he alter his conception, he will be
in a much better position to make any necessary allowances or changes than
if the opposite side were already hewn away.
I need hardly point out the similarity of this to the later classical procedure, which Bluemel showed was based on making copies by pointing off.
This would indicate that Michelangelos technique, too, developed in relation to his use of models. Indeed, Vasari gives his description of the procedure in a passage dealing with the use of models. The description is even
couched in terms of the famous analogy of a wax model slowly withdrawn
from a pail of water. I do not mean to imply that Michelangelo actually
pointed off in a modern way, as has been claimed,26 or even that he necessarily made models, on whatever scale, in every case. Rather, I suggest in
general terms that these two most salient features of his working procedure
his one sided approach to the block, and the unprecedented role of
bozzetti and modelli in his work should be viewed as interconnected
phenomena, the one proceeding directly from the other. Considered in this
light it might be said that Michelangelos way of carving and chiseling stone
extended into the domain of this notoriously recalcitrant, Alpine (his term)
25
Bettarini and Barocchi (as in n. 12), Testo I, 90; Testo VI, 110; Benvenuto Cellini,
Trattato della Scultura in Arturo J. Rusconi and Antonio Valeri, eds., La Vita di Benvenuto
Cellini (Rome 1901), 780; these are the most important among numerous allusions to
Michelangelos procedure.
26
Franz Kieslinger, Ein unbekanntes Werk des Michelangelo, Jahrbuch der Preussischen
Kunstsammlungen 49 (1928): 5054.
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material the preliminary experimentation, trial-and-error, indeed sketching,

that characterized his creative procedure generally. This quality of procedural continuity was perhaps best encapsulated in Vasaris beautiful appreciation of the perfection seen in the imperfection of the work, ancora che
non siano finite le parti sue, si conosce, nellessere rimasta abozzata e gradinata,
nella imperfezione della bozza la perfezzione dellopera.27 Michelangelos revolutionary technique may thus be understood against the broad background of sculptural procedure since the early fifteenth century. The development that began with Donatellos and Brunelleschis quasi scientific
experiment reaches here, a hundred years later, a kind of threshold.
In the course of the sixteenth century this threshold was crossed and the
creative process became, as it were, so self conscious and articulate as to be
virtually autonomous. The treatises of Cellini and Vasari on sculpture give
detailed accounts involving a series of clearly defined steps from small study
through the full scale model, to the final work. Michelangelo himself could
be cited as authority: the Medici chapel is Cellinis chief witness when
insisting on the desirability of the full scale model.28 Characteristically, they
both give as much attention to the preparatory stages, the making of the
models, as to the final execution. This attitude has its visual corollary in the
fact that the preliminary studies and models now become independent and
highly finished works of art in their own right. No doubt it was for this reason that two of Giambolognas full scale models, the Florence Triumphant
over Pisa and the Rape of the Sabines, were preserved along with the executed
works themselves (Fig. 22).29 And of course the small studies for, or versions
of, large scale works were often cast in bronze as Kleinkunst (Fig. 23).30
This by no means signifies that true bozzetti were not produced in the sixteenth century; although the highly finished studies form the backbone of
Giambolognas preparations for a work of art, under certain circumstances
at least, he produced sketches that go as far beyond Michelangelo in freedom of handling as do the finished works in elegant, superfine surfaces. In
Bettarini and Barocchi (as in n. 12), vol. 1, 57.
Rusconi and Valeri (as in n. 15), 778 780.
29
On Giambolognas models and working procedure see Charles Avery, Giambologna:
The Complete Sculpture (Oxford, 1987), 6372; Giambolognas Sketch-Models and his
Sculptural Technique, Connoisseur 199 (1978): 311.
30
On the bronze model of the Neptune and its place in the history of the fountain in
Bologna, see chapter three, Giambolognas Neptune at the Crossroads, in Irving Lavin, PastPresent. Essays on Historicism in Art from Donatello to Picasso (Berkeley, CA, 1993), 6283.
27
28
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fact, Giambologna played a key role in our history by creating what I would
called an iconographic bozzetto-style. Both his studies for the colossal figures of the Nile (unexecuted) and the Appenines in the Medici garden at
Pratolino, offer brilliant displays of inchoate freedom and spontaneity, subtly differentiated so as to evoke, respectively, the liquid and craggy wildness
of untamed nature itself; in this sense the rough sketches are actually quite
finished (Figs. 2426).
To my mind, Berninis terracotta sketches are inconceivable without the
precedence of Giambologna, whose studies he must have studied in detail,
possibly in the Medici collection in Florence, while in turn greatly expanding the stylistic, technical and thematic reach of the bozzetto-style.31
Moreover, Bernini continues and even surpasses the late sixteenth century
in working out his conception fully in advance. Sandrart reports he saw in
Berninis studio no less than twenty two bozzetti for the St. Longinus
alone.32 Sandrart was himself astonished, and observes that the number of
studies was far greater than the one or two models other sculptors were
wont to produce. Eleven bozzetti for the angels of the Ponte Sant Angelo
are preserved still today, and in them we follow the development of
Berninis ideas with a degree of intimacy that can only be described as star31
Berninis acquaintance with the Medici collections seems evident from a comparison
of his Rape of Proserpine with the bronze by Pietro da Barga in the Bargello (Giacomo de
Nicola, A Series of Small Bronzes by Pietro da Barga, Burlington Magazine 29 [1916]; Pl.
III, Q), a relationship I hope to enlarge upon in another context. (The Proserpine-Barga relationship, first noted by me, has recently been explored by Matthias Winner, in Bernini scultore: la nascita del barocco in casa Borghese, eds. Anna Coliva and Sebastian Schtze, exh. cat.,
[Rome, 1998], 192193.) On Berninis many Florentine connections see further Lavin Five
Youthful Sculptures by Gianlorenzo Bernini and a Revised Chronology of his Early Works,
The Art Bulletin 50 (1968): 242 n.125; Lavin (as in n. 30), 172175; Ex Uno Lapide: The
Renaissance Sculptors Tour de Force, in Il cortile delle statue. Der Statuenhof des Belvedere im
Vatikan, ed. Matthias. Winner (Mainz, 1998), 191210.
Our knowledge of Berninis sculptural studies has been greatly increased, but also somewhat confused (see n. 53 below), by several recent exhibitions and technical studies:
Androssov, Sergej O., ed., Alle origini di Canova. Le terrecotte della collezione Farsetti, exh. cat.
(Venice, 1991); Ian Wardropper, ed., From the Sculptors Hand, Italian Baroque Terracottas
from the State Hermitage Museum, exh. cat. (Chicago, 1998); Gaskell, Ivan, and Henry Lie,
eds., Sketches in Clay for Projects by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Harvard University Art Museums
Bulletin, 6, No. 3 (Cambridge MA, 1999).
32
Arthur Rudolf Peltzer, Joachim von Sandrarts Academie der Bau-, Bild- und MahlereyKnst von 1675. Leben der berhmten Maler, Bildhauer und Baumeister (Mnchen 1925),
286. Sandrart notes the studies were all three spans high (c. 68cm) and made of wax; the
material seems doubtful, since this would be the unique instance of Bernini studying in wax.
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tling. Even in the famous case where we know Bernini worked the marble
directly, the bust of Louis XIV, he did so only after the most painstaking
study, which included besides drawings, many clay models.33
No less clear is the evidence for Berninis commitment to the full scale
model. In every case where the documents for his larger commissions are
preserved they show that he used full scale models; it was through them that
he was able to control and give his personal stamp to vast undertakings executed largely with the help of assistants. Symptomatic of this development
is that by far the most elaborate and practical description to date of techniques of model making, measurement and proportional enlargement
comes in a treatise on sculpture written around 1660 by one Orfeo Boselli.
Boselli, though a pupil and follower of Duquesnoy, worked under Bernini
on the decoration of St. Peters, and his account may well reflect the practice in Berninis studio. But the treatise is mainly concerned with the
restoration and copying of antique statuary, and it is significant that one of
his methods seems to have entailed the use of fixed raised points on the
marble comparable to those found on unfinished Roman sculptures34.
Symptomatic, too, is the fact that with Bernini and his school we begin, as
we shall see, to get bozzetti that show ample evidence of measurement and
33
The best account of the making of the bust remains that of Rudolf Wittkower,
Berninis Bust of Louis XIV, Charlton Lectures on Art, 33 (Oxford 1951): esp. 8. See further
Cecil Gould, Bernini in France. An Episode in Seventeenth-Century History (Princeton,1982),
35, 4145, 807; Helga Tratz, Werkstatt und Arbeitsweise Berninis, Rmisches Jahrbuch fr
Kunstgeschichte 2324 (1988): 466478.
34
Osservationi della scoltura antica, Rome, Bibl. Corsini, ms. 36 F 27, fol. 60 verso: salvarai sempre le doi cime del sasso, grosse tre dita, ben riquadrate, tanto nel di sopra, quanto
nel fianco, perche perse quelle, sarebbe vano il tutto; ne le levarai mai sin tanto, che non
habbi posto a loco certo tutte le parti principali (fol. 60 verso). The methods described by
Boselli were studied in an unpublished paper by a former student of mine, Martin Weyl, A
History of Pointing Techniques from the Early Renaissance Through Modern Times, unpublished
Qualifying Paper, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, Fall 1968, 1113. On the
treatise, see Michelangelo Piacentini, Le Osservationi della scoltura antica di Orfeo
Boselli, Bollettino del R. Istituto di Archeologia e Storia dellArte 9 (1939): 535. Following
my suggestion the text was published by Phoebe Dent Weil, ed., Orfeo Boselli. Osservazioni
della scoltura antica : dai manoscritti Corsini e Doria e altri scritti (Florence, 1978). Based on
additonal mansucripts, the text has been edited anew by Antonio O. Torresi, ed., Orfeo
Boselli. Osservazioni sulla scultura antica. I manoscritti di Firenze e di Ferrara (Ferrara, 1994).
On the dating, see the important observations by Donatella Livia Sparti, Tecnica e teoria
del restauro scultoreo a Roma nel Seicento, con una verifica sulla collezione di Flavio Chigi,
Storia dellarte, No. 92 (1998): 6566.
On the recognition of Roman pointing method see n. 50 below.
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calibration for the purpose of accurate transfer and enlargement.

I do not believe one could duplicate this kind of advanced preparation
in the work of any previous sculptor. We are faced with the paradox that
behind Berninis revolutionary effects of freedom and spontaneity there lay
an equally unprecedented degree of conscious premeditation. In a sense, of
course, it may be said that Bernini simply carries to a new level the tendency
to externalize and articulate the creative process that had begun in the early
Renaissance. But there are a number of factors that taken together point to
a profound difference from earlier procedure and have some bearing upon
what I have elsewhere termed, oxymoronically, Berninis calculated spontaneity. As regards full scale models the examples recorded were made
either for the benefit of assistants, or as a means of trying out the projected
work in situ.35 There is no evidence that Bernini used full scale models as
part of his own personal working procedure, as Vasari and Cellini had recommended. Interestingly enough, Boselli says specifically that whereas it
had previously been the custom to make full scale models, he considers a
small model sufficient, except for larger works requiring try-outs for size.36
With regard to smaller models, in Bernini the relationship between
developed studies and sketches is reversed as compared with Giambologna.
Rapidly executed bozzetti, instead of being relatively rare, form by far the
greater portion of the corpus of known Bernini terracottas. Conversely,
highly finished studies are exceptional in Berninis work, and those that
exist can usually be linked to special circumstances such as execution by
assistants. Very few, if any, of Berninis small models were cast in bronze as
independent art works.37 The loose and very personal sketch, then, was his
characteristic instrument of creation.
35
On Berninis use of full-scale models see the important studies by George C. Bauer:
From Architecture to Scenography: The Full-Scale Model in the Baroque Tradition, in
Scenografia barocca, Atti del XXIV Congresso Internazionale di Storia dellArte, Bologna
1979, 5 (Bologna, 1982), 141149; Bernini e i modelli in grande, in Gian Lorenzo
Bernini architetto e larchitettura europea del sei-settecento, eds. Gianfranco Spagnesi and
Marcello Fagiolo (Rome, 198384) 279290; Bernini and the Baldacchino: On Becoming
an Architect in the Seventeenth Century, Architectura 26 (1996): 144165.
36
Osservazioni (as in n. 34), fol. 56 recto.
37
The two outstanding candidates, a unique equestrian Constantine at Oxford, and the
Countess Matilda of Tuscany, of which more than a dozen casts are known, record major public monuments and were likely intended as commemorative souvenirs rather than as works
of art in their own right. The subject has been studied by Francesca G. Bewer in Gaskell and
Lie (as in n. 31), 1627.
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It is also remarkable that his bozzetti do not necessarily become more

highly finished as they approach the final conception. A striking case of a
bozzetto for the angel carrying the superscription on the bridge (Figs.
279):38 the terracotta is very close to the executed figure and is actually
scaled for enlargement (along the side of the support), yet it is not much
more highly finished than studies produced at an earlier stage in the planning (Fig. 30).39 To be sure, Berninis chief purpose in making the models
was to study the general disposition of pose and drapery, rather than to
work out details. But there is also, I think and this can be shown in many
other ways as well a deliberate effort to retain, or actually to increase the
sense of immediacy and freshness. These qualities, which had previously
been, so to speak, incidental by-products of the creative process, become
part of its very purpose, a goal toward which Berninis elaborate preparations were aimed.
In this way one can also understand the vast gulf separating Berninis
conception of sculpture from that of Michelangelo, despite the many points
they have in common. For Michelangelo sculpture was a matter of taking
away material to reveal the form in the stone. And he was obsessed with the
difficulties of the task such phrases as dura and alpestra pietra occur
repeatedly in his poems in reference to sculpture.40 Sculpture was not an
easy business for Bernini either; one of Michelangelos own dicta that he
applied to himself was nelle mie opere caco sangue.41 But for him a major
challenge was to preserve in the final execution the momentary quality,
though not the roughness, of a sketch. Hence he thought of sculpture as a
process of molding the marble, rather than hewing it away; and he said pre-
On the attribution of this figure, Rudolf Wittkower, Bernini: The Sculptor of the
Roman Baroque (London, 1966), 249. On the Hermitage model and the importance of its
enlargement scale, see Lavin (as in preliminary n. * above), 103.
39
Lavin (as in preliminary n. * above), 1034; one of a pair of bozzetti for the angels, first
illustrated and discussed in my dissertation, The Bozzetti of Gianlorenzo Bernini, Harvard
Univ. (Cambridge, Massachusetts 1955), 184185, now in the Kimbell Art Museum at Fort
Worth, Texas. The newly restored bridge angels and the prepratory studies have been discussed most recently by Angela Negro and Marina Minozzi, in Claudio Strinati and Maria
Grazia Bernardini, eds., Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Regista del Barocco. I restauri (Rome, 1999),
6775, 7784.
40
Erwin Panofsky, Studies in Iconology (New York and Evanston 1962), 178 and n.16.
41
Paul Freart de Chantelou, Journal du voyage du Cavalier Bernin en France, ed. L.
Lalanne (Paris 1885), 174.
38
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cisely that one of his greatest achievements was to have succeeded in rendering the marble pieghevole come la cera.42
This enhanced and intensified style-meaning, as I would call it, reaches
a climax in two interrelated and immediately successive commissions
Bernini received in the 1670s, toward the end of his long life: the unprecedented series of heroic angels for the Ponte SantAngelo and the Sacrament
altar in St. Peters (Figs. 2730; Figs. 3134). Nothing like them, so free and
spontaneous, had been created before. The point want to emphasize here
is that the manner in which they were conceived and executed was intimately related to the fact that they are angels, specifically intended to evoke
the immaterial essence of those ethereal creatures, who by their very nature
fulfill a two-fold role, to move fleetingly and effortlessly on divine errands,
and to adore in perpetual ardor the divinity whose glory they reflect and
manifest.
The figures all display the kind of voluminously folded and agitated
draperies for which Bernini was, and sometimes still is, roundly criticized,
in a spectacularly demonstrative and meaningful array, for in this case the
clay has been metamorphosed into the very stuff of angels. But the two sets
of creatures are also quite different from one another, and quite naturally so,
if one can speak of nature in relation to angels, if one follows the inspired
perorations of the greatest of all Christian angelologists, the PseudoDionysius the Areopagite. In his Celestial Hierarchies Pseudo-Dionysius
defined the essence of these purely spiritual beings in terms of three fundamental metaphors: as the wind, for the angels who waft at instant speed
through space and time they operate everywhere, coming and going
from above to below and again from below to above; as clouds, to show that
the holy and intelligent beings are filled in a transcendent way with hidden
light; and as fire, for the shining and enflamed garments that cover the
nudity of these intelligent beings of heaven, symbolizing the divine form.
For Bernini these references were much more than metaphors. His figures
complement each other not only in form but also in their very essence
they are wind, they are clouds, they are light.
The ten marble angels, placed high on the balustrades of the bridge leading across the Tiber to St. Peters and the Vatican, are perceived as luminous
42
Domenico Bernini, Vita del Cavalier Gio. Lorenzo Bernino (Rome 1713), 149; Filippo
Baldinucci, Vita del cavaliere Gio. Lorenzo Bernino, Florence, 1682, ed. Sergio Samik
Ludovici (Milan, 1948), 141.
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apparitions against the blue, cloud-flecked Roman sky, whence they

descend and alight to display their melancholy, bittersweet instruments of
the Passion of the Redeemer. Delicately poised, with graceful, lilting movements, they appear like momentarily congealed visions of the events they
represent. Their wind-filled drapery floats, flutters, billows, and curls, and
they hover weightlessly suspended on cloud-puffs of their own. These are
the angels of wind and clouds, the motion and the light of the divine spirit,
described in the Celestial Hierarchies.43
Then came a pair of gilded bronze angels shown kneeling and adoring
the Holy Sacrament in St. Peters itself. In their form, Berninis shimmering
creatures display mankinds highest aspirations to perfection, and in their
expressions they evoke the joy that unites humanity and the angels at the
Resurrection. Their effulgent and flamboyant drapery seems to consume
their very essence in a pyrotechnical display of pure, coruscating energy.
Both the fiery nature of these ethereal creatures and the ardor of their love
are doubly fused from earth into terracotta into the golden bronze of which
they are made, itself purified and formed by fire into the ever-shifting
golden light which is their true medium. Whereas the windblown angels of
the Passion on the bridge are epiphanic, the angels of the Sacrament are
devotional, eternally fixed in the ecstatic bliss of their visio dei. In this sense
they seem literally to reflect the description in the Celestial Hierarchies of
Pseudo-Dionysius, The Complete Works (New York, 1987), 187188. (Celestial
Hierarchies, 15, 6):
They are also named winds as a sign of the virtually instant speed with which they
operate everywhere, their coming and going from above to below and again from below to
above as they raise up their subordinates to the highest peak and as they prevail upon their
own superiors to proceed down into fellowship with and concern for hose beneath them.
One could add that the word wind means a spirit of the air and shows how divine and intelligent beings live in conformity with God. The word is an image and a symbol of the activity of the Deity. It naturally moves and gives life, hurrying forward, direct and unrestrained,
and this in virtue of what to us is unknowable and invisible, namely the hiddenness of the
sources and the objectives of its movements. You do not know , says scripture, whence it
comes and whither it goes. This was all dealt with in more detail by me in The Symbolic
Theology when I was explicating the four elements. The word of God represents them also
as clouds. This is to show that the holy and intelligent beings are filled in a transcendent way
with hidden light. Directly and without arrogance they have been first to receive this light,
and as intermediaries, they have generously passed it on so far as possible to those next to
them. They have a generative power, a life-giving power, a power to give increase and completion, for they rain understanding down and they summon the breast which receives them
to give birth to a living tide.
43
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the shining and enflamed garments that cover the nudity of the intelligent
beings of heaven, as symbolizing the divine form.44
These distinctive qualities of form and meaning inhabit the preparatory
studies so profoundly and so consistently that one can speak in Berninis
case almost literally of a vocabulary of bozzetto styles. The undulating and
serpentine crevasses and striated surfaces of the terracottas of the bridge
angels match the billowing and tightly wrapped folds of their wind-swept
drapery, and it is no accident that in the one preserved drawing for a clothed
bridge angel the same effects are achieved with a fine-tipped pen and ink
(Fig. 35). The many autograph preliminary studies for the Sacrament
angels, drawn as well as sculpted, also testify to the painstaking labor that
lay behind the chiaroscuro effects that serve also to dematerialize the
Sacrament figures.45 Here, however, the continuous, predominantly linear
definition of form in the bridge angels is replaced by a flickering pattern
that arises from the juxtaposition of discrete patches of light and dark. The
sculptures are full of jibes and jabs and excavations with scoops and fingers,
while in the latest of the preserved drawings for the figures the lines are
replaced by patches of light and dark (tinted brown, as in bronze) achieved
almost exclusively with brush and wash (Fig. 36). In both cases, for different reasons and in different ways, the materials become as transcendent as
the images they represent.
I want also to consider briefly the seemingly different but fundamentally
related question of how Berninis preliminary models were used and what
functions they served. Here I want to acknowledge the extraordinary
achievement of Anthony Sigel in his study of the technique of Berninis
bozzetti. Particularly dramatic is Sigels recovery of the system of measurements for transferal or enlargement, using compasses, from many tiny
punctures and incisions made in the wet clay (Fig. 37).46 The number of
marks varies greatly, but it is clear that the process was quite painstaking and
15, 4: Pseudo-Dionysius (as in n. 43), 186.
On the paradox of Berninis calculated spontaneity, see Irving Lavin, Calculated
Spontaneity. Bernini and the Terracotta Sketch, Apollo 107 (1978), 398405. On the
bozzetto illustrated in Fig. 31, see Irving Lavin Bernini-Bozzetti: One More, One Less. A
Berninesque Sculptor in Mid-Eighteenth Century France, in Ars et scriptura, Festschrift fr
Rudolf Preimesberger zum 65. Geburtstag, eds. Hannah Baader, et al. (Berlin, 2001),
143156 (reprinted in Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. Atti dei convegni lincei 170.
Convegno internazionale La cultura letteraria italiana e lidentit europea Roma, 68 aprile
2000, [Rome, 2001], 245284).
46
See Sigels contributions in Gaskell and Lie, (as in n. 31), 48118.
44
45
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probably quite reliable. The discovery adds substantially to the evidence

previously discerned in graduated scales marked on the support or base of
the model (Figs. 29, 33) that Bernini inaugurated a studio procedure that
would evolve into the modern mass-production methods used by professional craftsmen to produce copies on virtually any scale from a small model
provided by the creative artist.47 We should be careful, however, not to overestimate the efficacy or accuracy of the method, which had two inherent
limitations. Most of the measurements were taken on the figure itself and
were thus interconnected; some points were used more frequently than others and there was some external reference in the calibrated scales, but the
system was largely a house of cards dependent ultimately on the judgment
of the operator. Moreover, because the clay was wet the same hole could be
used only sparingly, and shifting from one spot to another, albeit in the near
vicinity, introduced deviations that were greatly augmented in the very
process of enlargement. All this was in contrast to the ancient Roman system where the protuberances projecting from the figures provided fixed
points from which measurements could be taken repeatedly, and even more
so to later systems that took measurements from an external frame or
pointed off from external fixed points that permitted a much more accurate process of triangulation (as do the modern apparatuses that use lazer
beams).
Finally, it is noteworthy that this modus operandi using novel, mechanical methods of measurement and enlargement, including compass points
and calibrated external scales, was developed in Berninis studio during his
later years. We have nothing like it earlier, and I suspect that this degree of
precision was in fact unprecedented. In part the technique was surely useful in fulfilling large and complex works involving many assistants to
whom, in this way, Bernini need only supply a sketch model. The measurements would thus have served primarily for enlargement, and I suspect
that the marks were not made by Bernini himself but by assistants charged
with blocking out or even bringing to near completion sculptures he
intended to finish himself, or executing the work on their own.48 Even so,
however, it is significant that the technique was evidently developed hand
in hand with the development of Berninis late style. Technical method
Lavin (as in preliminary n. * above), 103.
Mark Weil, in Gaskell and Lie (as in n. 31), 148149, asserts that the back of the
Hermitage bozzetto, including the scales incised on both sides of the support, was finished
by Berninis assistant, Giulio Cartari, who worked on the statue as executed.
47
48
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and expressive function were mutually responsive. In this sense, it might be

said that Bernini greatly intensified the paradox that had been inherent in
the evolution of the Renaissance creative process from the outset: he
achieved an unprecedented effect of immediacy and spontaneity through an
unprecedented degree of advance calculation. As to the purpose of this creative exercise, his sculptures speak for themselves, for they, in turn, make it
perfectly clear that Berninis ultimate goal was to carry over to the final
work, whoever the executant, the freshness and vitality, though not the
roughness, of the sketch.
The paradox continued to evolve. It is disconcerting that the bozzetto
style of Canova, the supreme neo-classicist, was deeply indebted to Bernini
(as was his art generally, in my view). In fact, Canovas terracottas are even
freer and more fluid than Berninis, qualities that reached an apogee toward
the end of his life as he approached death: in a veritable paroxysm of expressive power he sketched a group of Adam and Eve Mourning over the Dead
Abel, the first fruit of mans fall from grace, and a Piet embodying the agonizing cost of redemption (Figs. 38, 39). One senses that Canovas bozzetto
style had become a procedural metaphor for Gods own, prototypical act of
human creation, with full knowledge of its consequences: And the Lord
God formed man of the slime of the earth: and breathed into his face the
breath of life, and man became a living soul. (Gen 2, 7) Moreover, so far as
I know, Canovas terracotta sketches do not show any pointing marks at all;
they were, evidently, intensely private, truly independent studies, not
intended to be directly copied or enlarged.
When the work entered the public domain, however, an entirely new
procedure was set in motion. Canovas method of pointing up using a
wooden frame with hanging plumb lines from which the horizontal measurements were taken (Fig. 40), was more objective and accurate than
Berninis internal, interlocking measurements and calibrated scales incised
on the perimeter of the work itself.49 Canova also adopted a new, much
more reliable method of assuring that in the transfer of measurements his
ideas would be accurately reproduced. The sketch bozzetti were made into
See Hugh Honour, Canovas Studio Practice- I: The Early Years, The Burlington
Magazine 114 (1972): 14659, and Canovas Studio Practice-II: 17921822, The Burlington
Magazine 114 (1972): 214229; on Canovas work in clay, Honour, in Boucher (as in n. 11),
6984. Our illustrations are from Francesco Carradori, Istruzione elementare per gli studiosi
della scultura (Pisa, 1802), pls. VIIIX; ed. with English translation by Matti Kalevi Auvinen,
preface by Hugh Honour, introduction by Paolo Bernardini (Los Angeles, 2002).
49
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highly detailed models in gesso, a relatively stable but easily penetrable

material into which infinite numbers of fixed metal points could be inserted
from which virtually every detail of the surface could be reproduced (Fig.
41).50 Canovas procedure brought into even sharper focus than had
Berninis the historical conjunction of opposites that began in the
Renaissance: inspired sketch and deliberate planning. A further irony lies in
the fact that the trajectory of Canovas procedure is exactly the reverse of
Berninis. While Bernini sought to preserve in the final work the fleeting
qualities of the sketch, Canova moves toward an austere simplification in
which the sensuality of living form has been instantaneously frozen in an
ideal of perfection.51
Hugh Honour has observed that although Canova despised the practice, his system
was probably developed in relation to the veritable industry of copying and restoring
antiquities in Rome (the methods described in Bosellis treatise were intended primarily for
this purpose). Canova himself noted that in his Venetian years, he worked con assai pochi
punti nellabbozzo di marmo, and that larte di cavar da punti was not understood in
Venice; others reported that Canova had worked without pointing in Venice (Honour 1972,
153). As far as I am aware, Winckelmann was the first to note the protuberances on unfinished Roman sculptures and the analogy with contemporary methods: Johann Joachim
Winckelmann, Geschichte der Kunst des Altertums (Dresden, 1764) , ed. Vienna, 1776, 513:
An der beynahe colossalischen weiblichen Figur eines Flusses, in der Villa Albani, die ehemals in der Villa des herzoglichen Hauses Este zu Tivoli war, siehet man, da die alten
Bildhauer ihre Statuen, wie die unsrigen zu thun pflegen, angeleget haben: denn der untere
Theil dieser Statue ist nur aus dem grbsten entworfen. Aus den vornehmsten Knochen, die
das Gewand bedecket, sind erhabene Punkte gelassen, welches die Maae sind, die nachher
in vlliger Ausarbeitung weggehauen worden, wie noch itzo geschiehet. (It is evident from
the colossal female figure of a River in the Albani villa, formerly in the villa of the ducal
house of Este, at Tivoli, that the ancient sculptors draughted their statues as the moderns do
theirs; for the lower portion of it is merely sketched out in the roughest manner. On the
principal bones, covered by the drapery, raised points have been left; these are measures,
which at a more advanced stage of the execution were cut away, as the case is at the present
day. Johann Joachim Winckelmann, The History of Ancient Art, transl. G. Henry Lodge, 2
vols., [London, 1881], vol. 2, 56). Cited by Weyl (as in n. 34), 2223.
51
Much of what I have said here about the relationship between Canova and Bernini
with particular regard to their sketch models, was said with great perceptivity by Fred Licht,
Canova (New York, 1983), 227, 230. The comparison with Bernini recalls the paradoxical
relationship Wittkower pointed out between Bernini and Poussin: Bernini starts classical, as
with a drawing of the Antinous for the angel with the Superscription, and ends Baroque,
whereas Poussin starts Baroque, with his very loose and rapid wash drawings, and ends deliberate and classical in the paintings (Rudolf Wittkower, The Role of Classical Models in
Berninis and Poussins Preparatory Work, in Studies in Western Art: Latin American Art and
the Baroque Period in Europe, Acts of the Twentieth International Congress of the History of
Art, 3, [Princeton, 1963], 41 50; reprinted in Wittkower, Studies in the Italian Baroque,
50
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With Canova the personal, informal, spontaneous sketch model

becomes part of a truly academic procedure. There is more to this observation than metaphor. It is now practically certain when and how Canova
came to know Berninis bozzetti so well. The most important collections of
bozzetti by Bernini and his immediate followers are those in the Fogg
Museum and at the Hermitage, and both groups include works that appear
in the inventories of the great collection of models assembled in Rome in
the latter part of the eighteenth century by the sculptor and restorer extraordinary, Bartolommeo Cavaceppi (171799).52 Cavaceppi was above all a
purveyor of antiquities, and a first inventory was made in the 1760s when,
under financial duress, he thought but failed to sell a small portion of his
vast collection. His primary motivation as a collector, however, was to establish a school, an academy, in which the figurative tradition and indeed the
cultural tradition it represented, handed down from antiquity, especially in
sculpture, would be carried on. On his death in 1799 he left his entire collection for this purpose to the Accademia di San Luca in Rome, which
promptly sold it.
In the meantime, another great collection of models had been formed,
partly no doubt with material supplied by Cavaceppi, by another voracious
collector who, though not an artist himself, had the instincts of one. The
wealthy Venetian Abbot Filippo Farsetti (170374) evidently realized that
his native city, despite its own noble antiquarian tradition, did not share the
grand sculptural heritage that was the particular glory of Rome in the age
of Neo-Classicism.53 Farsetti spent 17503 in Rome, feverishly commis[London, 1975], 103 114; and see my Bernini and Antiquity The Baroque Paradox. A
Poetical View, in Antikenrezeption im Hochbarock, eds.Herbert Beck and Sabine Schulze
[Berlin, 1989] 936).
52
Following the pioneering work of Seymour Howard, Bartolomeo Cavaceppi.
Eighteenth-Century Restorer (New York 1982), the splendid investigative task of recovering
Cavaceppis operations and their legacy, was accomplished by Carlo Gasparri and Olivia
Ghiandoni, Lo studio Cavaceppi e le collezioni Torlonia, Rivista dellistituto nazionale
darcheologia e storia dellarte 16 (1993). The correlation between the Cavaceppi inventory
and known bozzetti, including those now in the Fogg, was also provided by Maria Giulia
Barberini in Bartolomeo Cavaceppi scultore romano, eds. Maria Giulia Barberini and Carlo
Gasparri, exh. cat. (Rome 1994), 11737.
53
On Farsetti see most recently Androssov (as in n. 31), and in Wardropper (as in n. 31),
213; an excellent paper setting in context the model collections of Cavaceppi and Farsetti
is that by Dean Walker in Wardropper (as in n. 31), 1429. The nature of Farsettis interest
and the passion with which he collected and had copies made of ancient and contemporary
sculpture, especially bozzetti and modelli, have reinforced the suspicion I have always had
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BOZZETTO STYLE
10. Benedetto da Maiano, Confirmation of the Order of St. Francis.

Pulpit, Santa Croce, Florence.
1205
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1206
11. Verrocchio, Model for the Forteguerri monument, terracotta,

Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
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12. Michelangelo, Torso, terracotta. British Museum, London.
1207
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1208
13. Battista Lorenzi, Allegory of Painting. Tomb of Michelangelo,

Santa Croce, Florence.
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BOZZETTO STYLE
14. Michelangelo, Study after Giotto, drawing, pen and ink.

1209
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1210
15. Michelangelo, Study after Masaccio, drawing,

pen and ink. Albertina,Vienna.
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BOZZETTO STYLE
16. Michelangelo, St. Matthew.

Galleria dellAccademia, Florence.
1211
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1212
17. Attributed to Michelangelo, Right hand

drawing left hand grasping soft material,
drawing, pen and ink. Muse du Louvre,
Paris.
18. Attributed to Michelangelo, Resurrected

Christ. San Vincenzo, Bassano Romano.
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19. Michelangelo, Model of a River God, clay, 180cm. long, c. 1525. Casa Buonarroti, Florence.

Page 41
1213
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1214
20. Michelangelo, Bozzetto for a two figure group, terracotta.

Casa Buonarroti, Florence.
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BOZZETTO STYLE
21. Copy after Michelangelo,

Rape of Ganymede, drawing,
rubbed charcoal. Royal
Library, Windsor Castle.
22. Giambologna, Model for

the Rape of a Sabine, clay,
whitewashed. Galleria
dellAccademia, Florence.
1215
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1216
23. Giambologna, Cast model for the Bologna Neptune fountain, bronze.
Museo Civico, Bologna.
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BOZZETTO STYLE
24. Giambologna, River God, terracotta. Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
25. Giambologna, The Appenine, terracotta.
Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence.
1217
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1218
26. Giambologna, The Appenine. Parco Mediceo, Pratolino (Florence).
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BOZZETTO STYLE
27. Bernini, Angel with the Superscription. Ponte S. Angelo, Rome.
1219
18:43
29. Bernini, Angel with the Superscription, terracotta,

side view. Hermitage, St. Petersburg.
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28. Bernini, Angel with the Superscription,

terracotta. Hermitage, St. Petersburg.

Page 48
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31. Bernini, Angel adoring the Sacrament, terracotta.

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30. Bernini, Angel with the Superscription, terracotta.

Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, TX.

Page 49
1221
18:43
33. Bernini, Angel adoring the Sacrament, terracotta,

side view. Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, MA.
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32. Bernini, Angel adoring the Sacrament, terracotta.

Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, MA.

Page 50
1222
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BOZZETTO STYLE
1223
34. Bernini, Angel adoring the Sacrament. Altar of the Sacrament, St. Peters, Rome.
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1224
35. Bernini, Angel with the Crown of Thorns,
drawing, pen and ink. Museum der
Bildenden Knste, Leipzig.
36. Bernini, Angel adoring the Sacrament,

drawing, charcoal and brown wash on
brown prepared paper. Royal Library,
Windsor Castle.
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BOZZETTO STYLE
37. Anthony Sigel, Reconstruction of compass point measurements,

Angel with the Crown of Thorns, terracotta.
Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, MA
(after Gaskell and Lie, (as in n. 31), fig. 52, p. 80).
1225
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1226
38. Canova, Piet,

terracotta. Gipsoteca,
Possignano.
39. Canova, Adam and

Eve Mourning over Abel,
terracotta. Gipsoteca,
Possignano.
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40a, b. Techniques of measurement for copying and enlarging (after Carradori

(as in n. 49), pls. VIII-X).
1227
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1228
40c. Techniques of measurement for copying and enlarging

(after Carradori (as in n. 49), pls. VIII-X).
41. Canova, The Three Graces, detail, gesso with pointing pins. Gipsoteca, Possignano.
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42. Rodin, Torso of Adle, bronze. Coll. Mrs. Alexander C. Speyer.
43. Rodin, Cast of Rodins Hand with Torso #3, bronze. Coll. B. Gerald Cantor.
1229
1230
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BOZZETTO STYLE
1231
44. George Bigel using the pointing

machine of Rodins perfect collaborator, Henri Leboss (after Elsen (as in n.
59), fig. 10.3, p. 251; figs. 10.4-10.6,
p. 252).
45. Rodin, The Hand of God,

plaster cast. California Palace
of the Legion of Honor, San
Francisco.
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sioning and acquiring everything he could in the way of antiquities, copies

in marble, plaster, and terracotta, and models including many by and
attributed to Bernini with the idea of turning his own villa into a
museum and an academy for the training of aspiring artists and the education of the public. It is surely significant that Farsetti appointed to curate,
and no doubt augment by making copies, his collection a Bolognese sculptor, Bonaventura Furlani, who specialized in that citys ancient tradition of
modeling in stucco and clay.54 Farsetti opened his academy-villa in 1755
and returned to Rome for more acquisitions in 17669, precisely when
Cavaceppi was preparing his sale.55 Coincidentally, in 1799, the same year
the Accademia di San Luca sold Cavaceppis collection, the Farsetti collection was purchased for the czar of Russia, to be installed again in an academy, the Academy of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg, where it remained until it
was transferred to the Hermitage in 1919.
In other words, we are here faced with the remarkable coincidence that
both the Fogg and Hermitage collections have overlapping histories that
stem ultimately from Berninis own studio and shared the same destiny, to
serve as models for training young sculptors. In our context another coincidence is of primary importance: Farsettis villa was precisely where Canova
studied the collection and learned the art of sculpture.56 After the Farsetti
sale Canova wrote a passionate letter urging the acquisition or at least a prohibition against exportation from Venice of what remained of the collection, to serve as the basis of study by professors and students.57 So it was
that the paradoxical extremes of spontaneous sketch and systematic study
touched, appropriately, in the academy.
that the Hermitages highly finished and slightly precious terracottas of well-known works
by Bernini and others, are in fact copies made expressly as and for academic exercises in
Farsettis Venetian villa. Further to this subject in Lavin (as in n. 45).
54
Eugenio Riccmini, Vaghezza e furore: la scultura del Settecento in Emilia (Bologna
1977), 136.
55
Barberini and Gasparri (as in n. 52), 116.
56
See Hugh Honour, Antonio Canova and the Anglo-Romans. Part I: The First Visit to
Rome, Connoisseur 143 (1959): 245; Walker in Wardropper (as in n. 31), 27.
57
Ma io voglio sperare che il nostro Savio Regio Governo non vorr lasciarsi fuggire s
bella occasione di dare un insigne monumento della sua benigna protezione e favore alle
Belle Arti, o acquistando per esse codesti oggetti, che restano, o almeno inibendone espressamente lestrazione da Venezia; giacch questi cos possono fornire ampia materia, ed essere
come base agli studj deProfessori e degli allievi. Letter of 1805, quoted after Giovanna Nepi
Scir, Le reliquie estreme del Museo Farsetti, in Androssov (as in n. 31), 24.
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1233
In a metaphorical sense, at least, the ultimate act was played at the turn
of the century by Rodin, the anti-classicist, anti-academic par excellence.
Rodin made sketch models whose unprecedented ephemerality extended
even to the fragmentary and inherently unstable, hence not conceivable as
independent, free-standing sculpture; yet they were cast in bronze and
exhibited (Figs. 42, 43).58 And the models for his monumental works were
copied and enlarged by a pointing assistant who was a great expert, using
elaborate devices whose accuracy was equally unprecedented (Fig. 44).59
More precisely and more vividly than anyone before, but surely with
Canova in mind, Rodin articulated the nature of the sculptors personal
intervention in the creative process with his portrayal, in marble, of the
hand of God manipulating a block of stone as if it were a bozzetto for
Adam and Eve (Fig. 45).60
Albert E. Elsen, Rodin (New York, 1963), 173190; and his The Partial Figure in
Modern Sculpture from Rodin to 1969, exh. cat. (Baltimore, 1969).
59
Albert E. Elsen, Rodins Perfect Collaborator, Henri Leboss, in Albert E. Elsen, ed.,
Rodin Rediscovered, exh. cat. (Washington and Boston, 1981), 24959.
60
On the genesis (including the cast hands of other artists), the many variants, and the
significance Rodin attached to the sculpture, see Jacques de Caso and Patricia B. Sanders,
Rodins Sculpture. A Critical Study of the Spreckels Collection, California Palace of the Legion of
Honor (Rutland, VT. and Tokyo, 1977), 6971; John L. Tancock, The Sculptures of August
Rodin. The Collection of the Rodin Museum, Philadelphia (Philadelphia, 1976), 6223; Rodin,
les mains, les chirurgiens. exh. cat. ( Paris, 1983), 723. On the concept of the artists hand
as an instrument of divine creation, see my essay The Story of O from Giotto to Einstein,
forthcoming in my Mellon Lecture series for 2003 at the National Gallery, Washington.
58
Lavin XXX. Revised:Layout 1
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XXX
The Regal Gift

Bernini and his Portraits of Royal Subjects*
It happened that, coveting a famous horse, which he admired as a
youth and which he rode expertly, the owner sent it to him from Sicily
as a gift; he responded by sending back gifts of greater value than would
have been the price of the horse. The manager who cared for it said to
him, it would have served you better to buy it; he replied, smiling, I
certainly understood that I accepted a regal gift, and hence I wanted to
show it more worthy of a king not to be outdone in liberality.
Niccol Valori, Life of Lorenzo the Magnificent1
HIS paper is intended to define a singular episode in the long and wellstudied history of the role played by that singular personage we call
artist in the social, economic and cultural development of Europe. The
development consists in the emergence of the work of art and the artist,
*This essay is a revised version of a paper presented at a Corso di Alta Cultura titled
Forme e Valori del Gratuito held at the fondazione Cini in Venice in September 2002,
under the direction of Carlo Ossola; it is offered here as a token of admiration and affection
for him, as well as for Vittore Branca.
1
Era Lorenzo e per natura e per consuetudine in modo disposto al beneficare, che quel
solo reputava bene che negli amici e ne parenti spendesse. Quindi, essendo pur giovanetto,
merit non solo il cognome di Magnifico ma di Magnanimo ancora; ed in ci fu danimo pi
presto regio che civile. Accadde che, desiderando un cavallo molto nominato, de quali da giovane fu vago ed in maneggiarli esperto, gli fu di Sicilia dal padrone mandato a donare; a cui
esso rimand doni di maggior valore che non sarebbe suto il prezo del cavallo. E dicendoli il
maestro che laveva in custodia: pi utile ti era il comperarlo; gli rispose, sorridendo: Io certo
ho saputo accettare uno dono regio, ed appresso ho voluto mostrare esser cosa pi degna di
re non si lassare vincere di liberalit. (Valori 1992, 27 f., cited by Walter 2003, 239.)
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THE REGAL GIFT
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both defined and appreciated as such, from the conditions of artisanship

and relative anonymity they occupied in the middle ages, to the autonomy
and prestige they enjoy today. The story has often been told, except in the
aspect I want to consider here, that is, the mode of compensation, or rather
exchange, in the form of gifts, or rather regali, to use the Italian term that
better conveys the sense that seems to me more appropriate in the present
context. The regalo, in fact, precisely because of this significance, has played
a crucial role in the development of our modern way of thinking about the
meaning of culture in our society. My paper focuses in particular on the
forms (jewels-sculpture), and the values (monetary-prestige) of the gifts
exchanged between Bernini and his royal patrons.
I take as my point of departure a work that Bernini undertook to execute in the spring of 1651 when he agreed with some reluctance to
sculpt the portrait of Duke Francesco I dEste, scion of one of the oldest and
most glorious, but now much reduced families of Italy (Fig. 1). The capital
of the duchy had in 1598 been moved to the small, provincial town of
Modena, when the traditional, Ferrara, devolved to the papacy at the death
without heir of Francescos uncle. Berninis portrait formed part of a vast,
concerted program of construction and art patronage at the highest possible level, which Francesco undertook in an effort to restore the prestige and
importance of his house.2 The likeness, by the most illustrious and soughtafter artist of the day, at the service of the pope himself, was to be based on
two painted profile portraits by Justus Sustermans (now lost), who served
intermittently as court painter for the Duke. There was never a thought of
Bernini going to Modena or of the Duke going to Rome, a circumstance
that necessitated frequent exchanges of letters between the Duke, his agents
in Rome, and the artist. The correspondence is preserved virtually complete
in the ducal archive at Modena, so that the bust of Francesco takes its place
alongside Berninis other secular ruler portraits, the lost bust of Charles I of
England, and the bust and equestrian portraits of Louis XIV, among the
artists best documented works. The documentation concerning the bust of
Charles I has been extensively investigated, and the portraits of the French
king have been the subject of monographic studies.3 The rich vein of information about the bust of Francesco has also been mined by generations of
scholars, but the records have been cited only in part and in scattered pubFrancescos enterprise has been studied most effectively by Southorn 1988, and Jarrard
2003.
3
See n. 6 below.
2
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lications. When, after completing an essay on Berninis image of the ideal

Christian monarch, I learned that the young Modenese scholar Giorgia
Mancini had been exploring the ducal correspondence systematically, I
invited her to prepare as an Appendix a complete transcript of the documents pertinent to Berninis portrait, along with a summary of their contents. Many of the documents are new, including the remarkable record of
the process of packing and shipping the sculpture, in which Bernini took
particular personal interest. This archival material, to which I added what
could be gleaned from other contemporary sources, as well as early visual
records of the sculpture, was included as an appendix to the aforementioned
essay, in a separate volume published in Italian; the documents frequently
cited in the footnotes here refer to that appendix.4
* * *
I want to single out and consider from the wealth of documentary information now available concerning the bust of Francesco dEste two points
that seem to me especially important respecting the actual fabrication of the
work, one procedural, the other sociological. Procedure in this case refers to
the particular difficulty, repeatedly emphasized by Bernini himself, of creating a portrait without seeing the sitter. The task of making a sculptured bust
of a living person from painted prototypes was, so far as I know, unprecedented (posthumous portraits for tombs and monuments were another
matter).5 Bernini inaugurated this new mode of creating portrait sculpture
with his bust of Charles I (163536; destroyed; Fig. 2), followed by that of
Charless wife Henrietta Maria (1638; never executed), both based on
three views of the subjects painted by Van Dyck (Figs. 36), and that of
Cardinal Richelieu (16401), based on a triple portrait by Philippe de
Champagne (Figs. 7, 8), and culminating in 165051 with the bust of
Francesco I.6 The new procedure, however noteworthy in professional
4
Lavin 1999 (1997); see Lavin 1998; for the shipping records, Docs. 357, 41, 445,
4759, 61, 634. This essay was developed from the first chapter, subtitled Impresa quasi
impossibile, of Lavin 1998. The contribution by Marder 1999 is based on the material in
that volume.
5
For which see Montagu 1985, I, 171.
6
For summary accounts of these works see Wittkower 1981, 207 f., 224, 246 f., 254 ff.,
and recently Avery 1997, 22550. Documentary studies: on the busts of Charles I and
Henrietta Maria see Lightbown 1981; on that of Richelieu, Laurain-Portemer 1981,
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THE REGAL GIFT
1237
terms, was not an end in itself, but served a new purpose. It was equally
remarkable that three powerful heads of state should enter into a veritable
competition to have themselves portrayed, sight unseen, by an artist far
away. The phenomenon constitutes an important development in European
cultural history since it signaled the emergence of the artist as the modern,
international culture hero who surpassed all his predecessors in virtuosistic
conception and technical bravura, equivalent in both form and substance to
the emergence of the absolute monarch, the modern international political hero whose personal image Bernini created in these very works.
To a degree, at least, this epochal conjunction of politics and art must
have been evident to all concerned: to Bernini, since, as we shall see, he had
a very clear vision of the ideal Christian monarch his portraits were
intended to convey; to his biographers, Filippo Baldinucci and Domenico
Bernini, the artists son, considering the terms in which they introduced
their accounts of these works: Divulgavasi in tanto sempre pi la fama di
questo artefice, ed il nome di lui ogni d pi chiaro ne diveniva: onde non
fu gran fatto che i maggiori potentati dEuropa incominciassero a gareggiare, per cos dire, fra di loro per chi sue opere aver potesse,7 Ma volando
sempre pi grande per lItalia la fama del Bernino, e divenendo ogni d pi
chiaro il suo nome per il Mondo, trasse ancora a se i Maggiori Potentati
dellEuropa, quali parve, che insieme allora gareggiassero per ch sue Opere
haver potesse;8 and to the noble patrons themselves, considering the
assiduity with which they cultivated the artist, the enormous sums they
paid, and the ecstatic receptions that greeted the results. Never before and
never again, as far as I know, was there such a conjunction of great heads of
state vying to have themselves represented by a great artist of the age. As an
inevitable consequence, since Berninis primary service and overwhelming
occupation was with the popes in Rome, the artist was faced with a great
challenge which he somewhat ruefully described as quasi impossibile
that of creating portraits of people whom he had never seen.
Bernini encapsulated the nature of this challenge in an elegant note he
wrote to Duke Francesco as he was preparing to ship the finished sculpture.
177235; on the bust of Louis XIV, Wittkower 1951, Gould 1982, 35, 415, 807, and
Tratz 1988, 46678; on the equestrian, Wittkower 1961, supplemented by Berger 1985,
5063.
7
Baldinucci 1948, 88.
8
Bernini 1713, 64.
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Far che un marmo bianco pigli la somiglianza di una persona, che sia
colore, spirito, e vita, ancorche sia l presente, che si possa imitare in
tutte le sue parti, e proportioni, cosa difficiliss.ma Creder poi di
poter farlo somigliare con haver sol davanti una Pittura, senza vedere,
ne haver mai visto il Naturale, quasi impossibile, e chi a tale
impresa si mette pi temerario che valente si potrebbe chiamare.
Hanno potuto tanto per verso di me i comandamenti
dellAltezza del sig.r Card.l suo fratello, che mi hanno fatto scordar
di queste verit; per se io non ho saputo far quello, che quasi
impossibile, spero V.ra Alt.za mi scusar, e gradir almeno
quellAmore, che forse lOpera medesima le rappresentar . . . (20
October 1651).9
Seemingly a casual flourish of self-indulgence and flattery, the letter is in
fact a veritable three-sentence treatise lament might be a better word
on portraiture in marble as Bernini conceived that art. The challenge for
him lay in infusing the likeness of the subject with three essential qualities,
color, spirit and life, to each of which he attached particular meaning and
importance. Difficult in any case, the task was virtually impossible when
the subject was before the sculptor only in the form of paintings. The full
meaning of Berninis conceit becomes evident when one considers the
implications of his three critical points of reference.
Where Bernini most acutely felt the challenge of these paintings was in
the domain of color the first of the three desiderata Bernini defined. The
confrontation with Van Dycks image evidently gave rise to Berninis famous
disclaimer that the whiteness of marble made it virtually impossible to
achieve a convincing likeness in that medium. The earliest record of the dictum is the anecdote in the diary of Nicholas Stone, a British sculptor who
visited Berninis studio in Rome, for October 22, 1638: How can itt than
possible be that a marble picture can resemble the nature when itt is all one
coulour, where to the contrary a man has on coulour in his face, another in
his haire, a third in his lips;, and his eyes yett different from all the rest?
Tharefore sayed (the Caualier Bernine) I conclude that itt is the inpossible
thinge in the world to make a picture in stone naturally to resemble any person. In the succeeding passage Stone reports Berninis oath not to make
Doc. 43.
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THE REGAL GIFT
1239
such portraits, even if by the hand of Raphael (clearly a recognition of the

beauty of Van Dycks painting).10
While it is wholly characteristic that Bernini should be preoccupied by
the representation of color in marble sculpture, the dilemma is inherent in
the medium, and color is in fact only one of the qualities to which Bernini
refers when in his letter to the Duke he calls the feat he accomplished in the
bust quasi impossibile.11 The unique problem here lay not so much in the
. . . after this he began to tell us here was an English gent: who wooed him a long time
to make his effiges in marble, and after a great deale of intreaty and the promise of a large
some of money he did gett of doing a picture after the life or a painting; so he began to
imbost his physyognymy, and being finisht and ready to begin in marble, itt fell out that his
patrone the Pope came to here of itt who sent Cardinall Barberine to forbid him; the gentleman was to come the next morning to sett, in the meane time he defaced the modell in
diuers places, when the gentleman came he began to excuse himselfe that thaire had binn a
mischaunce to the modell and yt he had no mind to goe forward with itt; so I (sayth he) I
returnd him his earnest, and desired him to pardon me; then was the gent. uery much
moued that he should haue such dealing, being he had come so often and had sett diuers
times already; and for my part (sayth the Cauelier) I could not belye itt being commanded
to the contrary; for the Pope would haue no other picture sent into England from his hand
but his Maity; then he askt the young man if he understood Italian well. Then he began to
tell yt the Pope sent for him since the doing of the former head, and would haue him doe
another picture in marble after a painting for some other prince. I told the Pope (says he)
that if thaire were best picture done by the hand of Raphyell yett he would nett undertake
to doe itt, for (sayes he) I told his Hollinesse that itt was impossible that a picture in marble
could haue the resemblance of a liuing man; then he askt againe if he understood Italian
well; he answerd the Cauelier, perfectly well. Then sayth he, I told his Holinesse that if he
went into the next rome and whyted all his face ouer and his eyes, if possible were, and come
forth againe nott being a whit leaner nor lesse beard, only the chaunging of his coulour, no
man would know you; for doe not wee see yt when a man is affrighted thare comes a pallness on the sudden? Presently wee say he likes nott the same man. How can itt than possible be that a marble picture can resemble the nature when itt is all one coulour, where to the
contrary a man has on coulour in his face, another in his haire, a third in his lipps, and his
eyes yett different from all the rest? Tharefore sayd (the Cauelier Bernine) I conclude that itt
is the inpossible thinge in the world to make a picture in stone naturally to resemble any person. (Stone 1919, 1701.)
The story is also told by Vertue: The Cavalier told this Author. that it was imposible to
make a bust in Marble. truly like. & to demonstrate it he orderd a person to come in. and
afterwards, haveing flowerd his face all over white. askd Stone if ever he had seen that face
before. he answered no. by which he ment to demonstrate. that the colour of the face. hair.
beard. eyes. lipp. &c. are the greatest part of likenes. (Vertue 192930, 19 f.)
11
Cardinal Rinaldo had used the phrase quasi impossibile in the same context, doubtless repeating what he had heard from Bernini, in a letter to the Duke of August 17, 1650
(Doc. 14). See also Berninis comments to Nicholas Stone in 1638, cited in n. 10 above.
10
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material as in extrapolating a likeness from only painted models, never having seen the natural, as Bernini says. After the experience of Charles I he
had sworn never again to hazard such a task.12 In the case of Francesco
dEste the problem was compounded by the fact that Bernini actually had
before him in working the portrait only two profile views; delivery of the
frontal view he urgently requested was delayed, and in the end he had to
make do with the side views and simple measurements of the Dukes height
and shoulder width.13 Of course, he was obviously proud of what he did
accomplish, and his protestations of difficulty were certainly intended to
augment the appreciation of the result. Yet the sense of inadequacy, even
failure, evident in Berninis complaint is certainly also genuine indeed,
pathetic, considering that portraiture was, after all, a specialty of his, to say
the least. His aptitude for creating likenesses was the basis of his phenomenal reputation as a child prodigy, and contributed largely to the international renown he enjoyed throughout his career.14 The source of Berninis
ruefulness about an artistic genre for which he himself was responsible lay
rather in the other qualities mentioned in his letter to Francesco: spirit and
life. And his frustration in these respects was a fatal by-product of the way
he understood the art of portraiture.
Remarkable insights respecting this last point arise almost incidentally
from the Dukes original indecision whether to commission the work from
Bernini or his great rival, especially in the domain of portraiture, Alessandro
Algardi (Fig. 9). The documents recording the negotiations also provide an
extraordinary opportunity to compare and contrast the modi operandi of
these two giants of Italian Baroque sculpture. The Dukes brother, Cardinal
Rinaldo, writing from Rome on July 16, 1650, reported: Il Cav.re Algardi
scultore si f pagare i ritratti di marmo intendendo di busto, mezza figura
Berninis oath was reported by Stone (n. 10 above) and is also mentioned in the correspondence concerning the bust of Francesco, Docs. 10, 38.
In the end, Bernini was reluctant to do portraits at all, and cited Michelangelo as precedent: Il a rept le difficult quil y a faire un portrait de marbre . . . Il a dit que MichelAnge nen avait jamais voulu faire. . . . Il a dit ensuite ces Messieurs la peine o il tait
toutes les fois quil tait oblig de faire un portrait; quil y avait dj du temps quil avait resolu dans son esprit de nen plus faire, mais que le Roi lui ayant fait lhonneur de lui demander le sien, il navait pas pu refuser un si grand prince . . . Chantelou 1885, 94 (August 12);
cf. Chantelou 1885, 111 (August 21).
13
The frontal view is mentioned in Docs. 10, 11, 12, 14, 16, 17, 20, 69, 73; the shoulder measurments in Docs. 20, 21.
14
On the early portraiture of Bernini, see Lavin 1968.
12
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THE REGAL GIFT
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centocinquanta scudi luno, oltre il marmo, che segli d, segli paga. ne

daria uno compito per tutto il mese pross.o dAgosto quando dovesse farlo,
e potr cavar, e formar il tutto dalla Pittura, e lo perfezionar in presenza di
chi dovr sodisfarli, per farlo poi pi esattam.te in marmo. H due altre persone sotto di s di condiz.e inferiore nel mestiere da quali s haverebbe lopra per la met del sud.o prezo e forse meno.15 In modest, businesslike fashion, in a simple, straightforward reply, Algardi offered a fixed time schedule
and a fixed price of 150 scudi. He even offered to have the work executed
by his assistants, at half the cost or less. Not so Bernini, who refused to commit himself on either time or compensation, emphasizing the great difficulty in executing portraits under such circumstances.16 To offer less than
the best, and treat the DEste Duke as if he were bargain hunting would
have been beneath both their dignities. Ironically, in his reply of July 22, the
Duke suggested a gift of 100 doubloons to Bernini (worth 200 scudi),
while expressing his indifference as to whether Bernini or Algardi made his
portrait.17 In the end, because he wished himself to be seen in a class with
the leading monarchs of his time, Francesco was happy to pay Bernini 3000
scudi for what he might have obtained from Algardi for 150 scudi and the
price of the marble! We shall consider the significance of Berninis attitude
presently. The important point here concerns the nature of the difficulty of
executing a portrait from painted prototypes alone, which seems to have
presented no extraordinary obstacle to Algardi,18 but which Bernini found
intimidating to the point of defeat.
The real reason for which he considered the task quasi impossible
which is to say paradoxical and self-contradictory and for which he
could never be fully satisfied with the result, lay elsewhere than in the matter of achieving likeness in the traditional and normal sense of that term.
The problem arose inevitably from the fundamental principles of what
might be called Berninis psycho-philosophy of portraiture, and his
method of creating portraits, as these may be gathered from his letters, his
various statements reported by his biographers, and especially from the
detailed account that has come down to us of his work on the bust of a
Doc. 5. On this episode, see also the discussion by Montagu 1985, I, 15762.
On time and compensation, see p. 1246 and n. 32 below. On the difficulty, Docs. 10,
14, 20, 38, 42, 43. On difficolt as a norm of artistic achievement in the Renaissance, see
Summers 1981, 17785.
17
Doc. 6.
18
On this point, see also Tratz 1988, 466.
15
16
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1242
monarch, the last in the concatenated series of Berninis secular ruler portraits to whom he did have ready and frequent access, Louis XIV (Fig. 10).19
Chantelou records that the king sat for the artist on no less than seventeen
occasions, five for drawing the subject and twelve for working the marble.20
From this wealth of direct testimony concerning the artists working methods which is itself unprecedented in the history of art it is clear, first
of all, that the notion of likeness had for Bernini a very singular meaning.21
Bernini did not conceive of the sitter as a sitter at all. He insisted on sopping up the character and personality of the subject by sketching him endlessly in action moving, working, playing tennis, conversing22 because
19
Berninis earlier portraits of royal heroes (for which concept, see Lavin 1999)
were specifically recalled in one of the poems on the bust of Louis (Chantelou 1885, 100,
August 16).
20
See Chantelou 1985, 38 n. 116.
21
For what follows, Wittkowers splendid study (1951) remains an inspiration.
22
See the descriptions cited in the next note. Bernini himself described the purpose of
the sketches: Le Cavalier . . . a besoin prsent de voir le Roi pour le particulier du visage
de Sa Majest, nayant jusques ici travaill quau gnral; durant quoi il na mme presque
pas regard ses dessins, quaussi ne les avait-il faits que pour simprimer plus particulirement
limage du Roi dans lesprit et faire quelle y demeurt insuppata et rinvenuta, pour se servir
de ses propres termes; quautrement, sil avait travaill daprs ses dessins, au lieu dun original il ne ferait quune copie; que mme, sil lui fallait copier le buste lorsquil laura achev,
il ne lui serait pas possible de le faire tout semblable; que la noblesse de lide ny serait plus
cause de la servitude de limitation . . . (Chantelou 1885, 75, July 30). The point Bernini
makes here about not repeating himself even in deliberate copies of the same bust was based
on no less than three instances in which replacements were required by imperfections in the
marble: Scipione Borghese, Urban VIII, Innocent X (see Johnston et al. 1986, 76;
Wittkower 1981, 221 f.). In each case, the second versions show subtle but significant
changes. No doubt because of the time limitations, to provide for just such an eventuality,
as Domenico Bernini reports, Bernini at the outset ordered two blocks to be prepared for the
bust of Louis. The time factor is mentioned in a letter of June 5 by Matteo deRossi (Mirot
1904, 207) and on June 11 by Chantelou (1885, 30). On the two blocks of marble, see
Chantelou 1885, 40 f., June 30, and Bernini 1713, 135.
Given Berninis repeated emphasis on the limitations of marble portraiture, especially
with respect to color, it will be seen that more than flattery lay behind Berninis remarks in
the famous exchange between the artist and the King on one such occasion, reported by
Chantelou: . . . il a dessin daprs le Roi, sans que S. M. ait t assujettie de demeurer en
une place. Le Cavalier prenait son temps au mieux quil pouvait; aussi disait-il de temps
autre, quand le Roi le regardait: Sto rubando. Une foi le Roi lui repartit, et en italien mme:
Si, ma per restituire. Il rpliqua lors Sa Majest: Per per restituire meno del rubato. (1885,
40, June 28.)
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one is never more like oneself than at those moments;23 he preferred to represent the subject as he started or finished speaking (the exquisitely subtle
psychological discrimination is paradoxical, since it focuses not on the
rhetorical act par excellence, speaking, but on its two inevitable, ineffable,
and inherently unselfconscious phases).24 Algardi felt able to satisfy his
patron (and himself ) by preparing the sculpture from the painted models,
and finishing it in the presence and to the satisfaction of whoever was
responsible for the work. Such a procedure could never have satisfied
Bernini, since only from the living model could he could observe and reproduce, not only the subjects features but also, and especially, his characteristic expression and movement in a word, his spirit and life. A corollary of
this definition and mode of creating a likeness was the equally unorthodox
way Bernini put the final touches on the bust of Louis. To the amazement
Diceva egli che nel ritrarre alcuno al naturale consisteva il tutto in saper conoscere
quella qualit, che ciascheduno ha di proprio, e che non ha la natura dato ad altri che a lui,
ma che bisognava pigliare qualche particolarit non brutta, ma bella. A questeffetto tenne
un costume dal comune modo assai diverso, e fu: che nel ritrarre alcuno non voleva chegli
stesse fermo, ma che si si movesse, e che parlasse, perch, in tal lmodo, diceva egli, che
vedeva tutto il suo bello e lo contrafaceva comegli era: asserendo, che nello starsi al naturale
immobilmente fermo, egli non mai tanto simile a se stesso, quanto egli nel moto, in cui
quelle qualit consistono, che sono tutte sue e non daltri e che danno la somiglanza al
ritratto; ma lintero conoscer ci (dico io) non giuoco da fanciulli. (Baldinucci 1948, 144.)
Tenne un costume il Cavaliere, ben dal commune modo assai diverso, nel ritrarre altrui nel
Marmo, nel disegno: Non voleva che il figurato stasse fermo, m chei colla sua solita naturalezza si movesse, e parlasse, perche in tal modo, diceva, chei vedeva tutto il suo bello, el
contrafaceva, comegli era, asserendo, che nello starsi al naturale immobilmente fermo, egli
non mai tanto simile a s stesso, quanto nel moto, in cui consistono tutte quelle qualit,
che sono sue, e non di altri, e che danno la somiglianza al Ritratto. (Bernini 1713, 133 f.)
24
Le Cavalier, continuant de travailler la bouche, a dit que, pour russir dans un portrait, il faut prendre un acte et tcher le bien reprsenter; que la plus beau temps quon
cherche attraper ce moment. (Chantelou 1885, 133, September 4.) On the notion of the
speaking likeness, see important paper by Harris 1992. There are, however, some difficulties with Harriss argument, which is based on the open-mouthed expression of certain selfportraits of Simon Vouet. The portraits are not reliably dated, and the question has been
raised whether Vouet might have manifested one of the common symptoms of diseased adenoids (Ficacci 1998, 94); it may be relevant that certain of the portraits also show a scarred
and swollen right cheek (most are collected in Thuillier et al., 1990, but see also Picart 1990,
22 and 25). In any case, all the instances Harris cites by Vouet and others are informal portraits of middle-class individuals. It remains a fact that the first formal portrait of a person
of first rank shown with open lips, is Berninis bust of Gregory XV in Ottawa, 1621 (Lavin
1988, 91, 1989, 37; Johnston et al., eds., 1986, 74).
23
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of those who witnessed the process, he deliberately discarded the preparatory studies and models he had so laboriously produced, and completed the
work not from memory but directly from the living model, in the presence
of the king in person otherwise, he said, he would be copying himself,
not Louis XIV.25
The central point, however, central also in Berninis list of the three
essential qualities he sought in his portraits, lay beyond even the creation of
a living likeness. The point is already evident in another, complementary
peculiarity of Berninis portrait-working procedure: at the very outset, even
before working on the likeness, he sketched in clay the action he intended
to give the bust;26 he began, that is, with a concept, which he continued to
develop in the model, while studying the details of the kings features in life
drawings. And this idea of the subject is what preoccupied him when he
See the passages in Chantelou cited in n.22 above and nn. 26, 27 below. The procedure is described by the biographers: Per fare il ritratto della maest del re di Francia, egli
ne fece prima alquanti modelli; nel metter poi mano allopera, alla presenza del re tutti se gli
tolse dattorno e a quel monarca che ammirando quel fatto, gli domand la cagione del non
volersi valere delle sue fatiche, rispose che i modelli gli erano serviti per introdurre nella fantasia le fattezze di chi egli dovea ritrarre, ma quando gi le aveva concepite e dovea dar fuori
il parto, non gli erano pi necessari, anzi dannosi al suo fine, che era di darlo fuori non simile a modelli, ma al vero. (Baldinucci 1948, 144); In oltre f suo costantissimo proposito
in somiglianti materie, far prima molti disegni, e molti della figura, chegli dovea rappresentare, m quando poi nel Marmo metteva mano allopera, tutti se li toglieva dattorno,
come se a nulla gli servissero: E richiesto dal R, che prese maraviglia di questo fatto con
domandargliene la cagione, del non volersi valere delle sue istesse fatiche, rispose, che i
Modelli gli erano serviti per introdurre nella fantasia le fattezze di ch egli doveva ritrarre, m
quando gi le haveva concepite, e doveva dar fuori il parto, non gli erano pi necessarii, anzi
dannosi al suo fine, che era di darlo fuori, non simile alli Modelli, m al Vero. (Bernini
1713, 134)
See also the report of Berninis enemy in Paris, Charles Perrault: Il travailla dabord sur
le marbre, et ne fit point de modle de terre, comme les autres sculpteurs ont accoutum de
faire, il se contenta de dessiner en pastel deux ou trois profils du visage du Roi, non point,
ce quil disoit, pour les copier dans son buste, mais seulement pour rafrachir son ide de
temps en temps, ajoutant quil navoit garde de copier son pastel, parce qualors son buste
nauroit t quune copie, qui de sa nature est toujours moindre que son original. (Perrault
1909, 61 f.)
26
. . . il a demand de la terre afin de faire des bauches de laction quil pourrait donner au buste, en attendant quil travaillt la ressemblance. Chantelou 1885, 30, June 11.
On the point see Wittkower 1951, 6. Giulio Mancini in the early seventeenth century made
the fundamental distinction between the ritratto semplice, that of pure imitation, and the
ritratto dellattion et affetto (Mancini 19567, I, 115 f.; see the perspicacious note by Bauer
in Chantelou 1985, 85 f., n. 154).
25
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THE REGAL GIFT
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put aside the drawings to work on the marble. Bernini himself defined the
point in the explanation he gave of the relationship between his way of
working on a portrait and the meaning he wanted it to convey. The statement occurs in a passage where Bernini explains to Colbert the rapid
progress he was presently making in carving the bust of Louis XIV: until
now he had worked entirely from his imagination, looking only rarely at his
drawings; he had searched chiefly within, he said, tapping his forehead,
where there existed the idea of His Majesty; had he done otherwise his work
would have been a copy instead of an original. This method of his was
extremely difficult, and the King, in ordering a portrait, could not have
asked anything harder; he was striving to make it less bad than the others
that he had done; in this kind of head one must bring out the qualities of a
hero as well as make a good likeness.27 Here it is clear that the ultimate difficulty lay in Berninis ultimate goal, to realize his own idea of the monarch
his spirit by capturing the Kings heroic qualities while recording
Louiss likeness, as Bernini understood that notion. For Bernini a portrait
was a preternatural thing, a composite counterfeit of an idea and of vitality
itself. For this reason, above all, to carve a marble portrait of a living subject without seeing him in action was for Bernini not only difficult, but a
challenge in extremis; and, after the bust of Francesco, he kept his vow never
to do so again.
The second, sociological point I want to consider concerns Berninis
attitude toward the DEste commission. It is very clear that Bernini was not
anxious to undertake the portrait, and there may have been other reasons
than the difficulty of the task. Francesco I was, after all, not as important as
Charles I or Richelieu. There may also have been a political factor.
Francesco I was closely tied to France, most conspicuously in his capacity as
commander of the French troops in Italy. Bernini had been intimately associated with Urban VIII Barberini, who had also been a partisan of France.
27
M. Colbert Lui a tmoign tre tonne combien louvrage tit avanc, et quil le
trouvait si ressemblant quil ne jugeait pas quil ft besoin quil travaillt Saint-Germain.
Le Cavalier a reparti quil y avait toujours faire qui voulait faire bien; que jusquici il avait
presque toujours travaill dimagination, et quil navait regard que rarement les dessins quil
a; quil ne regardait principalement que l dedans, montrant son front, o il a dit qutait
lide de Sa Majest; que autrement il naurait fait quune copie au lieu dun original, mais
que cela lui donnait une peine extrme et que le roi, lui demandant son portrait, ne pouvait
pas lui commander rien de plus pnible: quil tcherait que ce ft le moins mauvais de tous
ceux quil aura faits; que, dans ces sortes de portraits, il faut, outre la ressemblance, y mettre
ce qui doit tre dans des ttes de hros. (Chantelou 1885, 72 f., July 29.)
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When Urban VIII was succeeded by Innocent X Pamphili, the arch-enemy

of both the Barberini and the French, Bernini fell from favor and had only
recently redeemed himself with his invention for Innocents pet project for
the fountain in the Piazza Navona, where the pope was building his new
family palace. Perhaps Bernini felt it unwise to work too closely with the
French faction. Even so, Berninis dealings with his noble patron must have
seemed even more remarkable then than they do today. He was so occupied
with other projects, notably the Piazza Navona fountain that he had no
time;28 he was so busy that it was difficult to reach him;29 he worked only
for friends and important patrons; he had to be frequently coaxed and
reminded, and sufficiently remunerated; he would never discuss time or
money,30 and specific terms only emerged indirectly, in relation to payments
and honoraria he had received from other grand patrons: 3000 scudi from
Innocent X for the Piazza Navona fountain,31 a diamond ring worth 6000
scudi from Charles I for his bust of the king.32
All this reflects the attitude, and acumen, of the most successful and
sought after image-maker of the day. But the attitude involved much more
than finances. The social status of the artist was involved. In so many words,
Bernini was said to act independent (opera da s), and I suspect this was
precisely the point.33 Berninis attitude must indeed have seemed arrogant,
especially for an artist; but for this very reason it signified that he belonged,
and clearly thought of himself as belonging, in a long tradition reaching
back to antiquity and including in his own time the likes of Velasquez and
Rubens, of artists who sought to rise above the condition of servile artisan
to the level of an aristocracy of the spirit, a meritocracy of the intellect and
creativity. Nobility was not paid wages, and the proper, indeed only, form
of recognition among the aristocracy was the gift. It is symptomatic in this
context that throughout the correspondence the consideration for Bernini
is exclusively referred to as a gift (regalo), rather than as a payment or a
Docs. 9, 25.
Doc. 23.
30
Doc. 4.
31
Docs. 32, 40, 41, 68, 69.
32
Doc. 20 and n. 35 below. Other sources put the value at 4000 scudi (Lightbown 1981,
447 ff., who also compares the costs of other works by Bernini, e.g., 1000 scudi for the portrait of Scipione Borghese).
33
questo opera da s, et vi vuole destrezza nel sollecitarlo (Doc. 23).
28
29
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THE REGAL GIFT
1247
fee.34 The distinction is clear from the fact that for all three princely busts
(Charles I, Richelieu, Francesco I) Bernini received, or was offered in the
case of Francesco, gifts, whereas the messengers who delivered the sculptures were given tips.35 The phraseology was significant when Francescos
agent in Rome reported that Mazarin had regalato nobilissimamente.36
Francesco resorted to a delicate subterfuge in deference to this principle of
social distinction, instructing his emissary to tell Bernini that the Duke had
sent 3000 scudi in order to purchase a suitable gift, but that the artist might
take the money, if he preferred.37 Bernini opted for the cash, because he was
See the documents cited in n. 31 above; also Doc. 37. On the significance of the gift
as remuneration, see the section on Old and New Ways of Evaluating Works of Art in
Wittkower, R. and M., 1963, 225, and recently Warwick 1997, 632 f. The Wittkowers
tended to see the gift in relation to the earlier, craft tradition of barter and payment in kind,
rather than in the tradition of noble courtesy. The main difference is that in the former case
the goods were generally of a practical nature, whereas in the latter they were conspicuously
luxury items. The market for art in early seventeeth-century Rome, including barter and
payment in kind has been admirably studied by Spear 1993 and 1997, 21024. On the
nobility of the artists profession and related factors, see the Wittkowers chapter Between
Famine and Fame, 25380.
35
The gifts for the portraits are mentioned in a list of some of Berninis notable remunerations, among the Bernini papers in the Bibliothque National in Paris:
Alcune remunerazioni haute dal Cav.re Bernino
Per il ritratto del R Carlo 1.o dInghilterra undiamante che portava in dito, di valore di
sei mila scudi
Per il ritratto del Card.le Richelie una gioia di quattro mila scudi
Per il ritratto del Duca Fran.co di Modena tre mila scudi in tanti Argenti B.N. ms ital
2084, fol. 126 r.
Domenico Bernini mentions the generous mancia given to the assistants who accompanied to their destinations the busts of Charles I, . . . si cav dal dito un Diamante di sei
mila scudi di valore, e consegnatelo a Bonifazio disse, . . .; in oltre mand al Cavaliere copiosi
regali di preziosissimi panni, & a Bonifazio f donare per mancia mille scudi, and Richelieu
Grad quel Principe in modo tale il Ritratto che ne dimostr il gradimento col dono di un
Giojelo, che mand al Cavaliere di trentatr Diamanti, fra quali ve nerano sette di quattordici grani luno di peso. Al Balsimelli f dare per mancia otto cento scudi. (Bernini 1713,
65 f., 68.)
36
Letter of February 22, 1642, in Fraschetti 1900, 112 n. 2: Per la Citt si saputo che
il Cardinale di Richeli ha donato un gioiello superbissimo al Cavalier Bernino, et che il
Cardinal Mazarino lha regalato nobilissimamente per la statua che di sua mano ha fatto al
primo: onde mille sono gli Encomij che si fanno sopra la Generosit di ambidue.
37
The Duke conceived the plot when he discovered that the German silver credenza he
had thought to acquire was exorbitant and not worth the price: Doc. 30. The 3000 scudi for
Bernini are mentioned in Docs. 66, 77, 79. Cf. also Docs. 86, 87, 88.
34
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1248
already sufficiently provided with jewels and silver!38 People, including

Bernini, were saying that the size of the consideration, being equal to the
generosity of Innocent X for the Piazza Navona fountain, risked putting
even the pope to shame.39 In one instance Bernini himself uses the phrase
mi fa pagare in reference to the 3000 scudi he received not as compensation for the bust, however, but as the mark of the more than regal generosity of the House of Este.40 It is important to understand that the idea
and value of a princely reward worked both ways: the report that he had
outclassed the pope was certainly intended to flatter Francesco, who had
himself remarked that by making Bernini happy he would affirm his own
status as a patron: col far restar contento il Bernino penso di conservarmi
il credito di stimar la virt et i virtuosi.41 In sum, the transaction between
Duke Francesco and Bernini was indeed a regal exchange. The complimentary equivalent to the Dukes gift worth 3000 scudi was a supreme image of
himself as an ideal Christian monarch, to which Bernini added a compliment only the artist could provide the credit Francescos grand gesture
of cultural largesse accrued to the inestimable prestige of reputation that
contemporary political theory required of the virtuous ruler.42 For Bernini,
moreover, the idea of a meritocracy also worked both ways, as when years
later he told the young Louis XIV that he admired the king not because he
was king of France and a great king, but because . . . [his] he had realized
that [Louis's] spirit was even more exalted than his position.43 In this sense,
it might be said that the very factors that made the bust of Francesco I an
almost impossible undertaking, also made it the herald of a new epoch in
the history of European culture.
Bernini was not exaggerating when he told the Duke that he already had
plenty of silver and gems: the biographies, the documents concerning his
work, and the inventory of his property, are filled with an abundance of preDoc. 69.
Doc. 68.
40
Doc. 76: tre mila scudi . . . mi fa pagare, non dico gi per il suo ritratto da me in
marmo scolpito, ma per lo genio della gran Casa Estense, la quale suol eccedere in pi che
reale generosit.
41
Doc. 18; see also Doc. 85.
42
On reputation see Lavin 1999.
43
. . . il sestimerait heureux de finir sa vie son service, non pas pour ce quil tait un
roi de France et un grand roi, mais parce quil avait connu que son esprit tait encore plus
relev que sa condition (Chantelou 1885, 201, October 5; translation from Chantelou
1985, 254, with modifications).
38
39
22:07
THE REGAL GIFT
2. Thomas Adey (?), Charles I, after Bernini.

Windsor Castle.
15/11/08
1. Bernini, Francesco I dEste. Museo Estense, Modena.

Page 17
1249
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3. Van Dyck, triple

portrait of Charles I.
Windsor Castle.

Page 18
1250
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THE REGAL GIFT
4. Van Dyck, Queen Henrietta Maria.

Brooks Memorial Art Museum, Memphis, TN.
1251
22:07
6. Van Dyck, Queen Henrietta Maria. Windsor Castle.
15/11/08
5. Van Dyck, Queen Henrietta Maria. Windsor Castle .

Page 20
1252
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THE REGAL GIFT
7. Bernini, Cardinal Richelieu. Muse du Louvre, Paris.
1253
15/11/08
22:07
8. Philippe de
Champaigne, triple
portrait of Richelieu.
National Gallery
of Art, London.

Page 22
1254
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THE REGAL GIFT
10. Bernini, Louis XIV. Muse National du Chteau de

Versailles .
15/11/08
9. Algardi, Urbano Mellini. S. Maria del Popolo, Rome.

Page 23
1255
22:07
12. Rubens, Self-Portrait. Windsor Castle.
15/11/08
11. Titian, Self-Portrait. Museo del Prado, Madrid.

Page 24
1256
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THE REGAL GIFT
13. Van Dyck, Self-Portrait.

Collection of the Duke of
Westminster, London.
14. Rembrandt, Self-Portrait.

1257
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Page 26
1258
15. Rembrandt, Aristotle Contemplating the Bust of Homer.

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
22:07
THE REGAL GIFT
17. Rembrandt, Self -Portrait. Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne.
15/11/08
16. Rembrandt, Aristotle Contemplating the Bust of Homer,

detail. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York .

Page 27
1259
22:07
19. Bernini, Self-Portrait, drawing. Windsor Castle.
15/11/08
18. Bernini, Self-Portrait, drawing. Windsor Castle.

Page 28
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THE REGAL GIFT
1261
cious jewels.44 It is significant that the gifts always took this luxurious symbolic form, never in kind, like the foodstuffs and other practical goods with
which artisans had often been paid in earlier times. The gifts were truly
regali in the sense that they were equivalent in nature and in value to the
favors the nobility commonly exchanged among themselves.
The phenomenon I have been describing had a long pre-history, stretching back to antiquity, when Apelles was given the exclusive privilege of portraying Alexander the Great, whose image, incidentally, was in fact an
important influence on Berninis conception of the ruler portrait; and when
Parrhasius proudly proclaimed himself the prince of painters. These classical precedents lay the foundation for the tradition that was formalized in
the Renaissance, when the artist was elevated to the status of a true courtier
notably with Titian, who portrayed himself nobly wearing a golden
chain emblematic of the knighthood bestowed upon him by the Emperor
Charles V. (Fig. 11). Rubens received many such honors, and also portrayed
himself with a chain in a portrait painted for Charles I (Fig. 12), as did Van
Dyck when he received the award from Charles I (Fig. 13). In many cases
a portrait medal of the patron is suspended from the chain, which thus signifies a bond of reciprocal admiration and mutual allegiance between the
donor and the recipient. The symbolic value of this insignia was so important that Rembrandt, who never received the honor, nevertheless often
depicted himself sporting a golden chain (Fig. 14); and he gave the tradition a profoundly intellectual turn in his picture of Aristotle Contemplating
the Bust of Homer, in which the philosopher wears a golden chain with a
medal that may represent either or both the helmeted Alexander the Great,
Aristotles devoted pupil, or Athena, the goddess of Wisdom (Figs. 15, 16).45
The chain and medal play separate parts in Rembrandts grimacing, late
self-portrait with a mahlstick and wearing a medal (Fig. 17): in an ironic
and macabre self-mockery of the painter of the crass reality of old age, he
gleefully assumes the role of Zeuxis, who was said to have died laughing
while painting a wrinkled, droll old woman, who in turn is portrayed at the
left in the role of Zeuxis himself, grinning and wearing a golden chain.
Berninis inventory lists a golden chain with a royal portrait medal of the
King of Spain, as well as a famous jewel with a portrait of Louis XIV surBorsi et al., 1981.
The tradition of the golden chain in art has been discussed particularly with respect to
Rembrandt by Held 1969, 3241, Deutsch-Carroll 1984, Perry Chapman 1990, esp. 504.
44
45
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1262
rounded by diamonds (valued at 3000 scudi by Bandinucci, 8000 by

Domenico Bernini, both of whom emphasize the regality of the episode).46
Bernini belongs squarely in this tradition, and he may have inherited his
attitude from Guido Reni, who was notorious in exerting his preference for
the dignity of gifts to the ignominy of prices.47 But I believe his case is
unique in that he brings the tradition to a climax and also marks a new
departure. I know of no previous portrait-image-maker so universally and
assiduously sought after with such reverential awe at such exalted levels of
society at such extravagant values. And no one afterward, until perhaps the
photographer Karsh. But Bernini is also unique in that he wore his laurels
lightly. Indeed, he did not wear them at all. The fact is that we have very
few securely identified self-portraits by Bernini and those we do have are at
the very opposite end of the hierarchical scale represented by his distinguished predecessors (Figs. 18, 19). He never shows himself wearing any
kind of ornament; he never includes the arms or even the rhetorical flourish of parted lips.48 In fact, he never shows himself in formal portrait guise,
Borsi et al., 1981, 113, 115, 116. Baldinucci 1947, 112, Domenico 1713, 118.
In the dealings concerning his work (Guido) always used intermediaries or members
of his household, who showed they could make arrangements that were favorable to him.
Only with difficulty could be bring himself to transact an agreements in person, abhorring
the mention of price in a profession in which, he said, it should be obligatory to negotiate
on the basis of an honorarium or gift . . . Following the example of Xeuxis who, judging that
his works could not be adequately rewarded, gave the Alcmena to the Agrigentines and the
Pan to Achelaos, it was Guidos practice at times not to put a price on the works he painted
for great personages and men of substantial means, but rather to give the paintings to them.
In this was he received much more for them than was the custom, or than he himself would
have asked. (Malvasia 1980,114, 115.) Ne tratatti delavori si serv sempre di mezzani e
dimestici, che mostraassero ottenergli per favore, difficilmente riducendosi a trattar in persona propria daccordo; abborrendo il nome di prezzo in questa professione, che diceva
doversi negoziare con titolo di onorario e di regalo . . . Ad esempio di Zeusi che reputando
lopre sue non poter pagarsi a bastanza, don lAlcmena a gli Agrigentini, il Pane ad
Archelao, pratic il non voler chieder prezzo talora dei suoi quadri con Grandi e persone
commode piuttosto donarli loro ricevendone per tal via assai pi di ci chera in uso, ed
avrebbe egli medesimo chiesto (Malvasia 1841, II, 47). Noted by Warwick 1997, 632, Spear
1997, 212. That Bernini knew and greatly admired Guido, including his views on pricing is
evident from the many references to him and his pictures in Chantelous diary, and in his
own work (see Chantelou 1985, index; Nava Cellini 1967, Hibbard 1976, Schlegel 1985).
48
The many paintings and drawings thought to be portraits or self-portraits of Bernini
have been conveniently gathered and well-illustrated in recent exhibition catalogues: Coliva
and Schtze, eds., 1998, Weston-Lewis, ed., 1998; Bernardini and Fagiolo dellArco, eds.,
1999.
46
47
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Page 31
THE REGAL GIFT
1263
but in relatively small, unpretentious images which, were it not for the intimate feeling and direct address to the spectator, would be difficult to recognize as self-portraits at all. He never signed his self-portraits; in fact, he
never signed any of his work. No artist of comparable stature was more
modest and reserved with respect to his own view of himself. Here we have
the crux of the paradox that I believe places Bernini at the climax of one era
and the initiation of another: the most exalted artist of his time presents
himself simply as a man like any other, only charged with volcanic power
and a penetrating, portentous gaze bespeaking a profound human awareness.
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Bibliography
Avery, C., Bernini. Genius of the Baroque, Boston, etc., 1997
Baldinucci, F., Vita del cavaliere Gio. Lorenzo Bernino, Florence, 1682; ed. S.S.
Ludovici, Milan, 1948
Berger, R. W., In the Garden of the Sun King. Studies on the Park of Versailles under
Louis XIV, Washington, DC, 1985
Bernardini, M. G., and Fagiolo dellArco, M., eds., Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Regista
del Barocco, exhibit. cat., Rome, 1999
Bernini, D., Vita del cavalier Gio. Lorenzo Bernino, Rome, 1713
Borsi, Franco, et al., Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Il testamento, la casa, la raccolta dei beni,
Florence, 1981
Chantelou, P. Frart de, Journal du voyage du Cavalier Bernin en France, ed.,
Ludovic Lalanne, Paris, 1885
_____ Diary of the Cavaliere Berninis Visit to France, edited and with an introduction by A. Blunt, annotated by G. C. Bauer, translated by M. Corbett,
Princeton, 1985
Coliva, A., and S. Schtze, eds., Bernini Scultore. La nascita del Barocco in Casa
Borghese, exhib. cat., Rome, 1998
Deutsch Carroll, Margaret, Rembrandts Aristotle: Exemplary Beholder, artibus et
historiae, No. 10, 1984, 3556
Ficacci, L., Lespressione dellaffetto indefinito, in S. De Blaauw, et al., eds., Docere
delectare movere. Affetti, devozione e retorica nel linguaggio artistico del primo
barocco romano, Rome, 1998, 89104
Fraschetti, S., Il Bernini. La sua vita, la sua opera, il suo tempo, Milano, 1900
Gould, Cecil, Bernini in France. An Episode in Seventeenth-Century History,
Princeton, 1982
Harris, A. S., Vouet, le Bernin, et la ressemblance parlante, Rencontres de lcole
du Louvre, 1992, 192206
Hibbard, H., Guido Renis Corsini Magdalen: Its Date and Influence, in Larissa
Bonfante et al., eds., In memoriam Otto J. Brendel. Essays in Archaeology and the
Humanities, Mainz, 1976, 22731
Jarrard, A., Architecture as Performance in Seventeenth-century Europe. Court Ritual
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in Modena, Rome, and Paris, Cambridge and New York, 2003

Johnston, C., et al., Vatican Splendour: Masterpieces of Baroque Art, exhib. cat.,
Ottawa, 1986
Laurain-Portemer, M., La Politique Artistique de Mazarin, in Il Cardinale
Mazzarino in Francia: colloquio italo-francese (Accademia nazionale dei Lincei,
Atti dei convegni lincei 35), Rome, 1977, 41-76 (reprinted in her tudes
mazarines, Paris, 1981, 177235)
Chronology of his Early Works, The Art Bulletin, L, 1968, 22348
_____ Berninis Bust of Cardinal Montalto, Idea, III, 1984, 8795; also published
in The Burlington Magazine, CXXVII, 1985, 328
_____ Berninis Image of the Ideal Christian Monarch, in J. W. OMalley, et al.,
eds., The Jesuits: Cultures, the Sciences, and the Arts, 15401773, Toronto, etc.,
1999, 44279 (Acts of a conference at Boston College May 1997)
______ Bernini e limmagine del monarca cristiano ideale. Appendice documentaria a
cura di Giorgia Mancini, Modena, 1998
Lightbown, R. W., Berninis Busts of English Patrons, in M. Barasch and L. F.
Sandler, eds., Art the Ape of Nature, Studies in Honor of H. W. Janson, ed., New
York, 1981, 43976
Malvasia, C. C., Felsina pittrice. Vite de pittori bolognesi, 2 vols., Bologna, 1841
_____ The life of Guido Reni, translated and with an introd. by Catherine Enggass
and Robert Enggass, University Park, PA, 1980
Mancini, G., Considerazioni sulla pittura, eds. A. Marucchi and L. Salerno, 2 vols.
Rome, 19567
Marder, T. A., Limmagine del principe, in Claudia Conforti et al., eds, Modena
1598. Linvenzione di una capitale, Milan, 1999, 3954
Mirot, L., Le Bernin en France. Les travaux du Louvre et les statues de Louis XIV,
Mmoires de la socite de lhistoire de Paris et de lIle de France, 1904, 161-288
Montagu, J., Alessandro Algardi, 2 vols., New Haven and London, 1985
Nagel, A., Gifts for Michelangelo and Vittoria Colonnna, The Art Bulletin,
LXXIX, 1997, 64768
_____ Michelangelo and the Reform of Art, Cambridge and New York, 2000
Nava Cellini, A., Note per lAlgardi, il Bernini e il Reni, Paragone, No. 207, 1967,
3552
Perrault, C., Mmoires de ma vie (1702); voyage a Bordeaux (1669), ed., Paul
Bonnefon, Paris, 1909
Perry Chapman, H., Rembrandts Self-Portraits. A Study in Seventeenth-Century
Identity, Princeton, 1990
Picart, Y., La vie et loeuvre de Louis-Ren Vouet, Lyon, 1990
Schlegel, U., Bernini und Guido Reni, Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen, XXVII,
1985, 101145
Southorn, J., Power and Display in the Seventeenth Century. The Arts and their
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Patrons in Modena and Ferrara, Cambridge, 1988
Spear, R. E., The Divine Guido: Religion, Sex, Money, and Art in the World of Guido
Reni, New Haven, 1997
_____ Scrambling for Scudi: Notes on Painters Earnings in Early Baroque Rome,
The Art Bulletin, LXXXV, 2003, 31020
Stone, N., The Note-Book and Account Book of Nicholas Stone, (c. 1640), transcribed and annotated by Walter L. Spiers, Walpole Society, VII, 1919
Summers, D., Michelangelo and the Language of Art, Princeton, 1981
Thuillier, J., et al., Vouet. Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, 6 novembre
1990-11 fvrier 1991, exhib. cat., Paris, 1990
Tratz, H., Werkstatt und Arbeitsweise Berninis, Rmisches Jahrbuch fr
Kunstgeschichte, XXIII/XXIV, 1988, 397485
Vertue, G., Note Books (c. 1713): Vol. I, Walpole Society, XVIII, 192930
Valori, N., Vita di Lorenzo il Magnifico, Palermo, 1992
Walter, I., Lorenzo il Magnifico e il suo tempo, Rome, 2003
Warwick, G., Gift Exchange and Art Collecting: Padre Sebastiano Restas Drawing
Albums, The Art Bulletin, LXXIX, 1997, 63046
Weston-Lewis, A., ed., Effigies & Ecstasies. Roman Baroque Sculpture and Design in
the Age of Bernini, exhib. cat., Edinburgh, 1998
Wittkower, R., Berninis Bust of Louis XIV, London, etc., 1951
______ The Vicissitudes of a Dynastic Monument. Berninis Equestrian Statue of
Louis XIV, in M. Meiss, ed., De Artibus Opuscula XL. Essays in Honor of Erwin
Panofsky, New York, 1961, 497531 (reprinted in his Studies in the Italian
Baroque, London, 1975, 83102)
Wittkower, R. and M., Born Under Saturn. The Character and Conduct of Artists:
A Documented History from Antiquity to the French Revolution, New York, 1963
_______ Gian Lorenzo Bernini. The Sculptor of the Roman Baroque, Oxford, 1981
XXXI
URBANITAS URBANA
The Pope, the Artist, and the Genius of the Place

election name
OPES are elected by action of the Holy Spirit: Divine Wisdom inspires
them to resolve their differences and make the right choice. The election
of Urban VIII was, however, exceptional in this tradition, because the
choice was accompanied by an extraordinary event that seemed to confirm
the principle of divine intervention in concrete, visible, and unmistakably
personal terms. It so happened that a swarm of bees passed through the open
window of the conclave; it so happened that the bee, because of its perfectly
organized modus vivendi and its deliciously beneficial product, had from time
immemorial been taken as the earthly incarnation of the Divine Wisdom
(Fig. 1); and it so happened that the bee was the emblem of Cardinal Maffeo
Barberini three bees, as it so happened, easily understood in terms of the
Trinity from whom the Holy Spirit descends (Fig. 2).1
The first action of the new Pope following his acceptance of the outcome
of the election is to choose his new name. When Barberini was asked
whether he accepted the election, he went down on his knees to pray for a
while; he then declared that he accepted and that he would take the name
of Urban VIII. There was no hesitation about the name: evidently Maffeo
Barberini had himself foreseen, perhaps even long before, the action of
Divine Wisdom in the choice of the cardinals, and perhaps even the action
of Divine Wisdom in his own choice of his new name! The contemporary
On this famous engraving see now Finocchiaro 2004.
1268
sources give essentially three reasons why Maffeo Barberini chose to call
himself Urban: 1. because of his special affection for Rome, the Urbs par
excellence. 2. because he wished his name to be a perpetual reminder that he
must curb his own natural inclination toward sternness. 3. in memory of his
early predecessors, full of holy zeal and far from worldly interests.2
The purpose of this essay is to try to comprehend the nature and
relationship between these three prime themes of Maffeo Barberinis
papacy, as I have come to believe he understood it, that is: his affection for
Rome, his personal character, and his self-identification as Pope Urbanus.
I shall discuss these ingredients in sequence, but my whole point is that
they were conceived together, merging Urbs and Urbanus into one coherent
Persona as the embracing lovers merged into a single persona in Ingmar
Bergmans great film of that name. The sense of urbanity to be considered
here was surely rooted in the cultivated humanistic ambience of the villa
of Cardinal Scipione Borghese, nephew of Paul V (160621), which the
learned and literate Maffeo Barberini had frequented, and for which Bernini
had made his most important early works.3 Maffeo Barberini himself, who
commissioned one of the most famous of these works, was undoubtedly an
inspiring participant. The concept was expressed explicitly in the famous
inscription at the entrance to the villas garden, which invited the people of
Rome to enjoy its pleasures in accordance with the golden laws of urbanity.4
2
Egli dice haver preso il nome di Urbano per due cause, la prima per amar egli molto
questa citt, che sappella Urbs per autonomasia, la seconda perch conoscendo egli la sua
natura tirar alquanto al rigidetto le fusse continuo raccordo di dover temperarla. (Pastor
192353, XXVIII, 25, n. 1) ...dal qual nome ha voluto egli insignirsi, come ha detto, per
venerare la memoria degli antichi Urbani predecessori suoi, che pieni di santo zelo, ed alieni
agli interessi del mondo, tentarono imprese gloriose. (Barozzi and Berchet 18778, I, 225).
On the Urban predecessors in particular, see p. 1301f. and n. 53 below.
3
See the fine essay by Mller Hofstede 1998, and the references, especially to studies
cited there, p. 122 n. 1, by Rudolf Preimesberger. Neither Preimesberger nor Mller
Hofstede relates the concept of urbanity to Urban himself.
4
Whoever thou art, so long as thou art a free man, fear not here the bonds of the
laws! Go where thou wilt, ask whatever thou desirest, go away whenever thou wishest.
More is here provided for the stranger than for the owner. In this golden age, which holds
the promise of universal security, the master of the house wishes to lay no iron laws upon
the well-bred. Let seemly enjoyment be the guests only law. But let him who with malice
aforethought offends against the golden law of urbanity fear lest the irate custodian burn
for him the sacred emblems of hospitality. Pastor 192353, XXVI, 453f. Heilmann 1973,
115ff., gives the inscription but notes that other Roman villas of the period were also open
to the public.
urbanitas urbana
1269
This classically-minded and quasi-juridical conceit focused essentially on

the sophisticated comportment associated with city life generally.5 When
Maffeo became pope the urbanity of Rome itself, the urbs par exellence,
acquired a new, comprehensive metaphorical significance as an ideal of
personal identity and conduct, as well as a universal code of moral, political,
spiritual, and social concern.
TUSCAN TAFANI ROMAN BEES
The special relationship Maffeo Barberini felt between himself and the city
of Rome originated long before he was elected pope and chose the \name that
would convey that relationship expressis verbis, as it were. The relationship
was probably encoded in his personal identity from the time he was named
cardinal in 1606. And from the beginning the relationship appeared to be
sanctioned by a higher authority than his own volition. Cardinals when
elected become princes of the church, and hence are entitled to the armorial
bearings of nobility. I suspect that this was the occasion when the famous
and crucial transformation took place in which the three horseflies (tafani)
that originally formed the Barberini family coat arms were morphed into
bees (Fig. 3).6 Tafano was (and still is) the name of a locality in the vicinity
of Barberino Val dElsa, whence derived the original family name, Tafani
da Barberino, and coat of arms, which also included a scissors representing
the founder of the dynasty, a tailor who established the family fortune in an
ever-expanding wool trade. (Fig. 4) But the horsefly is a menace that passes
its entire life in an incessant mass attack on its victims, inflicting painful,
blood-letting wounds with two powerful, sharp pincers that protrude from
its head; hence also the emblem of the scissors that related the familys
incisive and relentlessly aggressive business tactics to their toponym. Worker
bees may also inflict a painful wound (not the queen or what was sometimes
This generic, rather than specifically Roman notion of urbanity, as opposed to
rusticity, is evident in Ciceros frequent use of the concept (see Blry 1909, and Haury 1955,
s.v. urbanitas. For a perceptive discussion of the significance and development of the concept
in antiquity, including Roman humor, see Saint-Denis 1939, 525. A broad-ranging study
of Ciceronian urbanity will be found in Heuer 1941.
6
On the vicissitudes of the Barberini coat of arms see Pecchiai 1956, 76f, 231, and 1959,
8592; Valdarni 1968, 31; Zangheri 1990 and Marzocchi 1998, both with illustrations.
Further examples of the tafani with scissors are illustrated in a manuscript which Pecchia
1956, 91, dates before 1636.
5
1270
thought to be the king bee, which has no stinger), but only once and at great
self-sacrifice, for the bee, which then dies, suffers even more than its enemy.
Bees are also normally solitary creatures bumbling about haphazardly from
flower to flower gathering their precious nectar hither and yon; they are
marvelously of one mind, however, when they are at home in the hive,
and when they swarm en masse, which they do only in self-defense for the
common good when they are threatened, or when they decide to migrate
to another territory and establish a new colony. The Barberini armorial
metamorphosis is usually explained as a simple and obvious elevation or
evolution of the lowly and pestiferous horsefly to the noble and useful bee.
In 1636 Cardinal Francesco Barberini commissioned a Florentine client
merchant to go to Barberino and revise the coats of arms by canceling the
scissors and changing the horseflies to bees.7 But there is surely more to the
story if one considers what might be called the poetic mystique of the bee,
which Maffeo must have had in mind from the outset.
This property of the bee to migrate en famille, as it were, and to have
done so during the conclave was a God-send not only because the bee was
the family symbol, but because shortly before he was elected pope Cardinal
Maffeo had invented an impresa with an astonishing clairvoyance that was
itself one of the many otherwise inexplicable coincidences testifying to the
divine providentiality that became the overriding leitmotif of his reign
(Fig. 5).8 The famous phrase Hic Domus with which Virgil announces the
arrival of Aeneas in Latium, the foundation of Rome and the Golden Ages
of Augustus, is illustrated by a swarm of the armorial bees alighting upon a
laurel tree, symbol of eternity.
Salve, fatis mihi debita tellus,
vosque, ait, o fidi Troiae, salvete, Penates!
Hic domus, haec patria est.
Hail, O land, he cries, destined as is my due! and hail to you, ye
faithful gods of Troy! Here is our home, here our country!9
Zanobi Radicchi, aromatario, writes to Cardinal Francesco 9 November 1636

reporting that, stealthily, at night, the mission had been carried out. (Pecchiai 1956, 89ff.
cf. p. 91).
8
Ferro 1623, II, 72.
9
Aeneid VII, 1203, Fairclough 1986, II, 1011.
7
urbanitas urbana
1271
The devastating invasion of Troy by the Trojan horse was thus

superceded by the beneficial invasion of Rome by the Barberini bees. A
much richer understanding of Maffeos conceit emerges when one considers
that the same phrase, this time derived from Genesis, occurs in one of the
most powerful texts of the Roman liturgy, specifically as the Introit of the
common of the mass in celebration of the dedication of a church:
Terribilis est locus iste : hic domus Dei est, et porta caeli : et
vocabitur aula Dei.
How terrible this place! It is the house of God and the gate of
heaven, and it shall be called the court of God.10
The import of Maffeos brilliant metaphor was fully appreciated in
Rome, even in the negative, later in his reign. Only in this light can one fully
grasp Pasquinos ironic inversion of the conceit with his famous lampoon on
the appropriation of bronze from the Pantheon to create the baldachin at St.
Peters: quod non fecerunt barbari fecerunt Barberini. The joke was not just a
clever pun on the sounds of the two words barbariBarberini, but an even
cleverer inversion of the basic Virgilian conceit, now identifying the swarm
of Barberini bees with the barbaric invasion that devastated ancient Rome.
Similarly, the swarm of bees, representing not just the Cardinals device but
his whole family, later became an allusion to Urbans notorious nepotism as
a barbarian invasion, when the number of bees arrogantly populating Rome
Lasance and Walsh 1945, 1388f. Genesis 28:17 :
Pavensque, quam terribilis est inquit locus iste non est hic aliud nisi domus
dei et porta coeli.
And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this place! this is none other but
the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.
The terribilis passage does not occur in the breviary liturgy, where instead the hymn at
first Vespers begins Caelestis urbs Ierusalem. This hymn was radically changed by Urban VIII,
who participated actively in a major correction of the breviary hymns for a more classical
Latin. The second stanza in the revised breviary begins O sorte nupta prospera,/ Dotata
Patris gloria,/ Respersa Sponsi gratia,/ Regina formosissima (Hours, I, 922, Common of
the Dedication of a Church). This was also a drastic expurgation: the original passage (in
the 1570 Breviary of Pius V), was as follows: Nova veniens e caelo, nuptiali thalamo /
Praeparata, ut sponsata copuletur Domino. Copuletur is the word used by St. Bernard. The
point is that the dedication of a church is the consummation of the Marriage of Christ to
Ecclesia. On Urbans revision of the hymns: Blume 1910, Pastor 192353, XXIX, 1318.
10
1. Ballot for the

Election of Urban
VIII, after Fabio
Cristofani, tapestry.
Rome, Musei
Vaticani.
1272
2. Matthaeus Greuter, Melissographia (first illustration based

on a compound microscope). Rome, 1625.
3. Coat of Arms of De Barberino with three horseflies (tafani)

and trace of excised scissors. Florence, Santa Croce, south cloister.
urbanitas urbana
1273
5. Hic domus, Barberini impresa. Ferro

1623, II, 72.
4. Horseflies arranged as the arms

of Tafani da Barberino.
1274
6. Apse mosaic, det. Rome, Sts. Cosmas and Damian.
7. Appearance of St. Michael to St. Gregory the Great,

fresco. Rome, Trinit dei Monti.
urbanitas urbana
1275
1276
8. The Holy Spirit, St.Michael, and Pius V. Missale romanum,

Rome, 1570, title page.
urbanitas urbana
9. St. Michael leading Urban VIII, Annual Medal, 1626.
10. St. Michael crowning Urban VIII, Annual Medal, 1640, Royal Library .
1277
1278
11. Bernini workshop, Project for the Cathedra Petri, drawing.

Windsor Castle, Royal Library.
urbanitas urbana
12. Pietro da Cortona, Divine Providence, vault fresco.

Rome, Palazzo Barberini.
1279
1280
urbanitas urbana
14. Bernini, Barcaccia. Rome, Piazza di Spagna.

15. Bernini, Barcaccia, view of the fish-face prow.
Rome, Piazza di Spagna.
1281
16. Giovani Battista Piranesi, Porta della Ripetta,

engraving, 1753, detail.
17 Fontana della Galera. Rome, Vatican Palace.
1282
18. Pietro Lasena, Cleombrotus, Rome, 1638, title page.
19. Matthias Greuter, the Barcaccia, engraving.

Lasena 1638, p. 78.
urbanitas urbana
1283
1284
and the papal states was facetiously estimated at more than ten thousand.
One of the ten thousand must have been the beautifully poetic depiction of
a bee sipping nectar from a flower in the garden of Paradise depicted in the
apse mosaic of Sts. Cosmas and Damian, restored by Cardinal Francesco
(Fig. 6).
Following the choice of his name the popes affection for the city was
expressed publicly by his devotion to the Archangel Michael, the weigher
of souls. The Archangel was the patron of Castel SantAngelo and favorite
and protector of the city of Rome since he had appeared above the Castello
in a famous vision of Gregory the Great to alleviate a devastating attack
of the plague (Fig. 7); and had liberated the city from the scourge from
the north at the Sack of Rome in 1522.11 Following the Council of Trent
Michael was invoked by Pius V as defender of the Faith, in the engraved
title page of the new Missal published in 1570, where the archangel is shown
appearing with scales and sword defeating the devil of heresy, before the
kneeling pope, both figures looking up toward the radiant dove of the Holy
Spirit (Fig. 8).12 Urban established a distinctly new, personal relationship
with the Archangel by choosing the saints feast day (September 29) for
his coronation, making Michael the patron of his pontificate. This was a
fundamental shift in meaning, which he signified early in his reign in a
medal (1626) commemorating his coronation; Piuss threatening image is
transformed into one of benign protection, with Michael appearing cloudborne to lead the kneeling pope who looks up to the Archangel for guidance,
in fulfillment of the motto Te Mane, Te Vespere (you day, you night) (Fig.
9). The text was based on a hymn that introduced the liturgy for the Feast
of the Trinity, which invoked the sun, one of Urbans primary emblems, as
the ever-luminous Christ to replace the transient sun of fire. The personal
reference became more explicit in a commemorative medal issued in 1640
with the same motto, in which St. Michael as ever vigilant protector again
descends from heaven in a radically new guise, without the sword and scales
but as Divine messenger bearing the tiara to crown the pope, and so confirm
the divinely ordained election (Fig. 10). The altar in the apse of St. Peters,
the chief altar after the high altar itself, was dedicated to the Archangel and
11
The importance of the Archangel Michael for Urban VIII and the early plans for
decorating St. Peters has been recuperated by Rice 1997; cf. Index, s.v. Saints. See also
Lavin 2003 and Lavin 2005, 18294.
12
Sodi and Maria Triacca 1998.
urbanitas urbana
1285
Bernini was commissioned to design the altarpiece in 1626. The work was
never carried out, and there is no record of what he may have planned at
this stage. But the project clearly inspired the bold combination of themes
St.Michael, papal succession, Petrine relic envisaged in an astonishing
design that evidently served in the preparations for the Cathedra Petri carried
out in the same location later in the century under Alexander VII (Fig. 11):
over the reliquary throne of St. Peter shouldered by the fathers of the church,
the Archangel appears bearing the keys of St. Peter (one of which opens,
the other closes the gateway to heaven) and the papal tiara, symbols of the
popes God-given, sovereign jurisdiction over Christs legacy on earth.13
The full import of the concept can only be grasped from the liturgical
context of the text, which is derived from a famous Ambrosian hymn revised
by Urban VIII himself. Recited at evening prayer, on the Feast of the Holy
Trinity, the hymn invokes the Trinity to replace the setting sun.
O Trinity of blessed light,
O Unity of princely might,
The fiery sun now goes his way,
Shed thou within our hearts thy ray.
To thee our morning song of praise,
To thee our evening prayer we raise;
Thy glory suppliant we adore,
For ever and for evermore. 14
On the medal and Berninis drawing see Rice 1992; 1997, 89f., 267. I suspect that
the Trinitarian origin of Urbans motto also motivated the triangluar vision that appears
in the apse of St. Peters in a burst of clouds and light above the Cathedra Petri, sketched
in what seems to be its later form, in a problematic drawing in the Morgan library; the
drawing depicts a papal ceremony in the choir and crossing, with Berninis first project for
the baldachin. Damian Dombrowski has dated both the Windsor and Morgan drawings
early in Urbans reign (Dal trionfo allamore. Il mutevole pensiero artistico di Gianlorenzo
Bernini nella decorazione del nuovo San Pietro, Rome, 2003, 3944).
14
Hours of the Divine Office, II, 1420f.
Jam sol recedit igneus;
Tu, lux perennis, Unitas,
Nostris, beta Trinitas,
Infunde lumen crdibus.
13
1286
The hymn follows immediately upon the Little Chapter, from Romans
11: 13
11:33 Oh the depth of the riches of the wisdom and of the
knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are his judgments, and
how unsearchable his ways!15
In other words, the entire conceit falls under the heading of Divine
Wisdom. Michael is in effect the sun Urbans emblem bestowing
Divine Wisdoms dominion (tiara) and judgment (keys) on the pope-papacy.
Hence the aureole of rays surrounding Michael in the second coronation
medal, succeeded by the brilliant burst of light behind the Archangel in the
Cathedra Petri drawing, where also the Holy Spirit, evoked in the hymn,
appears on the back of the throne; the light and the dove were fused in the
famous window of the Holy Spirit of the final work.
In these papal images Michael is shown in an entirely unprecedented
role, not as weigher of souls or avenging angel, but as Divine messenger,
conveying the authority and power of Christ on earth. In this way, Urbans
personal invocation of St. Michael, enforcer of Gods will, served also to
extend the Archangels special surveillance of Rome to the church at
large. (Fig. 12) Finally, it becomes especially significant of Urbans selfidentification with Rome, that the coronation imagery has its counterpart,
and may have originated in Pietro da Cortonas vault fresco in the salone
of the Palazzo Barberini (16339): 16 the glorious flight of bees swooping
up through the empyrean at the command of Divine Providence below, is
crowned at the apex with the papal tiara borne by a personification of Rome
(Fig. 13). Rome enacts in the secular domain the role of Michael in the
Church .
Te mane laudum carmine,

Te deprecamur vespere ;
Digneris ut te supplices
Laudemus inter clites.
15
O altitudo divitiarum sapientiae et scientiae Dei quam inconprehensibilia sunt
iudicia eius et investigabiles viae eius.
16
On this point see Rice 1992, 429f.
urbanitas urbana
1287
URBAN HUMOR PUBLIC WIT

I have no doubt that the history of the papacy is full of pontiffs who enjoyed
a good joke, but none to my knowledge had ever made good humor and
wit a matter of public policy. (Figs. 14, 15) One of the most astonishing
of all modern urban creations, or should one say creatures, is the fountain
installed early in Urbans reign (16279), fondly known as the Barcaccia,
from its resemblance to a type of humble work-boat, double-prowed for
going up and down stream without turning around, used in hauling freight
on the Tiber nearby (Fig. 16).17 The Barcaccia is the first monumental, public
fountain in Rome, in the very heart of the city, to suggest a wholly organic,
quasi-natural, shape; and it is surely the first public monument that is truly,
sublimely, amusing.18 It was set low because of the feeble water pressure of
the Aqua Vergine at that location, but this disadvantage made the work a
prime illustration of one of Berninis the basic principles of design, The
highest praise of art consists in knowing how to make use of the little, and
the bad, and the unsuitable for the purpose, to make beautiful things, so that
the defect becomes useful, and if it did not exist it would have be made: 19
Domenico Bernini, the artists son, reports on the fountain as follows:
And if Bernini in that which was not his profession showed
such ability, how much must we believe him to be in that in which
consisted his proper talent, refined by study, and art? And as he
was wont to say, that The good artificer was the one who knew
how to invent methods to make use of the little, and the bad, to
make beautiful things, he was truly marvelous in demonstrating
it in fact. Under the Pincio in the Piazza called di Spagna, there
had been made a lead from the Acqua Vergine to create a fountain
to adorn the place. But the limited elevation above the surface did
not permit a work that would give richness and majesty to that
The Tiber work boats were cited by DOnofrio 1967, 35461; 1986, 363, 368.
The most important studies of the fountain are Hibbard and Irma Jaffe 1964,
DOnofio 1967, 35671, and 1986, 31998; for a recent summary, Kessler 2005, 4059.
The fountain was called Barcaccia in a guidebook of 1693; the term first appears in a poem
by Berni 1555 (Hibbard and Irma Jaffe 1964, 160 n. 2).
19
Concerning fountains: Anzi il sommo pregio dellArte consistere in sapersi servire
del poco, e del cattivo, e del male atto al bisogno, per far cose belle, e far s, che sia utile ci,
che f difetto, e che se non fusse, bisognerebbe farlo. Bernini 1713, 32
17
18
1288
most delightful site. Urban asked him to demonstrate also on this

occasion the vivacity of his imagination, and find a way with a
certain artful slope, to make the water rise higher. The Cavaliere
responded acutely, that in that case it would be better to think that
the work and the fountain should conform to the water, than the
water to the fountain. And so he conceived the idea of a beautiful
and noble object for which it would be necessary, if need be, to
restrict the height of the water. And he explained that he would
remove enough earth to create a large basin which, being filled with
water the fountain would represent at ground level an ocean, in the
midst of which he intended to float a noble, and appropriate stone
boat, which at several points as if from artillery cannons would
spout water in abundance. The thought greatly pleased the pope,
and without ado he gave order to carry out the project, which he
deigned to ennoble himself with the following verses:
The papal warship does not pour forth flames,
But sweet water to extinguish the fire of war.20
Everyone praised the ingenuity of the novelty of this fountain,
and the above two verses were received by the literati with such
applause that one of them, either truly convinced by the vivacity
of the concept that seemed to him impossible to have originated so
appropriately for the purpose, or else disposed to think the worst,
thinking it to believe it, and believing it to publish it, responded
ingeniously but boldly with the following distich:
He made the fountain for the verses, not the verses for the
fountain.
Urban the poet; thus may anyone take pleasure.21
20
I have borrowed the translation of the distich from Hibbard and Irma Jaffe 1964,
164.
Bernini 1713, 579:
Hor se il Bernino in quel, che non era professione sua, si dimostrava tanto valente,
quanto dobbiam credere, che fosse in ci, in cui consisteva il suo proprio talento raffinato
dallo studio, e dallarte? E come che soleva dire, che Il buon Artefice era quello , cbe sapeva
inventar maniere, per servirsi del poco, e del cattivo, per far cose belle, egli veramente f mara
/ viglioso a comprovarlo con gli effetti . Sotto il Pincio in Piazza detta di Spagna era stato
21
urbanitas urbana
1289
From antiquity on there had been naval fountains in Rome, but never
in post-classical times in so conspicuous a site, and always in the form of an
imposing warship, whether an archeological relic, or a detailed replica of a
modern galleon (Fig. 17).22 To be sure, Berninis workaday craft is clearly
equipped fore and aft with canon; but yet, at first glance, at least, the poor,
awkward tub seems obviously and emphatically to be sinking beneath the
waves, the guns squirting gentle streams of water, which also gushes from
apertures within to spill over the gunwales. At the same time, the morbid
shape of the gunwales suggests the lips and gaping mouth of some great sea
monster swallowing in one voracious gulp a diminutive version of the thing
raised on a sort of mast inside, from which an ultimate gasp of water spouts
heavenward. Berninis gently militant, humble work-boat seems to founder
condotto un capo di Acqua Vergine per doverne formare una Fontana in abbellimento di
quel luogo: M la pochissima alzata, chella aveva dal suolo non dava commodo di poter
condurre un lavoro, che recasse ricchezza e maest a quel deliziosissimo sito. Urbano
richiese lui, acci al suo solito facesse spiccare in questoccasione la vivacit del suo ingegno,
e trovasse modo con qualche artificiosa pendenza, che quellacqua venisse maggiormente
a solevarsi: Rispose acutamente il Cavaliere, che in quel caso dovevasi pi tosto pensare, che
lOpera, e la Fonte si confacesse allAcqua, che lacqua alla Fonte; E per ci concep unIdea
di Machina vaga, e nobile per cui bisognarebbe, se non fusse, restringer allacqua laltezza.
E gli espose, che haverebbe scavato tanto di terra, quanto in essa si venisse a formare una
gran Vasca, che empiendosi dellacqua di quella Fontana rappresentasse al piano del suolo
un Mare, nel cui mezzo voleva, che natasse nobile, e confacevole barca di sasso, che da pi
parti quasi da tanti Cannoni di Artiglieria gittasse acqua in abbondanza. Piacque il pensiere
incredibilmente al Papa, e senza pi di ordine, che si dasse esecuzione al disegno, quale egli
medesimo non isdegn di nobilitar con questi versi:
Bellica Pontificum non fundit Machina flammas,
Sed dulcern, belli qua perit ignis, aquam.
F lodata da tutti lingegnosa invenzione di questa Fontana, e li due sopra citati versi
con tanto applauso furono ricevuti da Letterati, che un dessi persuaso ve / ramente dalla
vivacita del concetto, che gli paresse impossibile farlo nascere tanto confacevole al proposito,
pur disposto a pensare il peggio, e pensandolo crederlo, e credendolo publicarlo, rispose
ingegnosamente m arditamente col seguente Distico.
Carminibus Fontem, non Fonti Carmina fecit
Vrbanus Vates : sic sibi quisque placet.
See also the equivalent account in Baldinucci-Ludovici 1948, 83f.
The antecedents from antiquity on were studied by Hibbard and Irma Jaffe 1964,
DOnofrio 1967, and 1986 (as in n. 18).
22
1290
in the overwhelming flood of its own delicious, liquid superabundance. In

point of fact, however, the situation might just as well be the other way
around: the monster could be vomiting it up, in effect saving it from a
watery death. In the end, the Barcaccia appears in a perpetual state of
suspension, animated by the constant flow of water, here again easily
accessible over rock-like steps conveniently protruding to bridge the gaps at
either end, between the edge of the basin and the tub. This ironic portrayal
of an unlikely object in an unlikely situation in an unlikely place one of
the major city squares was a delight to one and all and surely contributed
to its immediate baptism with its endearing, cuddly name, in the common
Romanaccia parlance of the city.
Lest there be any doubt that it was perceived in this way by contemporaries,
we may call to witness the account of the fountain in an extraordinary book
by a now obscure but then well-known polymath, Pietro Lasena (15901636),
published in Rome in 1637, dedicated to Cardinal Francesco Barberini:
Cleombrotus [the name of an ancient Greek philosopher], or, a Philological
Dissertation on Those who have Died in the Water (Fig. 18).23 Described in
The Transactions of the Royal Humane Society in London for 1756 as the
first work devoted to the awful theme of shipwreck and drowning, Lasenas
treatise contains the first known illustration of the Barcaccia, by Matthias
Greuter, along with a discussion and various epigrams, including one in
Greek by Leone Allacci (Figs. 19, 20). The point of it all, following the
popes own epigram, is to interpret the fountain with its mellifluous waters
as an emblem of apian peace:
The Golden Peace of Pharia, once torn from the keel,
Immerses the ships of war in Hyblaean honey.
The following description of the work, now in my possession, was provided by the
bookseller, F. Thomas Heller, of Swarthmore, PA.
LASENA. Pietro. Cleombrotus, 8ive de iis, qui in aquis pereunt, philogica
dissertatio. Rome, Jacobo Facciotti, 1637.
8vo. Orig. limp vellum; rebacked. [8]. 192. [16] pp. With the engraved
Barberini arms on the titlepage, engraved portrait of the author, 3 folding engraved
plates, 2 text engravings, and 5 woodcuts. Scattered light foxing, else fine.
First and only edition and very rare. A distinguished Neapolitan jurist and
polymath. Lasena (15901636) came to Rome in 1634 to serve the Pope, Urban
VIII, and his brother, the cardinal Francesco Barberini, to whom the book is
jointly dedicated. He was received with honor and lodged in the Vatican, but
soon died of malaria and was buried in S. Andrea della Valle. Cleombrotus is an
23
urbanitas urbana
1291
And now, O Prince, the ship brings new omens

From which your bee sends forth honeyed liquids.24
Under the beneficent sun and the vessels of redemption all meld in a
kind of self-immersion in the salvific waters of the church. The Barcaccia is
eternally flooded but it never sinks. On the contrary, it also rises from within
the gigantic, open-mouthed fish, disgorging the thirst- and fire-quenching
waters of baptism as the Whale disgorged Jonah.
The irony of the conceit is most evident if one considers that the major
symbol of the Catholic church as an institution was precisely the noble ship, as
the ship of state, Christs earthly domain guided by the pope at the helm. The
extended series of essays occasioned by the catastrophic shipwreck of a flotilla
of Spanish galleons lost in the Gulf of Genoa in 1635, the passengers of which
included Lasenas parents. The work was read before a Roman literary society but
published posthumously, in tribute to its author. A discussion of the theme of
shipwrecks and drowning, largely with reference to antiquity, the work is, in fact,
the first book on drowning and has long been recognized as such in the literature
on resuscitation see page XVI of The Transactions of the Royal Humane Society,
London [1796]. Hitherto unnoticed, however, is an engraving and several pages of
analysis of Berninis famous shipwrecked fountain, the Barcaccia, a celebrated
work, Berninis first fountain, the archetypical Roman fountain, and traditionally
considered to be the first fountain in what would come to be called the Baroque
style (see Wittkower. Bernini, 8Oa for the relevant bibliography). This engraving
is the first depiction of the fountain. predating by one year the illustration that has
hitherto been considered to be the earliest representation of the work, a view found
in the guidebook Ritratto di Roma Moderna published by Pompilio Totti in 1638
(see Cesare dOnofrio, Roma Vista da Roma, Rome, 1967, pt. III, fig. 250). Lasenas
analysis is also of considerable interest for 1ts emphasis on Egyptian (i.e. hermetic,
neoplatonic) symbolism, and contains several epigrams relating to the fountain,
including a lengthy quatrain in Greek by Leone Allacci. Graesse IV 113.
A brief eulogy of Lasena appears in Rossi 1692, 1068.
24
Lasena 1637, 77:
Aurea Pax Phari quond detracta carina,
Imbuit Hyblis bellica rostra fauis:
Et noua nunc pacis, PRINCEPS, fert omina
Puppis,
Mellitos latices qua tua promit Apis.
Isis, Egyptian goddess of peace, was called Pharia from the lighthouse pharos of
Alexandria;
Hybla, from Mount Hybla in Sicily, famous for its honey.
1292
theme was so central to the ideology of the church that one proposal offered
at the outset of Urbans reign for furnishing the newly completed basilica of
St. Peters actually enclosed the high altar and the choir for the cardinals in
a ship under a sail blown by the crucifixion (Fig. 21). There were essentially
three New Testament contexts that lay behind this maritime metaphor, that
is, the gospel episodes involving Christs institution and dissemination of
the Faith through his disciples: the vessel from which Christ called Peter,
the first and foremost among the disciples, as he was fishing with Andrew on
the Sea of Galilee, to succeed him as the Prince of the Apostles, his earthly
vicar, saying to them I will make you become fishers of men (Mt. 4::1820;
Mark 1:1617); the vessel in which the apostles were caught during a storm,
from which Christ saved them, proving his divinity by walking on the water,
and Peters faith by urging him to do the same (Mt. 1422343; and the
vessel in which Christ saved the apostles, as it was sinking from the weight
of a draft of innumerable fishes he had miraculously provided, saying that
henceforth they would catch men (Luke 5:310). Behind these episodes
there lay two main Old Testament prognostications: Noah and his ark, in
which all the worlds creatures were saved from the universal flood of mans
sins; and Jonah who, guilty for having fled from the Lords command, asked
to be cast into the sea as a sacrifice, was swallowed by a sea monster, and
prayed to the Lord from the belly of hell, whereupon the beast vomited him
out upon the dry land (Jonah Chs. 12).
If the note of serious humor (serio ludere in Renaissance terms) struck
by the Barcaccia seems startlingly bizarre, the explanation lies in two
interrelated works of learned and imaginative antiquarianism that were its
inspiration and justification. Vincenzo Cartari in his great compilation of
ancient religious imagery, deals at length with the belief of the Egyptians,
paragons of pre-Christian arcane knowledge and wisdom, that the gods
were identified with animals. On the authority the church father Eusebius
of Caesarea, significantly in his compendious treatise on the forerunners of
Christianity, Preparation for the Gospel, Cartari reported that the Egyptians
associated the Sun with a ship and a crocodile, the former shown riding on
the latter immersed in sweet water (Fig. 22).25 The Ship of the Sun, shown
enflamed and spouting fire from its forward gun-ports in Cartaris image,
Vincenzo Cartari, Le imagini de gli dei de gli antichi, Venice, 1625, 45. The Nave
del Sole, which is metioned by Hibbard and Irma Jaffe in a footnote (1964, 164 n. 19),
appears in all the many editions of Cartari.
25
urbanitas urbana
1293
represented the creative effect of the suns motion through liquid, and the
crocodile signified the water which the sun purges of its impurities: lacqua
dolce, dalla quale il Sole leua ogni trista qualit, & la purga con i suoi
temperati raggi.26 The relevance of the temperate sun as a ship conducted
through the pure water by an acqueus beast whose humid generative power
was second only to Gods, was a congeries of associations astonishingly
proleptic of the themes Urban would adopt for himself. In particular, the
sun was a primary emblem of Urban VIII and the quenching waters spewing
from the solar visages inside and the gunports outside at either end of the
Barcaccia clearly reflect Cartaris description of the water-tempering rays of
the Egyptian sun-boat. The same themes, more fully developed, underlay
and may have inspired a chalcedony gem, now lost, that was assumed to be
an important relic of Early Christian, specifically early Petrine art (Figs. 23,
24).27 Mounted as an anulus piscatoris (formally a papal ring), the carving
depicted a ship at sea mounted on the back of a huge open-mouthed sea
monster; from the ships deck rose a mast that supported another, smaller
vessel surmounted by a dove evocative of the salvific message a bird brought
to Noah in the ark, while another bird rode to safety on the poop. To the
right, as if retrieved from the jaws of the sea-monster, Christ calls Peter
to walk upon the waters and follow him. (The visitor who approaches the
gun-spouts on the narrow, bi-lingual platforms from the shore, does
indeed seem to walk, precariously, upon the water.) Above the figures the
abbreviated names of Jesus and Peter were inscribed in Greek. The gem was
26
The caption of the illustration reads: Naue del Sole portata de un Crocodilo, che
significa la prima causa che gouerna luniuerso dop Iddio esser la forza del Sole congionta
nella generatione delle cose con lumidit; & lui purgare le triste qualit di quella. The
reference to Eusebius (p. 44) is as follows: Et perci, come riferisce Eusebio, i Theologi
dello Egitto metteuano limagine del Sole in vna naue, la quale faceuano portare da vn
Crocodilo, volendo per la naue mostrare il moto, che si fa nello humido alla generazione
delle cose, e per lo Crocodilo lacqua dolce, dalla quale il Sole leua ogni trista qualit, &
la purga con i suoi temperati raggi. The passage in Eusebius is as follows: The sun they
indicate by a man embarked on a ship, the ship set on a crocodile. And the ship indicates
the suns motion in a liquid element: the crocodile potable water in which the sun travels.
The figure thus signified that his revolution takes place through air that is liquid and sweet.
(Eusebius 2002, I, 126).
27 The gem is discussed briefly by Hibbard and Irma Jaffe 1964, 164. The circumstances
of Aleandros composition and the engraving by Mellan have been studied by David Jaff
1990, 16875. The most extensive modern discussion of the gems content, and the question
of its authenticiy, is that by Dlger 1943, 28691.
1294
engraved by Claude Mellan in two versions, in one of which, that published

by Aleandro, Christ also stands on the water; in the other, Christ stands
upon a rock in allusion to Peter as the rock upon which the church would
be built. The gem was the subject of a scholarly monograph published by
Girolamo Aleandro with a dedication to Cardinal Francesco Barberini in
1626, the same year Urban dedicated the new church of St. Peters and the
year before the Barcaccia was begun.28 Aleandro, secretary and a close friend
of the pope and his nephew, all of whom were associated with the famous
Accademia degli Umoristi, explains the gem as allusive to the Old and New
Testament vessels of salvation, the ark of Noah, the fishing boat of Peter,
and the ship of the church, in which both Jews and Gentiles are saved.29
Aleandro does indeed relate the open-mouthed sea monster to the beast
that disgorged Jonah in anticipation of the Resurrection. Aleandro made
this point by referring it Peter, recalling the annual tribute money (actually
a specific coin denomination, the didrachma in the Vulgate, worth two
drachmae), which Christ instructed Peter to pay, having extracted it from
the mouth of a fish.30 Aleandro offered this reference to explain the open
mouth of the animal in the ring, and the explanation is equally valid for the
gaping maw of Berninis bi-faced ship-monster welling up from and hovering
over the lower depths, inundating the fountain with the silvery redemption
that both Jonah and Peter won by virtue of their devotion.31 The Barcaccia
was a monumental conflation of the salvific associations accumulated in
Cartaris dramatic Ship of the Sun and the diminutive anulus piscatoris. The
fountain morphed the sun, the vessel, and the fish into a coherent, organic
Aleandro 1626.
Trium exstimo rerum sacrarum potissimum symbola (nam & alsia quaedam
consideranda se nobis offerent) hac gemma contineri. Ac primum quidem illud signifiari
tem Arcam No, quam Petri nauiculam Ecclesiae fuisse typum. Deinde, quoniam
coniunctae inuicam arca ipsa & naus cernunut, Cathlicam Christi Ecclesiam iam inde aq
muni primordio fuisse. Tertio loco, cum arca malo nauis imposita ab ipsa naui fuleiri ac
sustentari videatur, quicumque siue ex Iudaismo, siue ex Gentibus salutem vnquam sunt
adepti, id per fidem in Iesum Christum, quae fides Ecclesiae firmamentum est, ijs contigisse
(Aleandro 1626, 15f.)
30
Nec eius opinio improbanda videretur, qui extimauerit, piscem in gemma insculptum
fuisse ad inuenti illius stateris memoriam refricandam exhibendumque mysterium, de quo
loquuti sumus, ac profeco os huiusce nostri piscis apertum verba Domini respicere videtur,
& aperto ore eius inunies staterem (Aleandro 1626, 127f.); cf. Dlger 1943, 286.
31
For examples of didrachmae bearing twin fishes see Noe 1935.
28
29
urbanitas urbana
1295
image of Urbans offering on behalf of the church to the people of Rome: an

abundant cascade of grace as aquatic refreshment for body and soul.
Baldinucci says unequivocally that Bernini made the fountain at the
Popes behest, and I have no doubt that in this case as in others where
Bernini himself attributes to the pope ideas that he has carried out, however
ingeniously, the basic conceit did indeed spring from Maffeo Barberinis
imagination; after which the two men, like swarming bees, were of a single
mind.32 The reason I say so in this case is the location of the fountain,
which was the popes wish: it is located between the two preternatural
enemies, Spain on one side of the piazza, France up the hill on the other.
The papacy was often caught uncomfortably in the middle, especially in
seeking to reconcile and unite the antagonists in the struggle against the
Protestant heretics. In this light and in this place, the Barcaccia it is an
emblem not only of the popes diplomacy but also of his diplomatic method.
33
An essential part of my argument in this paper is that Urbans effort to
mitigate asperity and mediate peace under the aegis of the church was as
much a part of his Urbanity as were the daring informality, charm, and wit
that have indeed made the fountain an eternal symbol of what it means to
be Roman. Another of Berninis dicta concerning the design of fountains
was that the good architect had always to give them some real significance,
or alluding to something noble, whether real or imagined.34 In the case
of the Barcaccia, Urbans own distich provided the key to the fountains
significance in its context. But the same kind of open-mouthed sea-creature
fun populates the Piazza Barberini itself, in the natural form of gigantic,
splayed out conch-shells displaying the unimaginable treasures offered by
their patron.( Figs. 25, 26).35.
The element of humor and wit also informs another instance cited by
the biographers of Berninis ingenious cooptation of refractory conditions to
his own advantage. This is the huge commemorative inscription decreed by
32
On Urbans patronage see Pastor 192353, XXIX, 40844; his patronage of Bernini
has been surveyed more recently by Hirschfeld 1968, 15670.
33
The political topography of the site was aptly sketched by Hibbard and Irma Jaffe
1964, 165f.
34
sua opinione sempre fu che il buono architetto nel disegnar fontane dovesse sempre
dar loro qualche significato vero o pure alludente a cosa nobile o vera o finta. BaldinucciLudovici 1948, 84
35
I refer of course to the Triton fountain and the Fountain of the Bees, the latter a
modern reconstruction incorporating parts of the original; cf. DOnofrio 1986, 3859.
1296
the Roman Senate in 1634 on the inner facade of S. Maria in Aracoeli, where
two winged figures of fame unfurl a long scroll that seems to billow out and
envelop the space of the nave. The popes numerous urban benefactions
are inscribed, ending, significantly in our context, with an acclamation of
his just, tempered and truly paternal rule, and his vigilant care for the
benefits of the people.36 Immediately above, as if to confirm the divine
intervention, a pre-existent window was replaced by a stained glass version
of the papal escutcheon (Figs. 27, 28).37 Here, the conceit made a special
reference to the popes self-conflation love affair, one is tempted to
say with his adopted city. The virginal church on the Capitoline hill
recalls the Emperor Augustus who, disturbed by rumors that the Senate
was about to honor him as a God, consulted the Tiburtine Sibyl, prophetess
par excellence of the Tiber and Rome, who foretold the descent from the
skies of the King of the Ages. As the prophetess spoke, Augustus beheld
a marvelous vision of the Virgin standing on an altar in a dazzling light
holding the baby Jesus in her arms, and heard a voice that said, This is the
altar of the Son of God, following which the Emperor dedicated the Altar
of Heaven. Passing through the window, Urbans emblematic sun recreates
the miraculous apian invasion of the conclave that elected him. The device
became universal transferred from urbi to orbi, as it were in Berninis
cooptation for the Cathedra Petri of Michelangelos window in the apse of
St. Peters (Fig. 29).38
36
iusta ac temperata vereque paterna dominatioine (sic) populorum commodis vigili
cura prospexerit. For the full text see Forcella 186984, I, 232, No. 902.
37
The present window is a modern replacement (Fraschetti 1900,100).
38
Baldinucci reports Berninis precept and its application in the windows:
Nellarchitettura dava bellissimi precetti: primieramente diceva non essere il sommo pregio
dellartefice il far bellissimi e comodi edifici, ma il sapere inventar maniere per servirsi del
poco, del cattivo e male adattato al bisogno per far cose belle e far si, che sia utile quel che
fu difetto e che, se non fusse, bisognerebbe farlo. Che poi il valor suo giugnesse a questo
segno, conobbesi in molte sue opere, particolarmente / nellarme dUrbano in Araceli che,
per mancanza del luogo, ove situarla, che veniva occupato da una gran finestra, egli colori
di azzurro il finestrone invetriato e in esso figur le tre api, quasi volando per aria, e sopra
colloc il regno. Similmente nel sepolcro di Alessandro; nella situazione della Cattedra,
ove fece che il finestrone, che pure Ira dimpedimento le tornasse in aiuto, perch intorno
a esso rappresent la gloria del paradiso e nel bel mezzo del vetro, quasi in luogo di luce
inaccessibile fece vedere lo Spirito Santo in sembianza di colomba, che d compimento a
tutta lopera. (Baldinucci-Ludovici 1948, 146f.)
urbanitas urbana
1297
PERSONAL URBANITY
Urbans choice of his name as a reminder to himself to mitigate a certain
natural tendency to austerity has a personal psychological resonance that
evokes the way urbanus as opposed to rusticus was used by the
ancient writers on style, like Cicero and Horace, for whom it conveyed,
a relaxed, congenial, and open-minded modus agendi, associated especially
with sophisticated city life. In a bust of Urban VIII from the beginning
of his reign, about 1624, Bernini departed radically from the formulae for
papal portraits laid down in the 16th century (Fig. 30).39 To begin with, the
ends of the shoulders are cut off and the torso is amputated at the breast.
To show so little of the figure was extraordinary in a life-size papal bust.40
Secondly, Bernini defied the normal convention in such works that Popes
be shown wearing the pontifical robe, or pluvial, and either bareheaded or
wearing the papal tiara; instead, he shows Urban wearing only the mozzetta,
a short cape, and the papal cap, or camauro. The mozzetta and camauro
are specifically nonliturgical garments, so that the pope is shown as he
would appear on ordinary occasions. Finally, the gentle smile that graces
Urbans face, retained soon thereafter even in Berninis first monumental
sculpture of him with pluvial (Fig. 31), was quite unprecedented in papal
bust portraiture. In sum, Bernini in these works presents us with a new kind
of human being: an unimposing, ordinary, cheerful pope.
Later, as Urban ages and clouds begin to form over his reign, the
psychology becomes more complex but not less human and humane (Figs.
32, 33). This is how Lelio Guidiccioni, one of the leading letterati of the
day, described the bust Bernini executed in the summer of 1632:
For ten years you have attentively observed the face of this most
urbane Prince (principe urbanissimo), who opens to you not only
39
Zitzlsperger 2002 has published a fine study of Berninis papal and ruler portraits,
but his effort (879) to date this bust a decade later and attribute it to another artist is
misguided; everything about the form, psychology, and provenance of the work in the
Barberini family, speaks to the contrary.
40
68 cm high with base. The chief precedent was Berninis own miniature bust of Paul
V wearing the pluvial, in the Borghese Gallery, 16167, 44 cm high with base.
1298
the joy of his countenance, but also the intimacy of his feelings.41
And with your bold imagination you have seen only the living
inward harmony (il vivo consenso interno). You have succeeded in
expressing those airs and attitudes which in ten years of observation
you found to be most noble in that face, whose name [i.e. Urban]
we see expressed in an open book. Thus one sees the portrait pensive
with lightheartedness, gentle with majesty, spirited with gravity; it is
benign and it is venerable. This image of His Holiness has no arms;
yet by a faint movement of the right shoulder and a lifting of the
mozzetta, together with a turn of the head (which serves a variety
of purposes) and also an inclination of the brow, it clearly shows the
action of gesturing with the arm to someone to rise to his feet.42
Apart from the subtlety of Berninis (and Guidiccionis) psychological
analysis, the bust is revolutionary in two particular respects: Bernini
introduced here a motif unprecedented in the history of papal bust
portraiture: the third button of the camaura is only half buttoned. Bernini
had introduced the motif in his portrait of the Cardinal Agostino Valier
(ca. 16245), where one button is missing or undone, a second only half
done; Valier was Venetian and therefore perhaps somewhat independent
from the more rigid ecclesiastical traditions of Rome (Fig. 34). In the case
of Urban the device suggests only a minor, scarcely noticeable inadvertency,
but in traditional terms the pope is practically undressed; in modern terms
41
The expressive relationship between Urbans name and character and Berninis
portrait of the pope, is explicit in the theme of a punning epigram, titled Since Urbanity
cannot turn to Stone, the Stone must put on Urbanity, that Guidiccioni appended to his
epic poem on the baldachin of St. Peters, published in 1633 (Guidiccioni 1633; Newman
and Newman 1992, 174f.).
42
Ha ella osservato in dieci anni attentamente il volto di un Principe Urbanissimo, che
apre a lei non solo la giocondit del suo volto, ma la soavit degli affetti. Hora comella di
gagliardissima fantasia, nel fare il ritratto, ha solo veduto il vivo consenso interno, et non
altrimente con gli occhi. Ha potuto esprimere et quelle arie, et posture, che in dieci anni
venuta osservando pi nobili in quella faccia; il cui nome [i.e. Urbano] in libbro aperto, si
veggono espressi... Cos si vede quel ritratto pensoso con allegria, dolce con maest, spiritoso
con gravita; ride et venerando.
Parve il sudetto ritratto di Nostro Signore che non ha braccia, con un poco di motivo di
spalla destra et alzato di mozzetta, aggiunto alla pendentia della testa, che serve a pil cose,
come anco il chinar della fronte, dimostra chiara lattione di accennar col braccio ad alcuno
che si levi in piedi. (DOnofrio 1967, 382)
urbanitas urbana
1299
he is physically, psychologically and socially unbuttoned (sbottonato

an expression whose resonance stretches back to antiquity). This whimsical
touch of personal sartorial laxity effectively mitigates the sense of austerity
that is inherent in the papal presence. Equally unprecedented in papal bust
portraiture was the action of the right arm, as if beckoning so Guidiccioni
observes to the approaching visitor to rise and greet the pontiff (Fig.
35). This open gesture introduces a kind of narrative, breaching the formal
and psychological facade and extending the intimacy of Urbans glance to a
veritable dialogue between the pope and the outside world.
The portraits express the popes openness in a personal sense, but it was
also expressed publicly, as it were, in his family residence. In the context
of Roman domestic architecture, Palazzo Barberini is a suburban villa
type turned completely around (162533; Figs. 36, 37). What is usually
the garden faade, with protruding wings that flank three stories of open
loggias, now reaches out to embrace the city, in the direction of St. Peters,
effectively destroying the traditional, closed Renaissance palace facade as an
awesome and forbidding legacy of the Middle Ages. The most conspicuous
prototype in Rome was, of course, the garden faade of the Villa Farnesina
(Fig. 38).43 But equally striking is the great dwelling of the Most Powerful
Prince and King, resting on a rustic foundation, envisioned in an emblem
that celebrated the encompassing dragon device and celestial and earthly
dominion of Gregory XIII (Fig. 39); the design of the facade reflects that of
the inner courtyard of Gregorys summer palace on the Quirinal hill.44 The
Barberini palace is a stones throw distant from the Quirinal, and Urban VIII
surely knew the emblem, since early in his reign, while the Barberini palace
was being designed, he carried out important additions and restorations on
Gregorys works at both the Vatican and Quirinal palaces.45 Bernini himself
also took cognizance of the emblem, especially its naturalistic foundation,
in his subsequent palace designs for Innocent X and Louis XIV. The widespread, completely permeable ground floor entrance foyer no forbidding
43
Patricia Waddy has emphasized the importance of the palaces orientation toward
the heart of the city and St. Peters (1990, 176, 212, 218f., 223f., 231). Waddy aptly refers to
the type of the Paris htel, which Urban certainly knew well from his early years there, and
which may have contributed to the reprise of the Roman model.
44
Fabrizi 1588, 308. On this emblem and its significance, see Lavin 1993, 167f., and
Courtright 2003,178f.
45
Courtright 2003, 79, 260 n. 1.
1300
portals! is also an astonishingly bold revolution in palace architecture.

The genial new openness embodied in the Barberini facade affected not only
the palace: with the fountains in the nearby piazza, the whole neighborhood
was invited to share its precious and effusive bounty. The design theme
of arms opening from a central core announced in the Barberini palace
sounded a leitmotif that echoed through Berninis entire life, in the Aracoeli
inscription (Figs. 27, 28), at St. Peters (Fig. 40), SantAndrea al Quirinale
(Fig. 41), Santa Maria Assunta in Ariccia (Fig. 42), in his original project
for the rebuilding of Louis XIVs Louvre (Fig. 43).46 Later in the century the
anomalous, hybrid, urban-suburban innovation of the Palazzo Barberini was
literally codified at the Accademia di San Luca in a new, quasi-oxymoronic
architectural type called Palazzo in Villa: a central, open facade screening
an oval salone, flanked by projecting wings. Developed from Berninis studio
in Rome the theme was patented explicitly, since he claimed credit for
the invention of his version of the concept and disseminated throughout
Europe by Fischer von Ehrlach with his famous Lustgartengebude, in
which the open and embracing gesture was repeated on both sides of the
building, with perfect, biaxial symmetry (Figs. 44, 45).47
POLITICAL AND SOCIAL URBANITY
In 1635 the Senators of Rome, in recognition of Urbans benefactions,
revived after a lapse of nearly half a century a long-standing tradition by
commissioning from Bernini a monumental commemorative statue of the
pope for the Capitol, completed in 1640 (Fig. 46). I am not aware of any prior
example of a papal monument, whether a tomb effigy or a commemorative
portrait, in which the seated, enthroned figure is gestures with his left hand;
the left hand either rests empty-handed, as it were, or holds immobile some
object emblematic of the pontiffs office or character.48 To be sure, Urbans
gesture is also emblematic, alluding to the left side as the sinister side of
perdition and evoking the Popes role as earthly vicar of the judging Savior
at the Last Judgment (Fig. 47). But here the hand is turned up suggestive
of elevating grace rather than repressive wrath. This simple, subtle action
See the discussion of these relationships in Lavin 1993, 191f.
I have traced this trajectory in Lavin 1992.
48
The standard work on honorific papal monuments is Hager 1929. A full account of
the Capitoline statues will be found in Butzek 1978.
46
47
urbanitas urbana
1301
transformed the ideological heritage of papal statues on the Campidoglio,

which since the early sixteenth century sought to impose the will of the
pope on the senate and people of Rome through images of austerity and
even intimidation (Figs. 48, 49). I feel sure that both Bernini and Urban
had in mind the famous exchange reported by Vasari between Julius II and
Michelangelo while the sculptor was executing a great bronze statue of that
pope to be placed over the entrance to the Duomo of Bologna:
. . . the question was raised of what to put in the left hand, the
right being held up with such a proud gesture that the Pope asked
if it was giving a blessing or a curse. Michelagnolo answered that he
was admonishing the people of Bologna to be prudent. When he
asked the Pope whether he should put a book in his left hand, the
pontiff replied, Give me a sword; I am not a man of letters.
Michelangelos statue was made in a military context, to commemorate
Juliuss triumph over the Bentivoglio masters of the city and serve as a
warning to their followers, who destroyed it a few years later when they
briefly recaptured the city.49 But its austere, menacing aspect was reflected
in all the subsequent honorific statues of the popes on the Campidoglio. It
was not by accident that the fearsome statue of Moses that Michelangelo
made for Juliuss tomb in turn became the model for the Capitoline statue
of Gregory XIII (Figs. 50, 51). 50 Berninis Urban VIII, with his benign
expression, arms flung open, mantle cast aside, displays (I use that word
advisedly) a radically different, even diametrically opposed attitude. The
prototype in this case was Urbans primary namesake, Pope Urban I, who
had been portrayed in almost exactly the same way in the frescoes of the
Sala di Costantino in the Vatican (Fig. 52). As the first pope (222230)
to identify himself literally with the capital of the empire, he would have
been the embodiment par excellence of the virtues with which the Church
exercised its dominion Rome. Flanked by personifications of Justice and
Charity, the import of the popes gestures is obvious: he raises a measured
hand toward the balance of Justice while pointing insistently to Charity, not
49
Michelangelos bronze Julius II has been comprehensively studied by Rohlmann
1996.
50
This relationship was noted in a brilliant paper by Freiberg 2004.
1302
only a Moral but the chief Cardinal virtue.51 The inspiration and aspiration
implicit here were illustrated in a spectacular pair of paintings by the Muti
brothers, which the Barberinis acquired 1627, 1630, the Apotheosis of Urban
I and the Allegory of Peace (Figs. 53, 54).52 There are striking analogies
between Berninis sculptured portrait and Mutis painted apotheosis, and
between the composition of the Mutis allegorical picture and the portrayal
of Urban I with flanking allegories in the Sala di Costantino. There is
also surely a recollection of another great and zealous predecessor, Urban
II, Roman born, who was portrayed with the same virtues. Urban II was
famous as the promoter of the first crusade, and may have inspired Urban
VIIIs adoption of the same cause, as well as his support for foreign missions
and the Propaganda Fide. Urban II was equally famous for having accepted
the office only reluctantly, as was Barberini when he insisted that a recount
of the votes be taken to confirm his election, after an error had been
discovered in the first scrutiny.53 The same allegories reappear in the frame
of an engraved portrait of Urban VII, by Cherubino Alberti (Fig. 55).
The expansive and inclusive embrace suggested by the Campidoglio
figure was embodied in an important but neglected enterprise in what might
be called spiritual-demographics. I refer to Urban massive effort to ensure
adequate care for the spiritual needs of the populace through the system of
apostolic visits, initiated soon after his election and continued throughout
51
No doubt Barberini was also aware that, according to the Golden Legend Urban
I, who played a central role in the life of St. Cecilia, used the most familiar of all bee
clichs to describe the Roman martyrs works in the service of Christ: ....Lord Jesus Christ,
sower of chaste counsel, accept the fruit of the seeds that you sowed in Cecilia! Lord Jesus
Christ, good shepherd, Cecilia your handmaid has served you like a busy bee (apis tibi
argumentosa): the spouse whom she received as a fierce lion, she has sent to you as a gentle
lamb! (Voragine 1948, 691; ...Caecilia famula tua quasi apis tibi argumentosa deservit;
nam sponsum, quem quasi leonem ferocem accepit, ad te quasi agnum mansuetissimum
destinavit. Voragine 1850, 772)
52
On these paintings see Schleier 1976, followed by Thuillier 1990, 303. Only Urban
I is saint. Urban II and V are beatified.
53
According to Negri 1922, 174, Narrano taluni penegiristi e biografi che Maffeo
Barberini, allassunzione sua al pontificato, assumesse il nome di Urbano per ricordare
quellUrbano II che primo aveva suscitato le turbe cristiane alla liberazione del Santo
Sepolcro. In fact, I suspect Negri was extrapolating from the zealous and otherwordly
antichi predecessori who nevertheless undertook glorious imprese (see 2 above). Urban
II described himself in a letter, as renitente(Moroni 184061, LXXXVI, 4 col. b). On
Urban VIIIs ballot recount, see Scott 1991, 183.
urbanitas urbana
21. Papirio Bartoli, Proposal for the High Altar of St. Peters,
engraving by Matthias Greuter.
1303
1304
22. Nave del Sole, woodcut. Cartari 1625, 45.
urbanitas urbana
23. Claude Mellan, Anulus piscatoris,

engraving. Aleandro 1626, 13.
24. Claude Mellan, Anulus piscatoris, engraving.

Paris. Bibliothque Nationale.
1305
25. Bernini, Fountain of the Triton. Rome, Piazza Barberini.
26 Bernini, Fountain of the Bees. Rome, Piazza Barberini.
1306
urbanitas urbana
27. Bernini, Memorial inscription for Urban VIII. Rome, S. Maria in Aracoeli.
28. Detail of Fig. 27 (photo: SIP Rete di Roma,

1993/94, front cover).
1307
1308
29. Bernini, The Baldacchino and Cathedra Petri.

Rome, St. Peters.
urbanitas urbana
30. Bernini, Urban VIII. Rome, Collection of Augusto Barberini.
1309
31. Bernini, Urban VIII, Rome, S. Lorenzo in Fonte.
32. Bernini, Urban VIII. Rome, Galleria Nazionale

dArte Antica.
1310
urbanitas urbana
1311
33. Detail of
Fig. 32.
34. Bernini, Agostino

Valier. Venice, Seminario
Patriarchale.
1312
35. Guidobaldo Abbatini, Urban VIII. Rome, Galleria nazionale darte antica,
Palazzo Corsini.
urbanitas urbana
36. Palazzo Barberini. Rome.

37. Palazzo Barberini, ground floor plan, drawing (after Hibbard 1971, pl. 94b).
1313
1314
38. Baldassare Peruzzi, Villa Farnesina, garden faade. Rome.

40. Bernini, St. Peters and the colonnades as the pope with embracing arms,
drawing. Rome, Biblioteca Vaticana.
urbanitas urbana
39. Emblematic dwelling of the Most Powerful Prince and King,

engraving. (From Fabrizi 1588, 308).
1315
1316
41. Bernini, S. Andrea al Quirinale. Rome.
urbanitas urbana
42. Bernini, S. Maria Assunta. Ariccia.
43. Bernini, project for the Louvre, drawing. Paris, Muse du Louvre.
1317
1318
44. Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach, Lust-Gartten-Gebu,

engraving (from Fischer von Erlach 1721, IV, pl. XVIII).
45. Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach, plan of the Pleasure Garden Building,
drawing. Vienna, Albertina.
urbanitas urbana
46. Bernini, Memorial statue of Urban VIII.

Rome, Palazzo dei Conservatori.
1319
1320
47. Michelangelo, Last Judgment, detail.

Rome, Vatican Palace, Sistine chapel.
48. Domenico Aimo, Memorial Statue of Leo X.

Rome, S. Maria in Aracoeli.
49. Lorenzo Sormano, Memorial Statue of Paul III. Rome, S.

Maria in Aracoeli.
urbanitas urbana
1321
50. Michelangelo, Moses. Rome, S. Pietro in Vincoli.
51. Pietro Paolo Olivieri, Memorial Statue of

Gregory XIII. Rome, S. Maria in Araceli.
1322
urbanitas urbana
52. Giulio Romano, Urban I, Sala di Costantino.

Rome, Palazzo Vaticano.
1323
1324
53. Cavaliere Muti, Apotheosis of Urban I. Rome,

Galleria nazionale darte antica.
54. Brother of Cavaliere Muti, Allegory of Peace. Rome,

Galleria nazionale darte antica.
55. Cherubino Alberti, Urban VII, engraving.
urbanitas urbana
1325
56. Bernini, Tomb of Urban VIII. Rome, St. Peters.
57 Bernini, Justice, Tomb of Urban VIII. Rome, St. Peters .
1326
58. Battista Dossi, Justice. Dresden,

Gemldegalerie.
59. Malediction, Tomb of Archilochus, engraving.

Alciati 1621, Emblema LI.
urbanitas urbana
1327
1328
60. Bernini, Tomb of Urban VIII, detail. Rome, St. Peters.
61. Bernini, Tomb of Urban VIII, detail. Rome, St. Peters.
urbanitas urbana
1329
his reign.54 The visitations required detailed reports on the current status
of all the churches and dioceses of Rome, as regarded both their physical
condition and the pastoral care they provided. Such surveys were a longstanding tradition, but nothing before compared with the scope, depth and
systematic coverage envisioned by Urban. It is important to emphasize,
moreover, that the purview of the visitations was by no means confined
to matters pertaining to religion. Much attention was also paid to the
often execrable physical and moral conditions in which many people lived,
conditions that instigated far-reaching reforms in the churchs mode of
ministering to the poor and unfortunate. This concrete measure of Urbans
religio-social urbanity thereafter became the fundamental utility for public
policy and social planning both in Rome itself, and as a model for others to
follow in the future.
URBANITY IN EXTREMIS
The ideology expressed in the secular context of the Campidoglio, had its
counterpart in the popes ecclesiastical domain at St. Peters, where Bernini
executed Urbans tomb 162747 (Fig. 56). 55 I want to make just three brief
comments that seem particularly relevant in the present context. The first is
that it can be shown in a variety of ways that the allegories of Charity and
Justice (the reversal of the arrangement in the Sala di Costantino is significant
Charity is now on the dexter side, Justice on the sinister) do not refer, as
is commonly assumed, to the personal, moral virtues of Maffeo Barberini;
rather, they follow a long tradition of righteous governance according to
which these are Divine Virtues that descend from Divine Providence upon
all the successors of Peter as vicars of Christ and magistrates of the churchs
material and spiritual domains. The attributes were those attributed to God
in the Second Book of Machabees, 1:24:
And the prayer of Nehemias was after this manner: O Lord
54
See the extraordinarily rich and perspicacious study by Fiorani 1980, esp. 11227.
Urbans visitations in turn inspired the even more ambitious efforts of Alexander VII
(Fiorani 1980, 127ff.; also Lavin 2004).
55
For what follows here see Lavin 1999, and 2005, 1317.
1330
God, Creator of all things, dreadful and strong, just and merciful,
who alone art the good king.56
The allegories do not flatter Urban VIII to my mind notions of
flattery and sycophantism are grossly overworked in the historiography of
the Baroque but represent his conception of the role he sought to fulfill
in the long tradition of Christs ministers on earth. Maffeo Barberinis
phenomenal rise in the church hierarchy was due to two fundamental and
complementary aspects of his exemplary service, as diplomat on behalf of
his predecessors, and in his administration of justice as Prefect of the papal
Segnatura (Ministry) di Giustizia.
The animated figure of Charity has two infants rather than the usual
three, one of whom sleeps blissfully at her bosom, while the other, repentant
sinner, bawls miserably reaching up for the salvation that her radiant smile
promises. The figure of Justice is not mourning but leans in calm repose
against the sarcophagus, feet crossed to emphasize her immobility as she
looks heavenward in calm contemplation (Fig. 57). She clearly reflects the
tradition expressed by Vincenzo Cartari that Divine Goodness does not
run quickly or noisily to castigate error, but belatedly and slowly, so that the
sinner is unaware before he feels the pain. Under the heading precisely of
Divine Justice Cesare Ripa describes the fasces with the ax, carried by the
lictors before the consuls and the Tribune of the People, as signifying that
in the execution of justice overzealous castigation is unwarranted, and that
justice should never be precipitous but have time to mature judgment while
unbinding the rods that cover the ax. The crossed-leg pose and the fasces
occur together in a painting of Justice attributed to Battista Dossi (Fig.
58).
The Divine Virtues of salvific mercy and reluctant retribution have a
long tradition in the history of Christian jurisprudence [until recently the
judicial authority in Italy was still called the Ministero di Grazia e Giustizia],
but never had they been portrayed so explicitly and so movingly. What are
indeed personal references in the monument, apart from the portrait of the
pope, are the bees. They swarm to and alight all over the sarcophagus as
did the bees that flocked to the tomb of the great Greek poet, Archilochus,
Et Neemiae erat oratio hunc habens modum Domine Deus omnium creator terribilis
et fortis iustus et misericors qui solus es rex bonus.
56
urbanitas urbana
1331
who invented the epode, one of Urbans favorite verse forms (Fig. 59) .57
Considered in this light the seemingly casual, bumbling placement of the
three big Barberini bees becomes charged with meaning. They all face upward
and seem to rise in an ascending march past the skeletal figure of death, as
if in response to the resurrecting command of the pope appropriated, as
Kauffmann first noticed, from the gesture of St. Peter himself in the Sala
di Costantino series enthroned on his seat of wisdom, itself ornamented
with bees. The upper two worker bees, as if resurrected, proceed in their rise
to the very border between death, commemoration, and life (Fig. 60). The
lowermost bee, at the rim of the sarcophagus basin beneath the cover, has no
stinger it is not broken off, it never had one (Fig. 61). In a kind of punning
witticism in extremis, the image conflates the quintessential principles of
classical moral political philosophy and Christian eschatology. Urbans
choice of his name as a cautionary reminder to temper his natural tendency
to austerity, was evidently inspired by Senecas invocation, in his treatise On
Clemency, of the stingless king bee as a metaphor for the beneficent ruler,
the king himself has no sting. Nature did not wish him to be cruel or to
seek a revenge that would be so costly, and so she removed his weapon,
and left his anger unarmed.58 (All three of the majestic bees in Cortonas
ceiling fresco are stingless! Fig. 13) And St. Paul alluded to the same apian
menace, disarmed by faith, in his celebrated invocation of the Resurrection,
O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?!, which in this
case refers not only to Urban VIII and all humankind, but to the Church
itself through the eternal succession of popes.59 The gentle, loving bee seeks
its master attracted no doubt by the sweet odor of sanctity while its
siblings rise, as if reborn whole, to the resurrection above.
Such a profound and touching public display of urbanity has no equal,
I think, and I think there is, and can be, only one conclusion. Urban VIII,
with Bernini at his side, gave to the papacy, to the church, to Rome, and
to the world at large, a new face more personal, more intimate, more
accessible, more sophisticated, more gracious, more expansive, more humane
more urbane, in sum urbi et orbi. And in the end the new face has
only one name, modern.
Alciati 1621, Emblema LI.

De Clementia I. xix. 3.
59
1 Cor. 15:55.
57
58
1332
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Hibbard, Howard, Carlo Maderno and Roman architecture, 15801630,
University Park, PA, 1971
_____ and Irma Jaffe, Berninis Barcaccia, The Burlington Magazine, CVI,
1964, 15970
Hirschfeld, Peter, Mzene: die Rolle des Auftraggebers in der Kunst, 1968.
The Hours of the Divine Office in English and Latin, 3 vols., Collegeville,
Minn., 1963
Jaff, David, Mellan and Peiresc, Print Quarterly, VII, 1990, 16875
1334
Kessler, Hans-Ulrich, Pietro Bernini (15621629), Munich, 2005

Lasance, Francis Xavier, and Francis Augustine Walsh, eds., The New Roman
Missal in Latin and English, New York, etc., 1945
Lasena, Pietro, Cleombrotus, sive de iis, qui in aquis pereunt, philologica
dissertatio, Rome, 1637
Lavin, Irving, Fischer von Erlach, Tiepolo, and the Unity of the Visual
Arts, in H. A. Millon and S. S. Munshower, eds., An Architectural
Progress in the Renaissance and Baroque. Sojourns In and Out of Italy.
Essays in Architectural History Presented to Hellmut Hager on his Sixty-Sixth
Birthday (Papers in Art History from the Pennsylvania State University,
VIII), University Park, PA, 1992, Part 2, 498525
_____ PastPresent. Essays on Historicism in Art from Donatello to Picasso,
Berkeley, 1993
_____ Berninis Bumbling Barberini Bees, in Joseph Imorde, et al., eds.,
Barocke Inszenierung, Zurich, 1999, 5071
_____ The Angel and the City. Baccio Bandinellis Project for the Castel
SantAngelo in Rome, in Peta Motture, ed., LargeBronzes in the
Renaissance (National Gallery of Art. Studies in the History of Art 64),
Washington, 2003, 30829
_____ Bernini at Saint Peters: singularis in singulis, in omnibus unicus,
in W. Tronzo, ed., St. Peters in the Vatican, Cambridge and New York,
2005
Marzocchi, Sergio, Urbano VIII Barberini, and Mecenatismo barberiniano
a Roma, in Massimo Tosi, ed., Barberino. Memoria millenaria fra
Valdelsa e Chianti, Certaldo, 1998, No. 16
Moroni, Gaetano, Dizionario di erudizione storico-artistico da S. Pietro sino ai
nostri giorni, 103 vols., 184061
Mller Hofstede, Ulrike, Knstlerischer Witz und verborgene Ironie, in
Christine Gttler and Ulrike Mller Hofstede, eds., Diletto e Maraviglia.
Ausdruck und Wirkung in der Kunst von der Renaissance bis zum Barock.
Rudolf Preimesberger zum 60. Geburtstag, Emsdetten, 1998, 10227
Negri, Paolo, Urbano VIII e lItalia, Nuova rivista storica, VI, 1922,
16890
Newman, John Kevin, and Frances Stickney Newman, Lelio Giuidiccioni.
Latin Poems. Rome 1633 and 1639, Hildesheim, 1992
Noe, Sydney P., The Thurian Di-Staters, New York, 1935
Pastor, Ludwig von, The History of the Popes from the Close of the Middle Ages,
40 vols., London, 192353
urbanitas urbana
1335
Pecchiai, Pio, Un assassinio politico a Roma nel Cinquecento, Archivi,

quaderno no. 2, Rome, 1956
_____ I Barberini, Rome, 1959
Rice, Louise, Urban VIII, the Archangel Michael, and a Forgotten Project
for the Apse Altar of St. Peters, Burlington magazine, CXXXIV, 1992,
42834.
_____ The Altars and Altarpieces of New St. Peters. Outfitting the Basilica,
16211666, Cambridge, etc., 1997
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187206
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Magazine, CXVIII, 1976, 83645
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di Semifonte, Florence, 1990, 30f.
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Zum Verhltnis von Bildnis und Macht, Munich, 2002
XXXII
The Baldacchino
Borromini vs Bernini: Did Borromini
Forget Himself?*
HEN I started my life as an art historian half a century ago, there

raged two major international debates about rival claimants in wars
of attribution, Masaccio vs Masolino, and Jan vs Hubert van Eyck. Those
classic, intra-disciplinary conflicts, now largely forgotten, have been replaced
in our time by the rivalry between Borromini and Bernini, which embodies
not only distinctions between artistic personalities, but also territorial and
cultural wars, between North Italy and Rome, between architecture and
sculpture.
My purpose today is two fold. First, I intend to end this war once and
for all, at least to my satisfaction, and at least in its first engagement, that
is, the baldachin of St. Peters (Fig. 1). And second, I want to offer some
observations about the origin and significance of one of the Baldacchinos
most important innovations.
Some contrasting opinions:
Heinrich Thelen 1967b, 63, imagined artistic discussions between
Borromini and Bernini that resulted in crucial elements of the
Baldacchinos design.1 (So far as I am aware, Thelen was the first ever
First presented at a symposium: Sankt Peter in Rome 15062006, Bonn, Germany,
22 25 February 2006.
1
Die genial hingeworfene Federskizze von Bernini (Abb. 35, our Fig. 15), die nach
einer solchen Einbeziehung in den Architekturzusammenhang sucht (i.e. the conjunction
of the baldachin canopy with the architectural cornice) und dabei zugleich wenn auch
nur vorbergehend sogar die motivische Verbindung des Baldachinhimmels mit den
*
borromini vs bernini
1337
to attribute a significant role to Borromini in the Baldacchinos design,

universally ascribed to Bernini theretofore.)
Jennifer Montagu 1971, 490f., doubts the case for what is the major
theme of [Thelens] book, the vital, one might say the dominant role of
Borromini in the creation of Berninis tabernacle. (Also notes that the
claims of Borrominis nephew Bernardo Castelli-Borromini are biased
and cannot be trusted.)
George Bauer 1996, 146 n. 4, supports my (1968) vigorous defense of
the originality of Berninis work.
Tod A. Marder 1998, 38:
it is doubtful that Borromini could lay claim to the formal rather than
the technical inventions of the superstructure that give the Baldacchino
its character. He certainly claimed none for himself in his notations for
Martinellis guidebook.
Sabine Burbaum 1999, 69, 71:
The finally decisive idea . . . must have arisen after the technical
discussions with Borromini about the necessary modifications of the
design.
Borromini appears to have been primarily responsible for the
architectural design of the baldachin, whereas Bernini concentrated on
the sculptural decoration. The final form of the crown must have arisen
in the dialogue between architect and sculptor, in the repeated discussion
about the project and its effect and the resulting corrections. 2
Engelfiguren lst, scheint in der Tat whrend einer knstlerischen Diskussion mit Borromini
entstanden zu sein.
2
Die schliesslich entscheidende Idee, die zwangslufig auf die neue
Hhendimensonierung und die Umdeutung in Geblkstcke folgen musste, ist schliesslich
in der Federskizze Berninis aus dem Barberini-Archiv (Abb. 15, our Fig. 15) fassbar. Das
von Thelen als fr Bernini typisches Geschprchsnotat identifizierte Blatt muss nach
den technischen Diskussionen mit Borromini um the notwendigen Modifizierungen des
Entwurfs entstanded sein.
erscheint Borromini massgeblich fr die architektonische Durchbildung des
Monuments veranwrtlich, wohingegen Bernini sich auf die plastische Dekoration
konzentriert zu haben scheint. Die endgltige Form der Berkrnung drfte im Dialog
zwischen Architekt und Bildhauer, in der wiederholten Diskussion um das Projekt und
seine Wirkung und den daraus resultierenden Korrekturen entstanden sein.
1338
The work on St. Peters, especially during the reign of Urban VIII, is
one of the best documented projects in the entire history of art. The minute
financial records kept by the papal paymasters and accountants are preserved
virtually in tact, and have been meticulously researched and published
posthumously by the brilliant Polish scholar Oskar Pollak (18931915),
a childhood friend and correspondent of Franz Kafka, who perished as a
combatant in the Austrian army in World War I.3 How is it possible to have
such widely divergent opinions in the face of such ample and unambiguous
documentation? I shall try to respond by reviewing, super-summarily, what
might be called the hard evidence that is, contemporary evidence
in its three forms: payments for work done, drawings that testify to the
contributions of both artists, and references to the subject in literary sources.
In spite of the acrimonious debates it is interesting that the evidence has
never been collected and focused upon in quite this way.
The importance of the issue is obvious to all students of the period since
the baldachin, while absolutely saturated with references to tradition, also
breaks with tradition in fundamental ways and inaugurates a new epoch in
the history of art. The break took place early in 1624 when the newly elected
Urban VIII appointed a young interloper, Bernini, aged 26 and with very
little experience in architecture, to carry out the first, most urgent, and most
important project of his reign, the completion of a permanent marker for
the high altar. It is essential to recognize that this drastic move signifies not
only the popes determination finally to get the job done, after many earlier
efforts had failed, but a fundamentally new conception of how it was to be
done. The new vision was implicit in that veritable clarion call of the early
Baroque issued by Urban at the time, when he was said to have proclaimed
in reference to Bernini that his reign would bring forth a new Michelangelo.4
Clearly Urban thought of himself as inaugurating a new era, with a new
concept and a new design at the very heart of the church, meaning not only
the basilica of St. Peter but the institution itself. The popes reference to
Pollak 1931, II. See Brod 1960, esp. 549.

E come quegli che fin dal tempo che dalla santit di Paolo V eragli questo nobile
ingegno stato dato in custodia, aveva incominciato a prevederne cose grandi; egli aveva
concepita in se stesso una virtuosa ambizione, che Roma nel suo pontificato e per sua
industria giungesse a produrre un altro Michelangelo, tanto pi, perch gi eragli sovvenuto
lalto concetto dellaltar maggiore di S. Pietro, nel luogo che diciamo la Confessione
(Baldinucci 1948, 80f.)
3
4
1339
Michelangelo is normally taken as one of the empty hyperbolic tropes that

signaled the new era of Baroque rhetoric.5
But the allusion may be understood in a more specific and significant
way if one considers, first, the repercussions of the fateful decision taken early
in the reign of Paul V to add a nave to the central plan building initiated
a century before under Bramante and completed by Michelangelo (Figs.
2, 3). An uneasy marriage of convenience was perpetrated between two
traditional church types: the central plan, commemorative and devotional
mortuary sanctuary, and the longitudinal basilica that served the ritual
and celebratory function of the church. At St. Peters the marriage was
notoriously awkward and inconvenient, and it produced what can best be
described as a chimera, to use a term that will reappear in this discussion.6
The second point to recall is that as a young cardinal Maffeo Barberini
(elevated 1606; member of the Congregation that governed the basilica
at least from 1608) had been vehemently opposed to the construction of
the nave, and it is no accident that Berninis biographer Filippo Baldinucci
quotes Urbans proclamation precisely as the introduction to his discussion
of the Baldacchino. In this context, the appointment of Bernini as a new
Michelangelo was a verbal confirmation that Urban was intent from the
outset to recreate, in the spirit of his great High Renaissance predecessors,
an image of the unified, universal church centered on the tomb of the
apostles, while affirming the Counterreformatory image of the church as
the ultimate goal of the Christians spiritual pilgrimage.7 Everything he
accomplished at St. Peters during his long reign can be understood, must be
understood, I believe, in the light of this conflationary goal. And so it was
From the time that His Holiness Paul V had entrusted him with this noble genius,
Urban VIII had foreseen great things of Bernini. The Pope had conceived the lofty ambition
that in his pontificate Rome would produce another Michelangelo. His ambition grew even
stronger, as he already had in mind the magnificent idea for the high altar of St. Peters
in the area which we call the confession. (Baldinucci 1966, 15) DOnofrio 1967, 17287,
Soussloff 1989.
6
For a discussion of Urbans enterprise in light of the practical and liturgical problems
attendant upon the central plan and the final hybrid design of St. Peters, some of them
never resolved, see Lavin 1968, 2005, greatly expanded in Lavin, forthcoming.
7
On Maffeo Barberinis initial opposition to the nave see Pastor 192353, XXVI,
387f., Hibbard 1971, 69f. On the reaffirmation of the centrality of the high altar of St.
Peters and its repercussions in the furnishings of the basilica, especially the crossing, see
the references in n. 6 above. The point was also emphasized by Pastor 192353, XXVI,
459, 466.
5
1340
from the outset with the project for the Baldacchino, which also created,
in its way, a chimeric marriage between two distinct and traditionally
mutually exclusive forms of symbolic markers of sacral distinction, one
commemorative, monumental, and stationary the architectural ciborium
(Fig. 4); the other ritual, ephemeral, and mobile the processional canopy
carried on staves (Fig. 5).8 The link between them was provided by a third,
intermediate type in which an architectural, often columnar, substructure
was surmounted by a lightweight, open, often ribbed, superstructure; this
was the case with the original Constantinian pergula installed at St. Peters,
which Berninis Baldacchino was surely meant to recall (Fig. 6). Given its
hybrid nature, there is no proper term for Berninis work, an art historical
hapax legoumenon; I have capitalized the Italian word to acknowledge its
traditional name, but distinguish it from the traditional baldachin, indeed,
from any of its prototypes.
In Berninis imagination considerations of scale, visibility, stability,
and homage to both commemorative and ceremonial traditions ultimately
required that these prototypes be conflated, a process that inevitably
affected many elements of the design. I shall focus here on only one element
of the final design, albeit the most important and controversial, that is,
the relationship between the lambrequin with hanging lappets proper to
a ceremonial baldachin, and the columns proper to the commemorative
ciborium or pergola (Fig. 7). The evidence is ample to show that if the
genetic hybrid was to be achieved (and, as with the conflation of central with
longitudinal plan in St. Peters itself, some thought the very idea anathema),
this relationship was the crux of the matter. I do not use the word crux
idly, since the conjunction was belabored throughout the long agony of the
Baldacchinos gestation. It is important to bear in mind that what became
the final solution was not reached only at the end, as is often assumed,
but was repeatedly considered from the very beginning. In fact, several
of the altar tabernacles in the nave of Old St. Peters included traditional
entablatures decorated along the lower edges with lappets or scalloped
ornaments. Particularly suggestive in our context was the tabernacle
of the Sacrament installed in the early sixteenth century by Antonio da
The high altar of St. Peters is covered with a temporary baldachin supported by
standing angels on one version of the print showing the beatification of Elizabeth of
Portugal, while Berninis first project for the baldacchino appears in a second version.
Bernini designed the elaborate installations for the ceremony, which took place on May 22,
1625. See Lavin 1968, 10f.
8
1341
Sangallo the Younger for Pope Pius III (Fig. 8). 9 The entire monument
was displayed beneath a tasseled canopy hung from the entablature of the
nave colonnade, and the entablature of the tabernacle itself, fringed along
the bottom, was supported by two of the famous spiral columns decorated
with vine scrolls symbolic of the Eucharist, said to have been retrieved
from the Temple of Jerusalem by Constantine the Great and installed
over the tomb of the apostles in the choir of the original basilica.10 Inside
Sangallos tabernacle the altar was again covered by a lambrequin no
doubt reminiscent of the canopies carried over the pope as he displayed the
Sacrament in the traditional Corpus Domini procession.11 Under Bernini,
the architrave and frieze were replaced by rows of tasseled lappets, and
the resulting lambrequin-cum-cornice became a leitmotif and bone of
contention in the subsequent development of the Baldacchino: first it was
in (Figs. 9, 10), then it was out (Fig. 11), then it was in again (Fig. 12),
then it was out again (Figs. 13, 14), and finally it was in again at last (Fig.
15). Essential to any possible solution was a dual problem of formal syntax:
one of support, since a lambrequin, which counters no weight, is formally
and mechanically incompatible with the lateral thrusts of a superstructure;
and one of conjunction, since columns can formally and mechanically be
braced only by an entablature. Hence the crucial role of the angels, who, as
Gods minions, always do the heavy lifting.
PAYMENTS
The documents make it clear that Borromini was busily employed at St.
Peters throughout the reign of Urban VIII under Berninis direction, on
a great variety of projects: he is mentioned no less than thirty-seven times
in Pollaks index, working as stone mason, marble and wood carver, wax
modeler, and as a draughtsman. But never as architect. Only two sets of
payments to him concern the baldachin, very distinctly separate both in time
and in character. Between January 30, 1627, and April 4, 1628, Borromini
We owe this important observation to Zampa 19957, 16774, esp. p. 173, and I am
grateful to Jack Freiberg for calling Zampas work to my attention. Other examples may be
seen in the reproductions in Rice 1997, figs. 16, 17, 18, 22, 26.
10
The hanging canopy is visible in Rice 1997, fig. 16. On the spiral columns, see Lavin
1968, 1416.
11
On the eucharistic significance of Berninis Baldacchino and that of the Corpus
Domini procession at St. Peters, see Lavin 1968, and 2005, 4555; Lavin, forthcoming.
9
1342
was paid for work as a mason (scarpellino) and carver on the foundations of
the columns, on the altar stairs, and on the models of the pedestals of the
bronze columns.12
There follows a gap of three years, until he was paid between April
12, 1631, and January 22, 1633, for work on the crown of the baldachin,
designing and carrying out the beaten copper ornaments that cover the
superstructure; that is, large scale drawings and carvings in wax and
drawings on copper for the carpenters and copper workers (beaters): large
drawings for all the arches (centine), plants (piante), cornices (cornici),
foliage (fogliami), and other carvings (intagli) that go inside the ribs
(costole) and moldings (cimase), and for tracing them on the copper, so that
the carpenters and those who beat the copper cannot err.13
DRAWINGS
Borrominis drawings of the Baldacchino are also neatly divided into two
completely contrasting groups. The earlier group consists of three amazing
perspective views of the baldachin, intended no doubt to serve in judging the
scale and proportions of the monument, and its relation to the surrounding
architecture (Figs. 1618). They were made during the design phase of the
crown, including full-scale models, and while they show details that appear
in the final work there is nothing to suggest that Borromini was trying
out new ideas of his own in these contextual renderings. On the other
hand, experimentation is precisely what takes place in a series of sketches
by Bernini in which he studies a variety designs for the crown intended
to diminish its weight, raise its center of gravity, and ensure the stability
of the structure (Figs. 13, 14).14 A crucial step further is then taken in the
fulminating sketch by Bernini that returns to the cornice-lappets solution
with the undulating curvature of the ribs and the angels standing on the
columns (Fig. 15) The second Borromini group consists of three very large
wash drawings no less exceptional in Borrominis oeuvre than the spatial
perspectives of the baldachin for details of the ornaments (Figs. 1921).
These elaborate and delicately finished sheets, surely the same or similar
Pollak 1931, II, 342 top, Nos. 11225.
Pollak 1931, II, 373f., Nos. 127487.
14
Static considerations were raised with respect to the version with the raised canopy
and surmounting figure of the Risen Christ.( Lavin 1968, 12, 23).
12
13
1343
to those referred to in the documents, were clearly made as demonstration

models, perhaps even to be copied as templates for transfer to the sheets of
copper that the workmen were then to hammer into conformity with the
molds.
Above all, the evidence of the drawings is consistent with the evidence
of the documents, that Borromini was completely extraneous to the design
process of the Baldacchino. The evidence of the documents and of the
drawings is also consistent with the testimony of Borrominis nephew,
Bernardo Castelli-Borromini, that Borrominis talent for making highly
accomplished drawings was what first motivated Maderno to employ his
young relative and protg: he attended to drawing with great diligence
and perfection, and realizing this his relative Carlo Maderno gave him work
and had him make finished drawings for him.15 Unlike many, indeed the
majority of Borrominis drawings, none of those for the Baldacchino show
the slightest graphic suggestion of trial, error or experimentation.
SOURCES
The testimony of Bernini himself:
We have seen that Urban recruited Bernini not simply because he admired
his work, but because he had a concrete idea of what the high altar of St.
Peters should signify, visually and conceptually, in the spirit and under
the aegis of Michelangelo. Bernini himself recognized and acknowledged
Urbans role in the earliest expression we have of Berninis view of the
genesis of the baldachin design. The idea is attributed to Bernini himself by
Lelio Guidiccioni in a literary dialogue between Guidiccioni and Bernini,
datable to Sept., 1633, Whose thought do you think the altar was, Bernini
asks. Yours, Guidiccioni replies; think again, returns Bernini, and say
it was His Holinesss. Then you are also the object of his praise, which
is the origin of yours.16 The popes own biographer made the point in no
15
atendeva a disegniare con grandissima diligenza e polizia et accorgendosi di ci Carlo
maderni suo parente per uia di donna, li daua da fare e da tirare disegni in polito per lui
(Burbaum 1999, 278).
16
G.L.B. Di chi pensate, che sia il pensiero dellAltar Vaticano, tale qual sia divenuta
lopera? L. G. Vostro h sempre pensato. G.L. A pensarla meglio, dite di S. S.t L. G.
Dunque voi sete pure obietto di lode sua; la quale origine della vostra . . . (DOnofrio
1966, 133f.).
1344
uncertain terms, The artist was Bernini, who acquired great applause and
fame, but the thought and idea was of Urban himself.17 While it is tempting
again to dismiss this point as typical Baroque flattery, or to seize upon it as
a means of deflating Berninis reputation for arrogance, I think it should be
taken seriously, not as an indication of Urbans literal role as a designer, but
in the basic view of the monument as the focal point of a newly coherent and
unified architectural and ideological concept of St. Peters. This was indeed
the principle Bernini followed through the entire process of designing the
crossing of St. Peters and I have no doubt that it was indeed a sympathetic
response to the popes own ideology and ambitions.
Berninis biographers, Baldinucci and the artists son Domenico,
make it clear that Berninis own concern was not with the design of the
Baldacchino, but with the problem of determining its scale and proportions
in the vastness of St. Peters. We know from Borrominis perspective
drawings and especially from the documents, which record a whole series
of models ranging up to full scale that were actually erected in situ, that an
unprecedented effort was expended to study the problem.18 Yet, in the end,
despite all this advance planning, Bernini avowed that the baldachin had
succeeded well, by chance.19 The observation was an ironic inversion of
17
Andrea Nicoletti: Lartefice fu il Cavalier Gio. Lorenzo Bernino che in tal lavoro
acquistossi grande applauso e maggior fama, ma il pensiero e lidea fu di Urbano stesso
(cited after DOnofrio 1979, 244).
18
The history of the execution of the Baldacchino, with special emphasis on the use of
models, is the subject of an important essay by Bauer 1996.
19
Baldinucci 1948, 83:
Soleva dire il cavaliere che questopera era riuscita bene a caso, volendo inferire che
larte stessa non poteva mai sotto una s gran cupola ed in ispazio s vasto, e fra moli
di eccedente grandezza dare una misura e proporzione che bene adequasse, ove
lingegno e la mente dellartefice, tale quale essa misura doveva essere, senzaltra
regola concepire non sapesse.
Baldinucci 1966, 17 (modified IL):

Bernini used to say it was by chance that this work came out so well, implying that
under such a great dome and in such a vast space and among such massive piers,
artistic skill alone could never determine a suitable dimension and proportion,
where the artists genius and mind could not conceive how the scale should be,
without any other rule.
Bernini 1713, 38f.:
Onde locchio solamente pu esserne degno Giudice , che con riguardare unitamente
1345
Michelangelos famous dictum that the true artist must have the giudizio
dellocchio:20 since there was no precedent for the scale of the project at
St. Peters, the just measurement and proportion of the Baldacchino could
not be found by artistic skill alone; so that if the artists ingenuity and
intelligence did not find the solution, it must have been found by chance.
I suspect that the repetition and insistence upon this overarching act of
creative judgment may refer specifically to the selection process that guided
the laborious study mechanism, including the models and drawings such as
those by Borromini, through which Berninis evolving design concepts were
envisioned. Borrominis drawings of the Baldacchino, which portray the
project in its spatial and architectural setting, are absolutely unique in his
oeuvre: for him, a building was an isolated, self-contained ideal.
Borrominis drawings of the Baldacchino in situ are, on the contrary,
brilliant reflections of Berninis revolutionary concern for what he called
the i contrapposti. Bernini employed this old term in a radically new,
contextual way in reference not to oppositional but to complementary
and mutually dependent contrasts.21 Things do not appear only as they
are, but as they seem in relation to things nearby, which change their
appearance. A building will appear larger if it is juxtaposed with others
that are small, etc. While Borrominis elaborate perspective renderings have
no parallel in the corpus of Bernini drawings, many of Berninis informal
sketches show him studying visibility, viewpoints, and relationships, not in
terms of mathematical proportions but as he envisioned them to be seen by
the viewer.22 Moreover, unlike his predecessors at St. Peters, Bernini did not
il Sto, la Mole, la Vastit del Vano, che empie senza ingombrarlo, la Vaghezza de
Rilievi, la Ricchezza della Materia, e tutto ci che essa / 39 , e la proporzione che
fuor di essa nel Tutto saccorda, rimane appagato, e sodisfatto, m in tal modo, che
tramandandone la specie nellimaginativa, f di mestiere, che lintelletto affermi
per verit, ci che diceva per sua modestia il Cavaliere, QuestOpera essere riuscita
bene a caso, volendo con raro temperamento dimostrare di haverla pi tosto per
buona, che fatta.
(The eye alone can be a worthy judge, and, being satisfied, the intellect confirms
as true what the Cavaliere said in modesty, that his work succeded by chance,
meaning that he achieved it intuitively, rather than deliberately.)
On the giudizio dellocchio, see especially Summers 1981, 36879.
On Berninis concept of i contrapposti, see Lavin 1980, 911.
22
Brauer and Wittkower 1931, pls. 56a, 57, 62b, 63ab, 69c, 74ab, 94a, 96.
20
21
1346
conceive of the Baldacchino ideologically as an isolated monument, but the

focal point of a veritable solar system of memorabilia that came to include
not only the four reliquary piers of the crossing but also two papal tombs, of
Paul III and Urban VIII himself, flanking the Chair of St. Peter in the apse;
all centered on the gilded and radiant altar cover and marker for the tomb of
the apostles more durable than bronze, as if to preempt Horaces famous
epitome of classical literary achievement.23 More than any other aspect of
the design, successful as if by chance, Bernini was proud of this contextual
significance of the baldachin.
Virgilio Spada
One of the primary documents in the Borromini-Bernini-Baldacchino story
was composed in 1657 by Borrominis great friend and patron Virgilio Spada,
in a futile effort to have him reinstated as the architect of the Oratorio of
San Filippo Neri. The relevant passage is as follows:
(Cardinal) Barberini told me a few days ago that the Palazzo
Barberini . . . was in large part the design of Borromini, and
Borromini himself told me the same thing, which at first I did not
believe, but in the end I did believe. And even though they greatly
disgusted each other, and their love turned to great (mortal) hatred,
though for reasons other than architecture, Bernini himself said to
me many years ago before the altar of St. Peters, that Borromini
alone understood this profession, but that he was never satisfied,
and that he wanted to enclose one thing inside another, and that
inside another, with never an end.24
For thoughts on the Baldacchino in its context at St. Peters, see Lavin 2005, and
more recently, with much additional material, Lavin, forthcoming.
24
The texts of Virgilio Spada and Bernardo Castelli-Borromini are conveniently
printed in Burbaum 1999, 22785, whence the passages quoted here are excepted. Burbaum
1999, 283:
LEmminentissimo Barberino mi disse pochi giorni sono che la fabrica
Barberina alle 4 Fontane f in gran parte (gestrichen: opera sua) disegno del
Borromino, e me lhaveva detto anche listesso Borromini m (cancelled: non
lhavevo creduto) gli lhavevo finito di credere.
. . . E con tutto che si disgustassero grandemente insieme, cio il Bernino e
Borromino, e che lamore si convertisse in grandissimo odio (cancelled: mortale),
per altre caggioni per che darchitettura, nondimeno il medesimo Cavaliere
23
1347
Apart from giving credit to Borromini where it was due, and

incidentally offering a profound insight into Borrominis mode of thought
and architectural style, Berninis statement as reported by Spada does
not assert, imply, or justify the assumption that Borromini had anything
to do with the design of the Baldacchino. In point of fact, Berninis
statement is a typically ingenious, candid, subtle, and pertinent critique
of the intricate convolutions of Borrominis own designs, in pertinent
contrast to what Bernini and Spada were looking at when Bernini made
the comment: the baldachin in its setting comprises a remarkable series of
series of concentric, concave not convoluted curves from the canopy
through the entablature of the finial that supports the cross, to the concave
frontispieces of the reliquary niches (Figs. 22, 7, 23, 24). Although largely
unappreciated, this concerto grosso of concentric rings is crucial, not only
visually but conceptually, to the significance of Berninis whole enterprise
in the crossing of St. Peters: in a sense, it echos Urban VIIIs fundamental
purpose, to reclaim Michelangelo and reaffirm the centrality of the tomb
and high altar.
Bernardo Castelli-Borromini
In 1685 Borrominis nephew, Bernardo Castelli-Borromini, composed (a
biography of his uncle in response to a questionnaire from Filippo Baldinucci
who was then preparing his famous compendium of artists lives. CastelliBorromini vituperates mercilessly against Bernini, reciting in venomous
detail his arrogance, foibles, and unscrupulous exploitation of others,
especially his beloved uncle. Truly a painful and bitter thing to read, and
much of the tone and information, innuendo as well as fact, must have come
from Borromini himself. Castelli-Borromini is careful to mention various
works of carving Borromini did at St. Peters under Urban VIII: the cherubs
of marble flanking the dentrance gates, the cherub at the apex of the above
the gates, the cherub at the apex of the arch of the Attila relief by Algardi,
the design and invention of the wrought iron gates to the Sacrament chapel,
and he includes the story of Palazzo Barberini reported earlier by Virgilio
Spada.25 Castelli-Borromini is at great pains to describe how Bernini,
Bernino per verit disse a me molti anni sono avanti laltare di S. Pietro che il
solo Borromino intendeva questa professione, ma che non si contentava mai, e che
voleva dentro una cosa cavare unaltra, e nellaltra laltra senza finire mai.
25
On these works at St. Peters see Fagiolo, 1967.
1348
innocent of the architectural profession, left all the architectural work at

St. Peters to Borromini, while taking all the credit (and stipends) to himself
until Borromini, disgusted by this treatment, abandoned Bernini with
the famous remark: it does not displease me that he took the money, but it
displeases me that he enjoys the honor of my labors.26
It is indeed a passionate and pathetic lament. But this very fact makes
it all the more significant that no mention is made of any specific work
of architecture at St. Peters under Urban VIII, and in particular that not
the faintest claim is made for any role by Borromini in the design of the
Baldacchino. And if ever there was a time and place to reclaim Borrominis
contribution, surely it was this opportunity to see it published in a biography
Burbaum 1999, 278f.
e per dire qualchi cossa delli lauori di marmo che lauor il Boromino nel principio
e nel mezzo del pontificato di urbano fra li altri lauori sono di sua mano quelli
Carubini di marmo spiritosi e uiuaci che sono dalle parti delle porticelle con
pannini e fistoncini et anche il carubino sopra in mezzo al archo sopra dette
porticelle per di dentro intorno a sant pietro et anche di sua mano quel carubino
che nel mezzo del archo sopra il basso rilieuo del attila flagellum dei fu suo
Disegno e suo inuentione la Cancellata di ferro dauanti alla capello del Santissimo
in detta chiesa di Sant pietro et il palazzo delli barberini fu tutto fatto con suo
disegnio et ordine(.) mor poi il maderni e papa urbano in luogho del maderni
deput il Signor. Gio. lorenzo Bernino famoso Scultore e questa deputatione
del bernino per architetto di sant pietro fu perch il papa quando era Cardinale
era statto pi uolte a uedere a lauorare di scoltura il Bernino nella sua Casa a Santa
maria maggiore et per quella conosienza lo deput per Architetto di sant pietro(;)
il quale, trouandosi di hauer hauto quella carica e conosiendosi di ci inabbile
per essere egli scultore e sapendo che il boromino haueua fatto per il maderni la
fabrica Sant pietro et anche per il mede(si)mo haueua manegiato e seguitato
il Palazzo delli Barberini lo preg che in tale occasione non l()abandonasse
promettendogli che hauerebbe riconosiuto con una degnia ricompenza le molte
sue fattiche(;) cos il Boromino si lasi uincere delle sue preg(h)iere e seguit.
e promise (il Boromino) che hauerebbe continuato a tirare auanti le fabiche gi
incominciate per detto ponteficato come che gi egli era informato del tutto et
il Bernini atendeua alla sua scoltura(;) et per l()architettura lassiaua fare tutte
le fattiche al boromino(.) et il bernino faceua la figura di architetto di s. pietro e
del Papa, et infatti il bernino in quel tempo in tal profesione era inocentissimo(.)
tirati che furono del Boromino, a bon termine le fabriche di quel pontificato(,) il
Bernino tir li stipendij e salarij tanto della fabrica di sant Pietro Come del Palazzo
Barberino et anche li denari delle misure e mai diede cosa alcuna per le fatiche
di tanti anni al boromini ma solamente bone parole e grande promisione(.) e
uedendosi il boromino deluso e deriso lasi et abandon il Bernino con questo
detto(:) non mi dispiacie che abbia auto li denarij, ma mi dispiacie che gode l()
onor delle mie fatiche.
26
1349
by an eminent writer! How is it possible that Castelli-Borromini failed

to mention Borrominis contribution to the signature monument of the
new era? Did Borromini forget to tell his nephew about it? Did CastelliBorromini forget to pass it on to Baldinucci?
Borromini Fioravante Martinelli
In 16603 Fioravante Martinelli, a learned friend and admirer of
Borrominis, was composing a new guide to the monuments of Rome, the
manuscript of which is preserved in the Biblioteca Casanatense in Rome.
The text is carefully written in pen with ample margins, as if Martinelli
intended from the beginning that it should be gone over and commented
upon by Borromini, which did in fact happen. Borromini served his friend
in his usual meticulous and thorough way, writing in the margins with this
usual pencil, no less than ninety-two corrections, additions, and suggestions,
which Martinelli then copied more or less accurately and completely in ink,
leaving Borrominis comments scarcely but definitely discernible. Fourteen
of Borrominis comments concern himself and/or Bernini: he was by no
means shy in specifying his own contributions to the architecture of Rome
in cases where he found Martinellis attributions wanting or imprecise, and
in diminishing Berninis role, sometimes quite subtly (see Appendix).27
But two instances in particular shed light on his relation to Bernini in our
context. One is that the protestations of both Virgilio Spada and Bernardo
Castelli-Borromini to the contrary notwithstanding, Borromini in his
comment on the Palazzo Barberini makes no claim to authorship, remarking
only that it was the work di molti, e spetialmente del Bernini.28 This is
noteworthy to say the least, considering the assertions of both Virgilio
Spada and Bernardo Castelli-Borromini. The second instance stands out
among all of Borrominis emendations in that it is by far the longest, the
most developed, and the most substantial. Indeed, Borrominis wording is
not abbreviated in the unusual way of an incidental remark, but elaborately
developed in full, grammatical sentences, as if he expected Martinelli simply
Borrominis corrections concerning Bernini and himself, as transcribed by

DOnofrio 1969, are gathered in the Appendix, following DOnofrios page numbers: pp.
11, 13, 14, 15bis, 57, 67, 69, 80, 105, 158, 189, 220, 232, 282.
28
Hibbard 1971, 228, DOnofrio 1969, 231f.
27
1350
to replace his own words with those of Borromini, verbatim, which in fact
Martinelli did, except for one notable omission (Fig. 25). Along the left and
bottom margins, in pencil faintly visible beneath Martinellis inked copy,
Borromini wrote:
It was the thought of Paul V to cover with a baldachin the high
altar of St. Peters with a richness proportional to the opening made
at the Confession and sepulcher of the same. Whence Carlo Maderno
presented him with a design of twisted columns; but the baldachin
did not touch the columns or their cornice. Thereafter, Paul died
and the work remained on the design until the pontificate of Urbano
VIII, who told the said Carlo to be content that Bernini would
make the said work. The Cavalier Celio, perhaps not completely
informed, printed that it was the invention of most holy wisdom
(that is, of the pope) carried out by the said Bernini. Vincenzo Berti
in a manuscript in the possession of Mons. Landucci, sacristan of
our father Alexander VII and for his eminent virtues most worthy of
a higher post, has written that it was a design of Ciampelli, cousin of
the said Bernini, which I am not sure is true; but rather that he did
not agree with Bernini about the decorations and other things; and
he said that baldachins are not supported on columns, but on staves;
[not transcribed by Martinelli or DOnofrio: and that the baldachin
ought not run together with the cornice of the columns] and in any
case he wanted to show that the angels carry it; and he added that
it was a chimera.29
The passage was transcribed by Thelen in his corpus of early Borromini drawings,
1967a, I, 98f.; Lavin 1968, 11f. n. 53, 47 no. 2; DOnofrio 1969, 158 (incomplete; see
Appendix):
F pensiero di Paolo V coprire con baldacchino laltar maggiore di S. Pietro con
ricchezza proportionata allapertura fatta alla confessione e sepolcro di d.o Onde
Carlo Maderno gli present un disegno con colonne vite; ma il baldacchino
non toccava le colonne, ne il lor cornicione: sopragionse la morte di Pauolo, e
rest lop.a sul disegno sin al ponteficato di Urbano VIII. il quale disse al d.o
Carlo si contentasse, che il Bernino facesse d.a opera. I1 Cavalier Celio, forse
non ben informato del tutto, stamp essere inventione di Santiss.o giuditio (cio
del Papa) messo in opera dal d.o Bernino. Vincenzo Berti manoscritto appresso
Mons.r Landucci Sacrista di Nro Sig.re Alessandro VII e p le sue eminenti virtudi
dignissimo di grado superiore, ha scritto, esser disegno del Ciampelli cognato del
d.o Bernini, il che non s se sia vero; ma si bene non concorreva con d.o Bernini
circa labbigliam.ti et altro; e diceva, che li Baldacchini non si sostengono con le
29
1351
Borrominis comment is in some respects cryptic and open to

interpretation, but one thing is certain: it is deliberate, painstaking,
accurate, and absolutely honest, as was everything Borromini ever did. In
fact, it was this deliberative, painstaking, laborious, not to say belabored,
quality of Borrominis mind and work that drove Bernini always quick,
facile, impulsive, and elegant in everything he did absolutely crazy, I
am sure. Borromini obviously devoted exceptional care to his comment in
this case, even to giving notice when he was uncertain about a point. I
find it impossible to believe that Borromini, especially if he was as deeply
involved in the design process as some have claimed, did not know who was
responsible: either he was being disingenuous or, by his own confession,
he was not fully informed and in fact was not sure. Three points are
striking. Firstly, Borromini makes it clear that Maderno took an important,
otherwise unheralded, step toward the final solution by bringing together
the baldachin and ciborium traditions, without linking them. Borrominis
remark does allow for something like Berninis first project, where the
canopy does not touch the columns or their cornices; that, however, would
make Maderno responsible for the angels, the objections to which Borromini
emphasizes as much as he does Berninis insistence that they be retained.
Borromini evidently referred to Maderno in order to ensure that his mentor
be remembered for having suggested bringing the types together, without
committing the grave, solecistic breach of architectural grammar by fusing
them. The fact that Borromini disapproved of the angels might explain why
he did not explain how the canopy was supported in Madernos project.
Secondly, in this light Thelens suggestion that Borromini withheld his own
contribution in order not to diminish that of Maderno, seems gratuitous, to
say the least.30 Virgilio Spada and Bernardo Castelli-Borromini certainly had
no such motive for their silence on the fundamental point of Borrominis
contribution. Even Fioravante Martinelli, in his original remarks on the
colonne, ma con lhaste, [not copied by Martinelli or transcribed by DOnofrio: et

che il baldacchino non ricora assieme con la cornice dele colone,] et in ogni modo
voleva mostrare che lo reggono li Angeli: e soggiongeva che era una chimera.
3o
Seine eigenen, unbestreitbar vorhandenen Verdienste an der endgltigen
Gestaltung der Tabernakelarchitektur bergeht Borromini in dieser um 1661/62
verfassten Randbemerkung geflissentlich, weil es ihm ausschliesslich darauf ankommt,
die grundlegende Bedeutung der knstlerischen Leistung Madernos, die unter Berninis
ruhm begraben worden war, mit wenigen Worten gebhrend ins Licht rcken zu knnen.
(Thelen 1967b, 10)
1352
Baldacchino attributed the design to Bernini; and while he took care to

qualify the credit by introducing other names, he made no claim for his
friend Borromini, to whom he would submit the manuscript for review.31
Equally gratuitous was Thelens omission from his book-length study of the
high altar and Baldacchino of the criticism duly reported by Borromini that
the baldachin ought not run together with the cornice of the columns.32
The omission misleadingly permits, even encourages in the context of the
discussion, the assumption that this feature was among Borrominis own
unheralded and supposedly self-abnegated contributions to the design. On
the contrary, Borromini obviously repeated the objections to the Baldacchino
because he too disapproved of Berninis hybrid, indeed chimeric design,
including the angels. Finally, there is the ultimate question in this, the most
conspicuous of all the Martinelli corrections, when Borromini was involved
as a modeler, as a carver, and indeed as a draftsman, where he names no
less than three real or imagined designers of the baldachin Maderno,
the pope, Agostino Ciampelli and while not hesitating to stake his claim
as creative designer in other entries in Martinellis text: why is there no
mention of Francesco Borromini here? Did Borromini forget himself?
My own candidate for Berninis silent helper with the Baldacchino is his
younger brother Luigi (161281), whom Gian Lorenzos biographers extol for
his talents as a sculptor and architect, and especially for his genius equal if
not greater than his brothers in all things mechanical and mathematical.
From recent archival discoveries we now know that his rich library, no doubt
partly inherited from Gian Lorenzo, comprised many technical titles; and
that in 1627 the brothers father Pietro Bernini borrowed from the library
of Santa Prassede two mathematical works, no doubt for Luigis benefit.33
Luigi was also nearly as precocious as his brother, whom he was assisting
as early as 1626; from 1630 he is documented as a major participant in the
work at St. Peters, including on the Baldacchino, where he was appointed
superintendent of the works in 1634, even countersigning with his brother
Martinellis original, brief comment is transcribed at p. 158 in the Appendix below,
in the center column next to Borrominis replacement.
32
The passage is transcribed in Thelens catalogue of Borromini drawings, but it is
nowhere cited in his monograph on the Baldacchino (1967b).
33
The inventory of Luigis books, no doubt partly inherited from Gian Lorenzo,
was an important discovery of McPhee 2000, with further bibliography on Luigi. Pietro
Bernini borrowed a translation of Euclid and Oberto Cantone, Luso prattico dellaritmetica
e geometria, Naples, 1609; see Dooley 2002, 54.
31
1. View of Baldacchino and choir. Saint Peters Rome.
1353
2. Etienne Duprac after Michelangelo, Plan of New St. Peters.

3. Carlo Fontana, Plan of Saint Peters, engraving, detail.
1354
4. Borromini, Project for ciborium in crossing of

Saint Peters, drawing. It. AZ., Rom, 1443
(254 x 160mm), Albertina, Vienna.
5. Giovanni Maggi, Canonization of Carlo Borromeo, 1610,

engraving. Coll. Stampe,Vatican Library, Rome.
1355
1356
6. Constantinian
Presbytery, Old St.
Peters, reconstruction
drawing.
7. Saint Peters, crown

of the baldachin.
8. Altar of the Holy Sacrament, Old St. Peters, drawing. Archivio del Capitolo
di San Pietro, MS A 64 ter, fol. 22r, Vatican Library, Rome.
1357
1358

engraving. Coll. Stampe, Vatican Library, Rome.
10. Canonization of Elizabeth of Portugal, 1625

(decorations by Bernini), engraving. detail. Coll.
Stampe, Vatican Library, Rome.
11. Urban VIII, 1626. Medagliere,

1359
12. Medal commemorating the

canonization of Andrea Corsini, 1629.
Cabinet des Mdailles, Bibliothque
Nationale, Paris.
13. Bernini, Studies for the crown of the Baldacchino,

drawing. It. AZ, Rom 769r, Albertina, Vienna.
1360
14. Bernini, Studies for the crown of the Baldacchino,

drawing. It. AZ., Rom 769v, Albertina, Vienna.
1361
15. Bernini, Study

for the crown of
the Baldacchino,
drawing. MS Barb.
Lat., 9900, fol. 2,
Vatican Library,
Rome.
16. Borromini,
Perspective study
of the Baldacchino
in situ, drawing.
It. AZ., Rom, 763,
Albertina, Vienna.
17. Borromini, Perspective study of

the Baldacchino in situ, drawing. It.
AZ., Rom, 762, Albertina, Vienna.
18. Borromini, Perspective

study of the Baldacchino in
situ, drawing. It. AZ., Rom,
764, Albertina, Vienna.
19. Borromini, Design for the upper

part and entablature of the columns
of the Baldacchino, drawing. RL5635,
Royal Library, Windsor Castle.
1362
20. Borromini, Design for the entablature over the columns of the Baldacchino,
drawing. RL5636, Royal Library, Windsor Castle.
1363
21. Borromini, Design

for the cornice-lappets
entablature, drawing.
RL5637, Royal Library,
Windsor Castle.
1364
22. View of baldachin and dome. Saint Peters, Rome.
23. Reliquary niche of St. Veronica. Saint Peters, Rome.
1365
1366
24. View of the crossing. St. Peters, Rome .
25. Page 201 of Fioravante

Martinellis unpublished
guidebook Roma ornata
dall architettura, pittura e
scoltura. Martinellis original
comment on the Baldacchino
cancelled in the center
column; Borrominis penciled
emendation faintly visible in
the left and lower margins,
beneath Martinellis inked
copy. MS 4984, Biblioteca
Casanatense, Rome.
26. Bernini Presenting the

Design for the Reliquary Niches
to Pope Urban VIII, vault
of southwest grotto chapel
(dedicated to St. Veronica).
Saint Peters, Rome .
1367
1368
27. Bernini, Portrait of a youth,

here identified as Luigi Bernini,
drawing. RL5543, Royal Library,
Windsor Castle.
28. Giulio Romano and

workshop, Donation of
Constantine (detail showing
reconstruction of the
Constantinian presbytery based
on elements then still extant). East
wall, Sala di Costantino, Vatican
Palace, Rome.
1369
29. Giulio Romano

and workshop, Pope
Gregory the Great.
East wall, Sala di
Costantino, Vatican
Palace, Rome.
30. Giulio Romano

and workshop, Pope
Gregory the Great,
detail. East wall,
Sala di Costantino,
Vatican Palace,
Rome.
31. Giulio Romano and workshop. East wall, Sala di Costantino, Vatican Palace, Rome.
1370
32. Giulio Romano and workshop, Pope Sylvester I. East wall,

Sala di Costantino, Vatican Palace, Rome.
1371
1372
33. Giulio Romano and workshop, Meeting of Constantine the Great and Pope Sylvester,
relief. East wall, Sala di Costantino, Vatican Palace, Rome.
34. Giulio Romano and workshop, Gregory the Great celebrating Mass, relief. East wall,
Sala di Costantino, Vatican Palace, Rome.
35. Bernini, Angel bearing laurel wreaths, crown of the Baldacchino.

St. Peters, Rome.
1373
1374
authorizations for payments to Borromini. Luigis contributions were

acknowledged in a fresco in one of the grotto chapels beneath the crossing
piers high altar, where, so I believe, he is shown accompanying his brother
who presents a design of the upper niche to Urban VIII (Figs. 26, 27).
The Gentle Yoke of Urban VIII
When I first sought to comprehend Borrominis devilishly tortured and
ingenious remark, that Maderno had proposed a baldachin that did not
touch the columns or their cornices, I suggested that he might have envisaged
a canopy suspended from above. There were many precedents for this
arrangement, notably the baldachin over the enthroned Pope Sylvester I in
the scene of the Donation of Constantine in the great ceremonial hall in the
Vatican, the Sala di Costantino, decorated in the early sixteenth century by
Raphaels follower Giulio Romano and his workshop (Fig. 28); appropriately,
the choir that appears in the background includes the marble columns the
emperor brought from Jerusalem, which Bernini ultimately installed in the
upper niches of the crossing piers.34 I now believe, thanks to a perspicacious
observation by George Bauer, that we can offer an alternative and by no
means contradictory explanation. Bauer noted that a salient feature of
Berninis second project for the Baldacchino had been foreshadowed in the
fresco adjacent to Donation scene, representing the isolated figure of Gregory
the Great enthroned (Figs. 29, 30). In fact the motif appears in two, and
only two, of the series of enthroned popes in the Sala di Costantino, namely,
those depicting Gregory and Sylvester, who flanks the scene of the Donation
scene on the opposite side (Figs. 31, 32). In both cases, the flaring canopy
over the popes throne is suspended from thongs attached to rings held by
allegorical figures who stand on flanking architectural platforms. Terracotta
narrative relief panels with scenes related to the lives of the two popes are
inserted in the wall above the canopies. The relief above Sylvester illustrates
an equestrian meeting of the pope and the emperor, shown scarcely clad and
still sporting pagan asses ears (in the foreground below, Jupiter Capitolinus
lies fallen clutching his imperial eagle); Constantine is cured of leprosy with
a blessing gesture by the pope, while their powers are united in the standard
34
Left window wall: Sylvester: Quednau 1979, figs. 39, 41; Center: Donation of
Constantine; Right: Gregory, Quednau 1979, figs. 40, 42; Bauer 1996, figs. 56, Hess
1967, fig. 7; Perry 1977, fig. 19.
1375
of the victorious cross displayed between them (Fig. 33).35 Bauer noted that
the reference to Pope Gregory was appropriate in the context of Urban VIIIs
project since one of the important acts of Gregorys reign was that he had
decreed that masses be celebrated over the body of St. Peter (Hic fecit ut
super corpus beati Petri missas celebrarentur).36 This event was illustrated
in a relief inserted in the wall above, where the confession at the tomb is
shown below the altar, and four of the famous spiral columns are displayed
in a row, as they appear before the apse in the frescoed reconstruction of
the Constantinian building (Fig. 34).37 When the completed Baldacchino
was inaugurated on 29 June 1633 (the Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul), it
was indeed a reenactment of Gregorys original inauguration of a new
Christian veneration of the papacy and the church.38 However, the frescoes
were relevant to Urban in another, no less important, and more personal
way, in relation to the basic theme of the Donation of Constantine, which
purported to record the first Christian emperors gift of vast territories to the
papacy and hence the foundation of the earthly hegemony of the Church.
Although long since discredited as a medieval forgery, the Donation was
still deeply significant of the papacys call for acknowledgement by secular
powers of its claim to temporal dominion. This was the underlying theme
of the decoration of the Sala di Costantino itself, commissioned and carried
out under the Medici popes Leo X and Clement VII. The meaning is made
clear by Medici emblems and inscriptions that accompany the frescoes: the
banderoles that flutter behind, intertwined with a yoke and inscribed with
the famous Medici motto, SVAVE, i.e., the gentle yoke of Medici rule; and
the diamond ring, symbol of perpetuity. Taken together the two parts fulfill
the overarching conceit of Medicean rule: Annulus nectit jugum suave (the
ring unites, the yoke is easy).39 Here the allegories sustain the papal canopy
through the tie-ring with one hand, while holding aloft the yoke with the
other.40
Quednau 1979, 287. Quednau discussed the reliefs in greater detail in Raffaello
1984, 244f.
36
Bauer 1996, 158f.
37
Quednau1979, 303f.
38
Pollak 1931, II, 421.
39
Moroni 184061, XXXVIII, 45; Shearman 1972, 87; Perry 1977, 6836; CoxRearick 1984, 368.
40
Matthew 11:
29 tollite iugum meum super vos et discite a me quia mitis sum et humilis corde
35
1376
The essence of this reference to the Medicean power behind the throne
was carried over into Berninis design, where heavenly angels replace the
secular allegories, and the garlands of Barberini laurel leaves, symbolic
of a new era of eternal springtime, replace the Medici tie-rings and yoke
(Fig. 35). Berninis insistence on retaining the angels through the sequence
of design changes of which Borromini evidently disapproved since he
quoted the vociferous criticism, and which modern scholars have attributed
simply to Berninis prejudice in favor of sculpture over architecture may
best be explained by this reference to the divine election and beneficent
authority of the pope. These were, in fact, the fundamental themes of Urbans
conception of his office: his election was signaled by divine intervention; at
his coronation he invoked the all-powerful Archangel Michael as patron of
his papacy; and his choice of his name announced the gentility of his rule.41
The angels sustain the Baldacchino effortlessly through delicate garlands of
laurel that are not attached but mysteriously disappear between the ribs and
the canopy. This is important work, after all. The Baldacchino is, after all,
a kind of miracle.
et invenietis requiem animabus vestris

30 iugum enim meum suave est et onus meum leve est
(29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart:
and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.)
41
On the ideology and coherence of Urban VIIIs auto-definition, see Lavin 2007.
1377
Appendix
Cesare DOnofrio, Roma nel seicento. Roma ornata dallarchitettura,
pittura e scoltura di Fioravante Martinelli, Florence, 1969
Marginal emendations to passages in Martinellis text suggested by
Borromini concerning Bernini and himself.
Page
11
Martinelli text
S. AGOSTINO
Laltar maggiore col ricco e pretioso

ciborio, o tabernacolo del Santissimo
fu fatto fare dal P. Girolamo Ghetti
romano, Generale dellOrdine nel
1627 con disegno di un amico di
Santi Ghetti, il quale hebbe la cura
dellopera, et in esso sono due Angeli
scolpiti da Giuliano Finelli Carrarino
per il* Cav. Bernino.
14
S. ANASTASIA
Laltar maggiore architettura di
Honorio Lunghi: ma lornamento
della tribuna con colonnato disegno
del Cav. Borromino fatto dordine del
Card. Carpegna allhora titolare*. Il
disegno della facciata col resarcimento
della chiesa di Luigi Arigucci fatto
fare da Urbano VIII.
Borromini emedation
* il tabernacolo fatto con
disegno di un amico di (Santi
Ghetti) ...: il Martinelli aveva
scritto: con architettura e assistenza di Santi Ghetti, et in esso
sono due Angeli scolpiti dal
Cav. Bernino. Questultima
frase corretta dal Borromini:
da Giuliano Finelli Carrarino per il C.r Bernino.
* lornamento della tribuna

con colonnato disegno del
Cav. Borromini fatto dordine del Em.mo Sig.r Card.
Carpegna Protettore.
1378
15
S. ANDREA DELLE FRATTE

Il campanile disegno, et* inventione
del Cav. Borromino, il quale havendo
nella cima desso posta per suo
finimento e per trofeo della beneficenza
del fondatore la sua arme in piedi
congionta con leggiadro modo a
quella de Frati Minimi si dichiarato
autore di situare in isola simil armi: et
al presente si comincia a fabricare la
cuppola con architettura del medemo
Cav. Borromino*.
57
GIES ADORATO DA MAGI

Questo tempietto della Congregatione
de propaganda fide stato fabricato dal
Card. Antonio Barberino, chiamato di
S. Onofrio con architettura del Cav.
Bernino; e minacciando rovina oltre ad
altre osservationi fatte dalla Santit di
Nostro Signore Alessandro VII stato
di suo ordine fatto laltro artifitiosissimo
con disegno del Cav. Borromino*.
69
S. GIOVANNI NEL LATERANO
* et al presente . . . Borromino.
* detto ; ma era da
Milano.
* e minacciando . . . ecc.,
sembra suggerimento del Borromini.
* Il cornicione . . . Borromino.
Il cornicione che ricinge il detto

tempio del Battisterio con il suo
fregio stato fatto fare dalla Santit
di Nostro Signore Alessandro VII con
disegno del Cav. Borromino*.
105
S. MARIA MAGGIORE
Lincoronatione del Papa di sopra di
Pietro padre del Cav. Bernino* ; man
destra dIppolito Butio Milanese,
man sinistra di Gio. Antonio Valsoldino. Li termini sono scarpellati dal
detto Pietro.
* di Pietro Bernino scultore (?); suggerimento non

accettato dal Martinelli.
158
1379
S. PIETRO VATICANO
S. PIETRO VATICANO
Il Ciborio con colonne di metallo

istorte a vite dellaltar maggiore
disegno del Cav. Bernino, et il
getto di Gregorio de Rossi Rom.o.
Ma il Cav.re Celio scrive essere
inventione di santissimo giuditio
messo in opera dal d.o Cav.re. Vincenzo Berti manoscritto appresso
monsig.re Landucci sacrista di N.
S.re ha lasciato scritto esser disegno
del Ciampelli cognato di d.o Bernino.
F pensiero di Paolo V coprire

con baldacchino laltar maggiore
di S. Pietro con ricchezza
proportionata allapertura fatta
alla confessione e sepolcro di
d.o Onde Carlo Maderno gli
present un disegno con colonne
vite; ma il baldacchino non
toccava le colonne, ne il lor
cornicione:
sopragionse
la
morte di Pauolo, e rest lop.a
sul disegno sin al ponteficato
di Urbano VIII. il quale disse
al d.o Carlo si contentasse, che
il Bernino facesse d.a opera. Il
Cavalier Celio, forse non ben
informato del tutto, stamp
essere inventione di Santiss.o
giuditio (cio del Papa) messo in
opera dal d.o Bernino. Vincenzo
Berti manoscritto appresso
Mons.r Landucci Sacrista di Nro
Sig.re Alessandro VII e p le sue
eminenti virtudi dignissimo di
grado superiore, ha scritto, esser
disegno del Ciampelli cognato
del d.o Bernini, il che non s se sia
vero; ma si bene non concorreva
con d.o Bernini circa labbigliam.
ti
et altro; e diceva, che li
Baldacchini non si sostengono
con le colonne, ma con lhasta,
[omitted by DOnofrio: et che il
baldacchino non ricora assieme
con la cornice dele colone] et in
ogni modo voleva mostrare che lo
reggono li Angeli: e soggiongeva
che era una chimera.
1380
218
PARTE SECONDA COLLEGII

DELLA FABRICA DELLO STUDIO
ROMANO APPRESSO LA CHIESA
DI S. GIACOMO DE SPAGNOLI
In segno della nobilt della fabrica

di questo Studio sono state gettate medaglie doro, dargento, e
di metallo dordine del Papa, con
limpronta della sua imagine, e nel
rovescio la fccia del teatro con lalzata della cappella, col suo tempietto
e finimento superiore, e delli portici laterali disegnata dal medesimo
Cav. Borromino, al quale i virtuosi
della sua professione devono restar
moltobligati per haver insegnato di
fabricare edifitij reali senza demolire
le sue parti nobili; e di nobilitare picciolissimi SEE NEXT
220
siti con fabriche sontuose, magnifiche, e

copiose dordine e di ornamenti come h
fatto nel primo insegnamento S. Giovanni in Laterano, et nel 2 in S. Carlo
alle quattro fontane; nella cappella della
Sapienza; e nellaltra, che hora v facendo
al Collegio de Propaganda fide oltre al
tempietto sotterraneo nella chiesa di S.
Giovanni de fiorentini con laltare maggiore sopra*.
* et il tempietto . . . sopra.
231f
PALAZZI De Barberini capo

delle case raggiustato con architettura
di molti, e spetialmente del Cav. Bernino*. Vi sono pitture di Raffaello,
del Correggio, di Andrea del Sarto, di
Giulio Romano, del Parmigianino, e
daltri.
* et altri.
282
FONTANE IN PIAZZA NAVONA
Il detto Innocenzo X con suo chirografo diede la fontana di mezzo

al Cav. Borromino, quale condusse
lacqua, e scopr il pensiero di condurvi la guglia, et ornarla con un
piedestallo guscio nel quale fossero scarpellati quattro historie di
basso rilevo, e con quattro fiumi
pi celebri del mondo*, e con altri
ornamenti al P. Vergilio Spada,
qual poi fu data al Cav. Bernino
ad instanza della Signora Donna
Olimpia Pamfilia, e con suo disegno stata aggiustata nella forma
che si vede.
1381
* Il Martinelli aveva scritto: et

ornarla con le quattro parti del
mondo figurate in quattro fiumi
; tale frase fu cancellata e sostituita a margine con laltra: con
un piedistallo . . . mondo ; per
tale importante modifica tuttavia
non si vede affatto la matita del
Borromini, il quale certamente la
sugger a voce.
1382
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2 vols, Rome, 1942
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Volkskultur in Prag und der Deutschen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften

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_____ Zur Entstehungsgeschichte der Hochaltar-Architektur von St. Peter in
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VISIBLE SPIRIT
THE ART OF GIANLORENZO BERNINI
VOL. III
BERNINI AT SAINT PETER'S

THE PILGRiMAGE
IRVING LAVIN
The Pindar Press

London 2012
Table of Contents
Preamble
St. Peter's as Summa Ecclesiarum
The Apse and Crossing
13
The High Altar
13
Baldachins and Ciboria
14
The Baldacchino (1624-35)
21
Excursus A: Borromini and the Baldacchino
29
Excursus B: A Neglected Prototype of the Baldacchino
34
Excursus C. The Pedestals of the Baldacchino:

Footsteps on the Way to Redemption
THE CREATIVITY OF THE BALDACCHINO
41
41
The Trinity: Bees between Heaven and Earth
41
Birth
66
Purification -
Healing
68
Lupercalia
76
Marriage and Progeny
81
The Chastity of Bees
83
Born From the Dunghill
88
MARGINALIA: EMBLEMS OF SALVATION
Jubilee
Lizards and the Sol Iustitiae
Justitiae
96
96
105
The Colonna Santa, the Lizard, and Apollo
117
Giotto's Navicella, the Natalis Solis Invictus, and the Sol Iustitiae
124
Beelzebub
128
Paired Tombs
131
The Tomb of Urban VIII (1627-47)
133
The Crossing Piers (1627-41)
143
The Nave: Continuity
154
"Feed My Sheep" (Pasce oves meas) (1633-46)
154
The Tomb of Matilda of

ofTuscany
Tuscany (1633-44)
157
The Nave Decoration (1645-9)
161
Ingress -
Egress
The Piazza and Colonnades (1656-67)
Commemoration
164
164
182
The Cathedra Petri (1657-66)
182
The Equestrian Monument of Constantine and the Scala Regia (1662-70)
189
The Tomb of Alexander VII (1671-8)
216
Passage to the Holy City

The Ponte Sant'Angelo and Castel Sant'Angelo (1667-71)
PREHISTORY:
228
228
228
Saint Michael and the City
229
Siege, Triumph, and Retribution
236
The Last Judgment
243
The Bridge ofTrial

of Trial
246
Purgatory and All Souls
249
The Plague
249
Pre-conception
252
BERNINI's WAY oF
BERNINI'S
OF SALVATION:
257
The Via Salvationis and the Arma Christi
261
The Angels on the Bridge
267
The Regal Couple
272
Blood and Water
276
Consummation
The Sacrament Altar (1673-5)
The Church, the City, and the Artist
281
281
298
Roma alessandrina: Urban Unity, Public Welfare,

and Universal Christian Charity
298
The Blood of Christ (1669- 70)
309
Bibliography
323
Index of Biblical Citations
343
Index
345
THE APSE AND CROSSING
ExcuRsus
EXCURSUS C. THE
41
PEDESTALS oF
OF THE BALDACCHINO:
FOOTSTEPS
45.
FooTSTEPS ON THE WAY TO REDEMPTION 45
God, we say, is in the details. My project in this essay is to discuss in some detail some details
of the Baldacchino, that is, the pedestals and the things represented on them. Some of these
details are eminently conspicuous and have been subject to the most extravagant explanations, others are barely visible and are rarely, if ever noticed by the public. Taken together, I
believe, these details give us to understand that the pedestals are indeed the foundation stones
on which that miraculous work of art rests, not just structurally but also spiritually. With its
pedestals the Baldacchino recounts in intensely human terms an epic theological drama, a
brazen metaphor of the Divine Comedy.
THE CREATIVITY OF THE BALDACCHINO
The Trinity: Bees Between Heaven and Earth
In essence the Baldacchino constitutes a fusion of the three traditional types of honorific
markers that served to confer the distinction of holiness on the ciborium supported on
columns, the suspended canopy, and the processional baldachin carried on staves. The idea of
merging these quite distinct species into what one contemporary described as a "chimaera"
"chimaera'' was
more than an ingenious solution that synthesized and epitomized the hallowed traditions and
unique challenges that confronted Bernini in the unprecedented task of "furnishing" the high
altar of St. Peter's. The typological merger was also a creative act in which the three species were
subsumed under a new unity, a metaphor for the divine creativity of the Holy Trinity itself,
which had created the church for the express purpose of achieving the salvation of humanity. 46
46
This ecdesiologically generative nature of the Trinity is explicit in a drawing showing the early
project for the Baldacchino, in which the sun passing through the apse window containing
47 With God
the triangular sign of the Trinity illuminates the choir (Fig. 31, c Fig. 21).
21) .41
the Father portrayed in the act of creation in the apex of the lantern of the cupola, and
45 First presented as Lavin 2009.

45.
46
46 See the comprehensive account
See the comprehensive account of the theme in scholastic theology by Emery 1995.
The problematic drawing, in the Morgan library, is a pastiche consisting of two sheets, one showing the
choir with Bernini's early project for the upper niches in the piers and in the apse the Cathedra Petri with the
Trinitarian window, on which a second sheet has been pasted showing a papal ceremony with the early project
for the Baldacchino. The apse project is evidently an alternative to that shown in a drawing at Windsor, where
47
47
42
BERNINI AT ST. PETER'S
31. Papal ceremony in the crossing of St.

Peter's with Bernini's early projects for the
choir and Baldacchino, drawing (pastiche
of two sheets), detail. Pierpont Morgan
Library, New York.
32. Botticelli, Trinity with Saints.

Courtauld Institute, London.
43
33. After Fabio Cristofani, Ballot for the Election of Urban VIII, tapestry. Musei Vaticani, Rome.
the glorious dove of the Holy Spirit alighting, wings wide-spread, through the underside of
the canopy to illumine the crucifixion at the altar below, the Baldacchino came actually to
incorporate this mystery of the Trinity, in a form that echoes the traditional disposition of
the Trinity in the Throne of Grace or Mercy Seat (Fig. 32). The notion of the Trinity as the
creative agent of redemption was as old as the church itself and had its direct legacy in the
belief that to insure the continuity of the promise of salvation through Christ's vicar on earth,
the Divine Wisdom intervened at the election of every pope. Divine inspiration is invoked
frequently during the election conclaves through the ancient hymn Veni creator spiritus
recited liturgically at Pentecost, when the Holy spirit descended on the Virgin and apostles
in the first storey, below the window, a presumably sculptured image of St. Michael carrying the keys and papal
tiara appears in a sunburst above the niche containing the Cathedra upheld by Fathers of the Church (see Lavin
2007,17,
2007, 17, fig. 6; Rice 1997, 89f., 267). First published by Stampfle 1973,
1973,101-4,
101-4, and attributed to Agostino
Ciampelli by Thiem 1977, 310-2 (sed contra Prospero Valenti Rodino 1981, 122-6), the Morgan drawing
has been discussed by Merz 1991, 162 n. 125, Schiitze 1994,282-4,
1994, 282-4, Dombrowski 2003, 40, Connors 2006,
122-3. None of these authors consider the Trinitarian creativity conveyed by the radiant window emblem for
our understanding of the Baldacchino.
For more on the Trinitarian genesis of Urban's conception of St. Peter's see Lavin 2007, 17f.
44
to insure the divulgation and continuity of Christ's teaching. 48 The Holy Spirit intervened
in a particularly, indeed triply auspicious way at the election of Urban VIII, August 6, 1623:
during the conclave a swarm of bees descended through a window of the Sistine Chapel
to settle on the wall of Barberini's cell (Fig. 33); owing to their perfect community and
beneficent creativity, bees were a traditional symbol of Divine Wisdom, and three of the
species had formed Cardinal Maffeo Barberini's personal coat of arms. The trinity of big
bronze bees that have alighted and conjoined to bind the crown together and sustain the
universally triumphant Cross at the apex, seems to reenact in perpetuity this heavenly descent
of divinely providential salvation (Fig. 34). The episode was also reenacted metaphorically at
the apex of Pietro da Cortona's ceiling fresco in the great salone of Palazzo Barberini, where
at the direction of Divine Providence, Rome carries the papal crown above the flight of bees
framed by a laurel wreath (Fig. 35); and the all-presiding inspiration of Divine Wisdom is
portrayed in Andrea Sacchi's vault fresco in the north wing (Fig. 36).49
36). 49
34. Apex of the Baldacchino, St. Peter's Rome.
48
48 See
49
49 See
the references to the hymn in Leti 1671, 14, 22, 37.

37.
the splendid analyses by Scott
Scot[ (1991, 180-6,
IBO-6, 3B-67),
38-67), who generously acknowledges, 1B5
185 n. 28, that
it was I who alerted him to the election event and its relevance to the epiphany of the papal coat of arms in the
salone fresco .
35.
3 5. Pietro da Cortana,
Corron a, Divine Providence and the Coronation of Urban VIII. Palazzo Barberini, Rome.
45
45
46
36. Andrea Sacchi, Divine Wisdom Illuminates the World.

Palazzo Barberini, Rome.
47
WEST
118
lilA
iliA
IInA
A
1118
IVA
18
lA
IA
IV
IVB
8
37. Diagram of
ofPedesrals
Pedestals and sequence of
offaces.
faces.
Surprisingly, perhaps, the creative nature of the Holy Spirit was represented more
directly in the pedestals that serve as the very foundation stones of the Baldacchino (Fig.
37). It has frequently been observed, and much disputed, that the swelling forms and
disposition of the three Barberini bees in the coats of arms on the exterior faces of each
pedestal suggest the body of a pregnant woman, and that the female faces enclosed in the
cartouches above portray the phases of parturition. (Figs. 38-54). The sequence begins
at the left facing the nave with a smile, passes clockwise around the Baldacchino through
various more or less pained expressions and ends facing the nave at the right where a
radiantly beaming, winged cherub's head appears. Below, at the groin, grotesque masks,
half human, half bestial, sneer and threaten vile, demonic pleasures.
The pregnancy and parturition were first mentioned in print in 1883 in a touristic
guidebook to Rome, transmitting the salubrious anecdotes no doubt recounted by local
5o
The second to consider them was a distinguished historian of ancient medicine
ciceroni. 50
and gynecologist Giacomo Emilio Curatulo, who in 1901 published an obstetrical analysis
that he believed confirmed the birthing physiologically. The eschutcheons and the theme of
so
so Hare
1883, II, 263.
48
[IA].
38. Baldacchino, Southeast Pedestal, East Side [IAJ.
39. Baldacchino, Southeast Pedestal, East Side [lA],

[IA],
details of Female Head and Mask.
49
50
'
BERNINI AT ST. PETERS
40. Baldacchino, Southeast Pedestal, South Side [IB).
41. Baldacchino, Southeast Pedestal, South Side [IB],

51
52
'
42. Baldacchino, Southwest Pedestal, South Side [IIA].
43. Baldacchino, Southwest Pedestal, South Side [IlA],

[IIA],
53
54
BERNINI AT ST. PETER's

PETER'S
44. Baldacchino, Southwest Pedestal, West Side [lIB]

[liB]..
45 . Baldacchino, Southwest Pedestal, West Side [liB],

[lIB],
55
56
46. Baldacchino, Northwest Pedestal, West Side [IliA].

[IlIA).
47. Baldacchino, Northwest Pedestal, West Side [IliA],

[IlIA],
57
58

PETER'S
48. Baldacchino, Northwest Pedestal, North Side [IIIB].

[IllB) .
49. Baldacchino, Northwest Pedestal, North Side

Female Head and Mask.
[IIIB, details of
ofFemale
59
60
50. Baldacchino, Northeast Pedestal, North Side [IVA].
51. Baldacchino, Northeast Pedestal, North Side [IVA],

61
62
52. Baldacchino, Northeast Pedestal, East Side [IVB).

[IVBJ .
53. Baldacchino, Northeast Pedestal, East Side [IVB],

details of Child's Head and Mask.
63
64
BERNINIATST.PETERS
BERNINI
AT ST. PETERS
54. Details of Figs. 39 and 53.
65
r~r
f~'r
II~.
~,
~b
------_.-----,==-----------'==-
55. Sergei Eisenstein, sketches of the Baldacchino.
parturition were often seen as satiric, prurient allusions to scandalous rumors that circulated
about the pope's family. This was also the view of the great Russian motion picture maker
and theorist Sergei Eisenstein who first gathered and summarized the early literature on
the pedestals in a famous unfinished treatise on cinematic montage (1937-40) (Fig. 55). 5151
Eisenstein interpreted the reliefs in formal terms as a perfect demonstration of his theory of
montage, that is, sequential narration in film, and argued that their full significance could
only be grasped when they were considered in this way. Ironically, he grossly misprized
their meaning in a radical anticlerical vein, but his understanding of the temporal import
of the escutcheons was astonishingly perceptive with respect to their ultimate significance.
The pedestals have been discussed seriously only twice in recent scholarly literature. Philip
Fehl explained them in adulatory terms as a "compliment" to the felicitous reign of Urban
VIIJ.5 2 Cesare D'Onofrio considered the reliefs metaphorically, referring to the ecclesiastical
VIII,52
tradition of the church as mother of the faithful, Mater Ecclesia. 53 As we shall see, all these
51 Eisenstein
51
1985, 87-100;
111-31 ; Eisenstein 1991,
1991,6787-1 00; Eisenstein 1989, 111-31;
67- 80 The essay has been discussed
Yve-Alain Bois in Eisenstein 1989, 111-5, and by Spagnolo 2006, 56f.
by Yve-A1ain
52 Fehl 1976.
52
53 D'Onofrio 1979, 243-9.
53
of Witkowski 1908, who was
243-9. D'Onofio's work was greatly dependent on that ofWitkowski
the first to consider the reliefs in positive, if witty, ecclesiological terms.
66
interpretations contain elements of truth, which is, however, rooted in a heretofore totally
unexplored substratum of meaning that underlies these extraordinary, powerful, and
evocative images, at once discomfiting and endearing, images that are indeed the fundamental
cornerstones of the Baldacchino. 54
Birth
The basic theme of the sequence is announced in the first panel, where, uniquely, the papal
tiara includes a winged cherub above which a bee mounts heavenward (Fig. 56). Under
the apian aegis of Divine Wisdom, the cherub seems to forecast the infant that replaces
the woman's head at the end of the series. In fact, in the Celestial Hierarchies of the PseudoDionysius, "the name cherubim signifies the power to know and to see God, to receive the
greatest gifts of his light, to contemplate the divine splendor in primordial power, to be filled
with the gifts that bring wisdom and to share these generously with subordinates as part of
the beneficent outpouring of wisdom" (Fig. 57). 55
55
In ecclesiological terms the creativity of the Trinity took two main forms, with respect
to God's method and purpose. The first, the creation of the Church, was embodied in John's
Apocalyptic vision of the Heavenly Jerusalem in the Book of Revelation, in the famous
passage at the beginning of Chapter 12, describing the appearance of the Woman clothed
with the sun, and the moon under her feet,
Rev. 12: 1- 5
1 And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and
the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars:
stars:
2 And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered.
3 And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon,
having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads.
4 And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the
earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to
devour her child as soon as it was born.
5'
54
Agostino Radi and Borromini were paid for executing the coats of arms between July 8,1626 and the end
of December 1627 (Pollak 1928- 31, II, 342f.).
55 VII.1;
55
VII.l; Pseudo-Dionysius 1987, 162. On the cherub-ornamented headdress see the comments ofTolnay
1943-60, I, 160, concerning Michelangelo's Pitti Madonna, which he calls Sibylline. D'Onofrio 1979, Fig.
188, p. 252, labels the head "allusione al
a! concepito." According to Eisenstein 1991, 774,
4, "It might be read as
something like a chapter heading or an introductory epigraph about the birth of a new scion of the family that
was crowned with the papal tiara." Witkowski 1908, 266, was most eloquent, and right on the mark: "Ces ecus
tourmentes n'allegorisent-ils
n'alh:gorisent-i1s pas encore les terribles epreuves subies par l'Eglise
I'Eglise militance
militante au Sion qui, reprenant
elle Ie
le "Tu enfanteras dans la
Ia douleur" de la
Ia Genese, aboutit, sous Ia
pour e1le
la protection de Ia
la tiare, au triomphe de
la
Ia beatitude celeste, a l'Eglise triomphante ou Jerusalem, personnifiee dans le
Ie dernier ecu par Ia
la tete du hebe
bebe
nous
us n' avons plus '!'
'l'oeil
oeil mauvais'
mauvais'."
."
angelique, souriant et cravate d' ailes? Cette fois .. . no
56. Tiara with cherub's head,

detail of Fig. 38.
67
57. Michelangelo, Pitti Madonna, detail.

Florence, Museo del Bargello.
5 And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron:
and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne.
From at least the time of Methodius's treatise on the virtues of virginity, these references
to the tribulations and joys of childbirth were understood as the labor and sufferings of
the Mother Church in bringing about salvation through a healing of the souls by virtue of
Christ's sacrifice at the crucifixion, reenacted in the Eucharistic sacrifice of the mass. 56
56
The woman who appeared in heaven clothed with the sun, and crowned with twelve
stars, and having the moon for her footstool, and being with child, and travailing in
birth, is certainly, according to the accurate interpretation, our mother ...
It is the Church whose children shall come to her with all speed after the resurrection,
running to her from all quarters. She rejoices receiving the light which never goes
down, and clothed with the brightness of the Word as with a robeY
56
56 For a survey of interpretations of Rev. 12, see Prigent 1959; also Kramer 1956. For Methodius and Hippolytus in particular, Rahner 1971, 161f.
57
57 Banquet of the Ten Virgins, ch. V, RobertS and Donaldson VI, 1951, 336
68
And Hippolytus, in his Treatise on Christ and Antichrist,

"she, being with child, cries, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered," means
that the Church will not cease to bear from her heart the Word that is persecuted by
the unbelieving in the world. 5588
The passage in Revelation was closely linked to that in John's gospel where the second creative
act in the achievement of salvation, Christ's sacrifice, is defined: Christ likens the period
from his death to his second coming to the travail of a woman in parturition and the joy that
follows to the birth of her child,
John 16: 20-22
[20] Verily, verily, 1I say unto you, That ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall
rejoice: and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy.
[21] A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as
soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy
that a man is born into the world.
[22] And ye now therefore have sorrow: but I1 will see you again, and your heart shall
rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.
This passage in Christ's sermon to the apostles was understood as Christ's paradoxical
allusion to his own death and resurrection, comparing his suffering and that of his disciples at
his death to the pangs of delivery, and their joy and his own at their redemption into eternal
life achieved by his resurrection, to the joy at the birth of the child. The tribulation described
by John was foreordained to the Church's gestation of the faithful through God's warning
to Eve after the fall, "I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou
shalt bring forth children."59
children." 59 The great Jesuit exegete Cornelis a Lapide (1567-1637), who
was then in Rome composing his famous biblical commentaries, interpreted the passage
thus: "For Christ compares His death to child-birth and His resurrection to the joy after
child-birth. For Christ suffered anguish and tortures like a woman in child-birth, but when
He was Himself rising again through the merit of His death, and he knew that we should
in like manner rise again, He greatly rejoiced Himself, and inspired the Apostles and all the
faithful with great joy.... Hence the solemnities of the Saints are said to be their birthdays,
not their burials."6o
burials." 60
Purification - Healing
The particular relevance of these themes of divinely ordained gestation to the Baldacchino
over the apostles' tomb at St. Peter's, was established in the early sixteenth century with Leo X
58 Treatise on Christ and Antichrist, 62, Roberts
58
Roberrs and Donaldson, V, 1951,
1951,217.
217.
59 Genesis 3:16.
59
3: 16. Multiplicabo aerumnas tuas et conceptus tuos; in dolore paries
60
60
Lapide 18761908, VI, 171.

1876-1908,
filios ...
...
69
58. Raphael and workshop, The Donation of Constantine, fresco.

Sala di Costantino, Palazzo Vaticano, Rome.
de' Medici's program of reaffirming the hegemony of the church and the papacy in the great
campaign of decorations that he entrusted to Raphael - frescos in the Vatican palace, and
tapestries for the Sistine chapel. In the compass of these decorations two subjects in particular
were associated with the high altar of St. Peter's, both of which served as historical and doctrinal
precedent for Bernini's project. In the Sala di Costantino the Donation of Constantine was
conceived as actually taking place in the basilica, and Raphael's portrayal of the disposition
of the spiral columns from the Temple of Jerusalem in the Constantinian presbytery of Old
St. Peter's (Fig. 58), as well as the suspended canopies over the flanking portraits of Sylvester
I and Gregory the Great (Figs. 59-60), reverberated not only in the design but also in the
meaning of Bernini's Baldacchino. 61 The second connection, which arose from the same
conflation of the Temple with St. Peter's as embodied in the spiral columns decorated with
vine scrolls symbolic of the Eucharist, was metaphorical: the columns provided the setting for
the tapestry depiction of the Healing of the Lame Man by Peter, in the company of St. John
62
and a multitude of bystanders (Fig. 61).
61).62
The significance of the Healing lies in the fact that it
61
61
Besides Tuzi 2002, two important studies have been devoted to the columns, Nobiloni 1997, and Kinney
2005. On the canopies, see below.
62
62 Acts 3: 1-8:
1 Now Peter and John went up together into the temple at the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour.
2 And a certain man lame from his mother's womb was carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the
temple which is called Beautiful, to ask alms of them that entered into the temple;
3 Who seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple asked an alms.
4 And Peter, fastening his eyes upon him with John, said, Look on us.
5 And he gave heed unto them, expecting to receive something of them.
6 Then Peter said, Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus
Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk.
7 And he took him by the right hand, and lifted him up: and immediately his feet and ankle bones
received strength.
8 And he leaping up stood, and walked, and entered with them into the temple, walking, and leaping,
and praising God.
70
59. Raphael and workshop, St. Sylvester I

Enthroned, fresco. Sala
5ala di Costantino, Palazzo Vaticano, Rome.
60. Raphael and workshop,
St. Gregory the Great Enthroned, fresco.

St.
Sala di Costantino, Palazzo Vaticano,
5ala
Rome.
7711
61. Pieter van Aelst after Raphael, St. Peter Healing the Lame Man, tapestry.
tapestry.
Pinacoteca Vaticana, Rome.
Rome.
is the first miracle recounted of the apostles, that is, by Peter, Christ's chosen vicar, who insists
that the miracle was not achieved by his own power but by that conveyed to him by Jesus.
The healing thus inaugurated the salvific power of grace vested in the church through Peter
and Christ's subsequent successors. The miracle was performed in the place where Jesus had
himself performed acts of spiritual healing, in his youthful disputation with the Doctors and
2 et quidam vir qui erat claudus ex utero matris suae baiulabatur quem ponebant cotidie
coddie ad portam
templi quae dicitur Speciosa ut peteret elemosynam ab introeuntibus in templum
incipiences introire in templum rogabat ut elemosynam acciperet
3 is cum vidisset Petrum et Iohannem incipientes
4 intuens autem
aurem in eum Petrus cum Iohanne dixit respice in nos
ille intendebat in eos sperans se a1iquid
aliquid accepturum ab eis
5 at ilIe
6 Petrus autem dixit argentum et aurum non est mihi quod autem habeo hoc tibi do in nomine Iesu
Christi Nazareni surge et ambula
et plantae
7 et adprehensa ei manu dextera adlevavit eum et protinus consolidatae sunt bases eius er
8 et exiliens stetit et ambulabat et intravit cum illis in templum ambulans et exiliens et laudans
Dominum
72

PETER'S
later by driving out the money changers, thus signifying the power and legitimacy of Peter's
vicarage. The events took place, however, before the famous Porta Speciosa, famous for its
heavy brass doors, for which Raphael instead substituted the Solomonic columns whose vine
scrolls gave them a sacramental significance singularly appropriate for the altar at St. Peter's
tomb. Peter says explicitly to the bystanders at the event that they should not mistake him as
a magician for it was not he who had worked the miracle, but through the power ofJesus. 63
Peter insists that while the healing was physical, it was effected through faith, not a physical
but a spiritual healing. Peter was acting as the vicar of Christ, who had described himself as
the physician, whose power came from his father, and declared, "they that be whole need not
a physician, but they that are sick ... for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to
repentance. " 64
John Shearman's analysis of the tapestry has made it amply clear that Raphael's bold
transposition of the Healing of the Lame Man with reference to St. Peter's was intended to
evoke the legacy of Christ the Physician, Christus Medicus, to Peter his vicar, and hence to Leo
X, whose family name was de'Medici. 65 1he
The theme of papal healing was represented in a relief
in the Sala di Costantino above the portrait of Sylvester I, who had baptized the emperor
Constantine the Great (Fig. 62). The relief refers to the fact that Sylvester had earlier cured the
emperor of leprosy, which led to his conversion. In correspondence to the healing depicted
here the relief above the portrait of Gregory the Great (Fig. 63) illustrates Gregory's decree
that mass be celebrated over the tomb of St. Peter; four of the spiral columns are displayed
in a row, as they appear before the apse in the reconstruction of the Constantinian building
in the intervening fresco of the Donation. The fact that the columns in the tapestry are silver,
rather than marble, constitutes another, specific reference to the altar, for Gregory the Great
had erected over the tomb a "cyborium cum columnis suis IIII ex argento puro," and had also
decreed that masses be celebrated over the body of St. Peter ("Hic
("Hie fecit ut super corpus beati
63
63
Acts
3:12, 16:
Acts3:12,
12 And when Peter saw it, he answered unto the people, Ye men ofIsrael,
oflsrael, why marvel ye at this? or why
look ye so earnestly on us, as though by our own power or holiness we had made this man to walk?
16 And his name through faith in his name hath made this man strong, whom ye see and know: yea,
the faith which is by him hath given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all.
12 videns autem Petrus respondit ad populum viri israhelitae quid miramini in hoc aut nos quid
intuemini quasi nostra virtute aut pietate fecerimus hunc ambulare
nostis
tis confirmavit nomen eius et fides quae per eum est
16 et in fide nominis eius hunc quem videtis et nos
dedit integram sanitatem istam in conspectu omnium vestrum
M Matt. 9:12-13:
12 at Iesus audiens ait non est opus valentibus medico sed male habentibus
yolo et non sacrificium non enim veni vocare iustos
13 euntes autem discite quid est misericordiam volo
sed peccatores
12 But when Jesus heard that, he said unto them, They that be whole need not a physician, but they
that are sick.
13 But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to
call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
65
65 Shearman 1972,55-7,
1972, 55-7, 77f. Shearman does not himself make this deduction, concluding only that: "the
meaning of the columns cannot, therefore, be literal but must be symbolic - either of the miraculous healing
powers of one of them, or of Solomon himself, Rex Pacificus, or perhaps both" (p. 57).
62. (Detail of Fig. 59), Sylvester I curing Constantine ofLeprosy, terracotta relief.
relief
Sala di Costantino, Palazzo Vaticano, Rome.
63. (Detail of
Fig. 60},
St. Peter's,
ofFig.
60), Gregory the Great celebrating Mass at the altar ofSt.
relief Sala di Costantino, Palazzo Vaticano, Rome.
terracotta relief.
73

PETER'S
74
celebrarentur"). 66 1he
Petri missas celebrarentur").66
The relief above his portrait in the Sala di Costantino actually
shows him celebrating mass before a structure with four spiral columns.
Raphael perpetrated another astonishing conflation in the tapestry, also noted, but not
discussed by Shearman. Raphael flanked the central episode of the Healing of the Lame Man
with figures that clearly allude to the Hebrew rituals of presentation and purification mandated by the Lord in the book of Leviticus: at the right an infant carrying a pair of doves and
a handmaiden with other celebratory food offerings, and at the left a mother carrying her
child at her bosom. Following the birth of a child a woman is considered unclean for certain
specified intervals according to the sex of the newborn, after which she must bring to the door
of the tabernacle offerings, a lamb or a pair of pigeons or turtle doves if she is poor, to the priest,
67
who makes an atonement for her so that she is cleansed and may again enter the sanctuary.
sanctuary.67
The rite of purification applied to Christ as well, since the Law of Leviticus provided that the
male child be presented by the mother at the same time. The Presentation of the Christ child
and the Purification of the Virgin were thus correlated themes, each with its proper feast in
the calendar of the church, and both were commemorated on the same day. From the earliest
Christian times the church Fathers emphasized that neither the Son of God nor the Virgin
Mary had need of purification, but they did so anyway so that the ritual of the Old Law of the
Hebrews, might finally be fulfilled, literally once and for all, in the New Law for all believers.
And when the tapestry series was continued after Raphael's death by Giulio Romano, the Pre-
66
66
Hie augmentavit
augmentavir in praedieationem
praedicarionem canonis diesque nostros in tua pace dispone, er
et cetera. Hie fecit bearo
beato
Perro apostolo
aposrolo cyburium cum columnis suis III!,
IIII, ex argento puro. Fecit autem vestem super corpus eius blatPetro
ut super corpus bead
beati Petri missas celebrarentur; item er
et
tinio
rinio et
er exornavit
exornavir auro purissimo, pens. lib. C. Hie fecit ur
bead Pauli apostoli
aposroli eadem fecit.
in ecclesiam beati
Rolf Quednau in Rajfaello
Raffaello 1984,245
1984, 245 (evidendy
(evidently
Duchesne 1955-7, I, 312; the silver ciborium was cited by RolfQuednau
unaware of this passage, Shearman, p. 57, puzzles over the silver columns); the mass mandated by Gregory was
cited by Bauer 1996, 158f. I have argued elsewhere that the painted canopies over the portraits of Silvester and
Gregory, were an important influence on Bernini's first project for the Baldacchino (Lavin 2008).
67
67 Shearman 1972, 56.
56.
Leviticus 12 (King James Version)
1 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
2 Speak unto the
rhe children of Israel, saying, If a woman have conceived seed, and born a man child:
then she shall be unclean seven days; according ro
to the days of the separation for her infirmity shall she
be unclean.
3 And in the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised.
4 And she shall then continue in the blood of her purifying three and thirty days; she shall touch no
hallowed thing, nor come into the sanctuary, until the days of her purifying be fulfilled.
5 But if she bear a maid child, then she shall be unclean two weeks, as in her separation: and she shall
continue in the blood of her purifying threescore and six days.
6 And when the days of her purifying are fulfilled, for a son, or for a daughter, she shall bring a lamb
of the first year for a burnt offering, and a young pigeon, or a turdedove,
turtledove, for a sin offering, unto the
door of the tabernacle of the congregation, unto the priest:
7 Who shall offer it before the LORD, and make an atonement for her; and she shall be cleansed from
female.
the issue of her blood. This is the law for her that hath born a male or a female.
turtles, or two young pigeons; the
8 And if she be not able to bring a lamb, then she shall bring two turdes,
one for the burnt offering, and the other for a sin offering: and the priest shall make an atonement for
her, and she shall be clean.
75
64. Giulio Romano, Presentation of

o/Christ
Christ in the Temple, tapestry.
Pinacoteca Vaticana, Rome.
sentation of Christ in the Temple was located in the same ideally conflated setting, appropriate
to this critical act of transition from the Old Law to the New (Fig. 64).
The Old Testament purification and New Testament healing had been associated early
on by Origen under the rubric of Christ's power, as Christus Medicus, to cleanse the soul
of sin. Discussing Christ's definition of himself as the physician for the sick, not the well
(Matt. 9:12-13), Origen relates the purification rituals (Leviticus 12 and 13, specifically
12: 2, the birth of a male child), to Christ's healing of the leper, the disease par excellence of
uncleanliness, i.e., sin (Mark 1: 40-2).68
40-2). 68 The underlying common denominator lay beyond
these individuals: the sinfulness of woman was descended from Eve, and the lame man's
defect was inherited congenitally from his mother's womb, i.e., it was also inherent. It is clear
that the healing underlying both events was the redemption from the Original Sin, achieved
6a
6Il
Homilies on Leviticus, Homily VIII, Migne 1857- 1905, XII, cols. 492f.
76
by Christ's ultimate act of charity, instituted and perpetuated through his mother, Mary/
heavenly bridelthe
bride/the New Eve/Mother Church, and actuated at the altar. The altar was the
tabernacle of the New Church constructed by Christ on the Stone of his successor, also called
the petra durissima, the stone of refuge and security on which the church was built. Through
the setting of his tapestry, Raphael extended these relationships to Peter and to St. Peter's.
In the sermon that followed the healing, Peter adjured the witnesses not to assume that the
power came from him, but from Jesus whom they had condemned to death, and who had
himself attributed his power to his Father. In effect, the curative power of Christus Medicus,
expressed in Christ's metaphor referring to himself as physician, descended not just to Leo X
as a Medici, but to all those who occupy the papal throne. This idea lay at the very heart of
the ideology of Bernini's Baldacchino.
It is important, moreover, that in all these cases the healing brought revelation and
conversion, the leper cured by Christ who spread the good word (Mark 1: 43-5), the lame
man and bystanders who had witnessed the miracle. At the Purification and Presentation,
the witness and convertee was the just and devout Simeon, who recognized Mary and Jesus
and publicly proclaimed their salvation ''A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy
people Israel" (Luke 2: 32). This last pronouncement is crucial because it foreshadows what
would become the church's basic claim to be successor to paganism and Judaism, ecclesiae ex
gentibus and ex circumcisione.
Considering these implications of the two subjects Raphael combined in the tapestry, it
becomes clear why the scene was set among the twisted columns - not simply because they
came from the Temple of Jerusalem and were installed at the high altar at St. Peter's but also
because they were Roman columns on the one hand, and on the other richly ornamented with
vine scrolls that suffused them with the symbolism of the Eucharist. By framing the Healing
by the Presentation, and setting them both within the symbolic columns from Jerusalem at
St. Peter's, Raphael gave physical and topographic reality to the theme of succession that was
Catholicism's chief claim to universality. Hence the appropriateness of the ideology expressed
in the tapestry to its display in the Sistine Chapel, where papal elections were held and the
succession assured.
Lupercalia
The pedestals of the baldachin incorporate, conjugate would be a better word, as cornerstones
the two stones, Peter and Mary, on which Christ built his church. Following the words about
childbirth in the Book of Revelation and from Christ's own mouth as reported by St. John,
the tribulations and ultimate jubilation of childbirth depicted on the pedestals reenact the
process of salvation that is achieved in the sacrifice at the altar and triumphs with the Resurrection of Christ in the original plan for the Baldacchino, and with the world dominion of
the Cross as it was executed. The Original Sin over which the church triumphs and from
which the repentant sinner is redeemed is illustrated in the satiric, indeed devilish masks that
appear as if imprisoned at the "groins" of the cartouches. The grimacing visages, beginning
with the male "vagina dentata," recollect, besides the biblical Original Sin, for which the Old
77
77
Law of Leviticus failed to compensate, a lewd and orgiastic Roman pagan fertility festival
which the Purification of the Virgin was said to have superseded (Fig. 65).69
65). 69 In the Roman
church, the Purification-Presentation, and the Candlemas celebration, which is its most conspicuous feature, had long been understood as a replacement for a pagan festival that took
place in the same season. The first writer to do so, the Venerable Bede (673-735) asserted
that the feast honoring Mary, February 2, was an antidote to a Roman purificatory sacrifice
celebrated in that month in honor of Februus, as Pluto, the god of the underworld. 70 The
history of the Purification-Presentation feast in relation to the pagan festival was thereafter
embodied in church tradition, recorded notably in the thirteenth-century Golden Legend of
Jacopo da Voragine, who relates that Candlemas was instituted to remedy a Roman festival
honoring the goddess Februa, to celebrate her motherhood of Mars.7 1
69
69
In particular the masks seem to echo the series of 24 engraved masks designed by Cornelis
Camelis Floris, Giulio
tide Libro di variate mascare
Romano, and the Monogrammist IHS, published in 1560 by Rene Boyvin with the title
quale servono a pittori scuftori
quafe
scultori et uomini ingeniosi, from which our illustration is taken. See Miller 1999, No.
38, 120-5. A similar mask appears at the backside of a Protestant female pope-monster in the controversy over
Pope Joanna (see below).
70
70 Wallis 1999, 48f.
The second [month] he [Numa] called after Februus, that is, Pluto, who was believed to rule over
purificatory sacrifice. In that month, in which [Numa] ordained that justice be done to the gods of the
underworld, the city was obliged to make purificatory sacrifices. But the Christian religion altered this
custom of purificatory sacrifice I for the better, when in that same month, on the feast of St Mary, the
whole populace with the priests and ministers goes on procession through the churches and the city
whole'
neighbourhoods, all singing devout hymns, and carrying in their hands burning candles given them
by the bishop. As this good custom grew, it provided a model for the conduct of other feasts of the
blessed Mother and perpetual Virgin as well, not in the five-year lustration of a worldly empire, but in
the everlasting memory of the heavenly kingdom where, according to the parable of the wise virgins,
all the elect shall go out to meet the Bridegroom, their King, with the lamps of their good deeds alight,
and then shall enter into the heavenly city with Him.
Jones 1943, 208f.
Secundum dicavit Februo, id est Plutoni, qui lustrationum patens
potens credebatur, lustrarique eo mense
civitatem necesse erat, quo statuit ut iusta diis manibus solverentur. Sed hanc lustrandi consuetudinem
eadem die sanctae Mariae plebs universa cum
bene mutavit christiana religio, cum I in mense eodem
sacerdotil ministris hymnis modula devotis per ecclesias perque congrua urbis loca procedit, datasque
ipsum
urn in
a pontifice cuncti cereas in manibus gestant ardentes. Et augescente bona consuetudine, id ips
utique
que in
caeteris quoque eiusdem beatae matris et perpetuae virginis festivitatibus agere didicit, non uti
lustrationem terrestris imperii quinquennem, sed in perennem caelestis memoriam; quando, iuxta
parabolam virginum prudentium, omnes electi lucentibus bonorum actuum lampadibus obviam
sponso ac regi suo venientes, mox cum eo ad nuptias supernae civitatis intrabunt.
71
71 Voragine 1969, 151-2:
... the feast was instituted first to remedy a pagan superstition. For of old the Romans, in order to
honour the goddess Februa, the mother of Mars, used to light up the whole city with candles and
torches in the first days of February. This was done every five years, and its purpose was to procure
the favour of the goddess, so that her son Mars would insure their victory over their enemies. The
period of five years between the feasts was called a lustrum. In the month of February the Romans also
honoured Pluto and the other gods of the underworld. In order to win their good will for the souls
of the dead, the people offered them solemn victims, and passed an entire night singing their praises,
with lighted torches and candles. The women were especially devoted to this feast, in accordance
with one of the myths of their religion. For the poets had said that Pluto, enamoured of Proserpine's
78

PETER'S
Cat. III
lH pI.
pl. 1I
C.1t.
C"t. lH
III pl.
1'1. 1
Cat. IS
l!l pI.
pl. 4
Cat.
C"I. IS pl.
1'1. <;
lH 1'1.
pl. 7
Cat. IS
Cat.
C"t. IS pl.
1'1. I
Cat. IS pl. 9
65. Libro di Variate maschare... , engravings. Boyvin 1560 {Miller

(Miller 1999, Car. Nos. 1-9).
79
Toward the end of the sixteenth century the great church historian Cardinal Cesare
Baronio (1538-1607) took a bold and crucial step by linking the Presentation specifically
and explicitly to the greatest, the most popular, the most ancient, and the most prurient of all
Roman celebrations, the Lupercalia (Fig. 66).72
66). 72 Baronio based this extraordinary leap of the
historical imagination on the fact that the earliest form of the Purification, the Quadragesima
Epiphaniae took place on February 14, the day before the Lupercalia on February 15. The
Lupercalia was, moreover, a quintessential Roman celebration, said to have been introduced
by Romulus himself and celebrated on a vast scale by the entire populace of the city. The
celebration incorporated the fundamental themes of augury for the coming spring, that of
purification and renewal, of regeneration and fertility. In addition to orgiastic and promiscuous public orgies, of both wine and libido, the festival was characterized by a quasi-primitive
ritual in which boys ran naked the length of the Via Sacra carrying goat skins, symbolic of
unrestrained productivity, with which they flagellated themselves and attendant girls, who
were thereby promised painless delivery of numerous offspring. 73 Above all, the evils of the
Lupercalia had been set forth in great detail in a vituperative polemic by Pope Gelasius I
(492-496) against the lingering vestige of the festival, which he condemned. Gelasius's letter
(492-496)
had been published for the first time in 1591, and Baronio cited it in arguing his illuminating
intuition, first in his discussion of the Feast of the Presentation in his 1586 revision of the
Martyrology/ 4 and later in his monumental Annales, which brought the theme to the very
Martyrology,74
forefront of Catholic ideology. By way of confirmation, Baronio refers to the Roman grammarian Varro, who describes the flogging of women with goat hides and says explicitly that
the Lupercalia was a celebration of fertility and purificationJ5
purification.7 5
beauty, had carried her off and made her his wife: and her parents, not knowing what had become of
her, were a long time searching for her with torches and candles. In memory of this, the Roman women
went in procession in order to obtain the favour of Proserpine. As it is always difficult to wipe out such
us decreed that in order to give to this one a Christian meaning, the Blessed Virgin
a custom, Pope Sergi
Sergius
should be honoured each year on this day, a blessed candle being carried in the hand to this end. Thus
the ancient usage was preserved, but at the same time transformed by a new intention. Candlemas was
established secondly to show forth the purity of the Virgin Mary. To impress her purity upon the minds
of all the Church ordered that we should carry lighted candles, as if to say: 'Most blessed Virgin, thou
hast no need of purification; on the contrary, thou art all light and all purity!' Such indeed was Mary's
innocence that it shone forth even outside of her, and any urgency of the flesh in others. Thus the Jews
tell us that although Mary was surpassing fair, no man could ever look upon her with desire. Thirdly,
the Candlemas is a symbol of the procession of Mary, Joseph, Simeon, and Anna, when they presented
the child Jesus in the Temple.
72 Shorr 1946, 17-9, gives a succinct account of the history of the Feast of the Purification, including its
72
relation to the pagan festivals; she seems not to have been aware, however, that it was Baronio who focused on
the Lupercalia. The Lupercalia as a fecundity celebration was visualized by Domenico Beccafumi early in the
1998, 207- 19).
sixteenth century for a palace decoration in Siena (Domenico 1990, 132, 136; Barbagli 1998,20773
73 On the Lupercalian ceremonies see Franklin 1921, Holleman 1974, Vlf
Ulf 1982.
74 Baronio 1586,67.
1586, 67. I have used the 1613 edition, p. 63.
75
75 De lingua latina VI, 13, Vtzrro 1938, I, 184f.
p.
185
p.185
The Lupercalia was so named because the Luperci make sacrifice in the Lupercal. When the High-priest
announces the monthly festivals on the Nones of February, he calls the day of the Lupercalia februatus:
7.
80
'
66. Domenico Beccafumi, Lupercalia.

Martelli Collection, Florence.
It is important to realize that Baronio was not the first to emphasize the importance
of the Lupercalia in the legacy of pagan religious celebrations, notably in the notoriously
licentious and vituperatively vilified festival of Carnival. In contrast to many other writers,
who relate carnival to the Saturnalia, which took place in December, the prolific Carmelite
poet Baptista Mantuanus
Mantuan us (1447-1516),
(144 7-1516), later beatified, derived Carnival from the Lupercalia,
which took place on February 15. Mantuanus's series of poems on the calendar of Fasti
emulate in modern moralizing Christian terms those of Ovid, and his poem on Carnival,
February 5, takes Ovid's account of the Lupercalia (Fasti II 15) as its point of departure.
Mantuanus describes in livid terms the evils of the tradition, in particular the naked men
erotically aroused and wearing masks (personata libido) roaming the streets and lashing
women with goat hides, addressed specifically to their hidden parts (membra recondita).
Mantuanus's Fasti was published posthumously in 1518, with a dedication to Leo X. In
for februm is the name which the Sabines give to a purification, and this word is not unknown in our
sacrifices; for a goat hide, with a thong of which the young women are flogged
Rogged at the Lupercalia, the
ancients called a februs,
februs, and the Lupercalia was called also Februatio 'Festival of Purification,' as I have
shown in the Books of the Antiquities.
p. 184
Lupercalia dicta, quod in Lupercali Luperci sacra faciunt
faciunr.. Rex cum ferias menstruas Nonis Februariis
er id in sacris nostris
nosrris verbum non
edicit, hunc diem februatum appellat; februm Sabini purgamentum, et
ignorum:
ignorum: nam pellem capri, cuius de !oro
loro caeduntur puellae Lupercalibus, veteres februm vocabant, et
er
Lupercalia Februatio, ut in Antiquitatum libris demonstravi.
81
81
1535 the early folklorist Johannes Boemus Aubanus (ca. 1485-1533/6) published a work on
popular customs in which he, too, related Carnival to the Lupercalia.76
Baronio's association of the Purification of the Virgin and the Lupercalia was thus not
merely a coincidence of dates but also of religious substance. Though not generally accepted
by modern scholars, the theory struck at the very center of the Counterreformatory effort to
reaffirm the moral and theological superiority of the church over the degeneracy of the pagans
and, by implication, that of the heretical Protestants and the recalcitrant Jews. Baronio had
perceived, as no one before, an inner link between the Jews and the Romans, the idea of
purification, which Christ had appropriated and submerged in the universal Church. Christ's
sacrifice healed mankind of the original sin of the Jews and the promiscuous license of the
pagans. Baronio's replacement of the Lupercalia by the Purification and Presentation fulfilled
in the domain of procreation the age-old definition of the church as the successor to the
ecclesia ex circumcisione and the ecclesia ex gentibus. In effect, Baronio brought to fruition the
fundamental theme of the universality of the Church, as expressed in the biblical metaphor
of creativity, that is childbirth, from the Woman clothed with the Sun envisioned in the Book
of Revelation, and from Christ's own childbirth account of the period from his death to his
Second Coming. Precisely this notion, an agony of creation triumphing over evil toward a
salutary end, is portrayed on the pedestals that support the columns of Bernini's baldachin,
where Urban VIII with his coat of arms succeeds Peter, the stone on which Christ built his
church, who, punning on his own name, referred to Christ as a corner stone. n
Marriage and Progeny

One of the most important of all records concerning St. Peter's is a letter addressed by Nicholas III to the canons of St. Peter's in which he avers that "The Church Militant may be visualized as the holy city of the New Jerusalem, descending from heaven and prepared by God as
a bride adorned for her spouse ... " Nicholas's idea was based on the traditional notion that
when Christ assumed his Mother to heaven she became his spouse, the Mater Ecdesia
Ecclesia and
the Queen of
Heaven, with all the faithful as her offspring. 78 1his
This nuptial concept, which had
ofHeaven,
been developed at length in a series of sermons on the consecration of pontiffs by Innocent
III, became part of the institutional ideology of the church, so that every bishop, beginning
with Peter, is betrothed to his church in an indissoluble and fruitful spiritual wedlock. 79
79
76
76
For the foregoing on Mantuanus and Aubanus, see Triimpy 1979, 30-2, 80-3, and Ulf
Vlf 1982, 70- 2. On
Carnival and Lupercalis in Rome, see the introductory pages in Clementi 1938-9, I, esp. 14-22.
idem lap
idem
n Isaiah 28: 16: idcirco haec dicit Dominus Deus ecce ego mittam in fundamentis Sion lap
lapidem
lapidem
probatum angularem pretiosum in fundamento fundatum qui crediderit non festinet
continet
eJectum
net in scriptura ecce pono in Sion lapidem summum angularem electum
1 Peter 2: 6: propter quod conti
pretiosum et qui crediderit in eo non confundetur
78 On the concept of Mater Ecclesia, see Plumpe 1943.
78
79
79 The fundamental work on the ecclesiology of Innocent III is Imkamp 1983, in our context especially
the sections on "The Fruitfulness of the Bride, Mater Ecclesia," 260-8, and "The Bond between the Pope and
the Roman Church as a Spiritual Marriage," 300- 23. Innocent's sermons have been beautifully translated and
82
Innocent's concept was illustrated in the great mosaic he commissioned for the apse of St.
Peter's (Fig. 67): in the center at the earthly level of the visionary composition the sacrificial
lamb was Ranked
flanked by a portrait of the pope as Bridegroom and an image of Ecclesia Romana,
while the first converts to the faith, the twelve apostles in the form of sheep, approached from
so Hence the second part of Nicholas's formulation: "Christ the
Jerusalem and Bethlehem. 80
bridegroom increases her through the multitude of the converted, clearly implying to us that
she should be increased by the number of her servants."81
servants." 81 A recent patristic study formulates
the union of Christ and the Church and their offspring of the faithful, specifically in the
82
metaphor of copulation. 82
Urban VIII was surely aware of these precedents: fragments of the
edited by Vause et al. 2004; see especially sermons two and four on the Consecration of Pontiffs and three, on
the first anniversary of his own election. Here also, p. 28, the St. Peter's apse mosaic is explained as an illustration
oflnnocent portrayed as the Bridegroom of the Roman church.
ofInnocent
80
80 See Imkamp 1983, 322, with the bibliography given there, and the excellent study of the mosaic by
Iacobini 2005.
81
81 Nicholas III, Letter to the Canons of St. Peter's, February 3, 1279, cited by M. Aronberg Lavin in Aron43,, 121f. n. 189. The letter begins,
berg Lavin and Lavin 2001, 43
Civitatem sanctam Jerusalem novam descendentem de celo a Deo para tam sicut sponsam ornatam viro
suo militans figurare valet ecclesia ut sit civitas per militantium unitatem sancta, per conversationis
vecustate
exempla Jerusalem in vita pacifica, nova ut juventus sua renovetur ut aquila, peccatorum vetustate
repulsa, descendens, per timorem reverentia Deo pariter et prelatis, de celo, per gratiam in ecclesiasticis
sacramentis, a Deo parata per fidem, virtutes et opera, sicut sponsa ornata viro suo per dece~tiam et
uc civitas, id est ad similitudinem
decorem. Hec est ilia Jerusalem, que secundum prophetam hedificacur
hedificatur lit
civitatis illius, cujus participatio in idipsum. Hanc Christus sponsus amplificat per multitudinem
conversorum, nobis patenler insinuans illam amplificandam fore per numerum servitorum. (The
Church Militant may be visualized as the holy city of the New Jerusalem, descending from heaven and
prepared by God as a bride adorned for her spouse as a city, because of the unity of her defenders; holy,
because Jerusalem is the model of conversion to peaceful life; new because her youth is renewed like an
eagle, repulsed by the old age of sinners; descending, because of her reverent fear of God and equally of
prelates; from heaven, because of the grace in ecclesiastical sacraments;
sacraments; prepared by God, through faith,
virtues, and works; as a bride adorned for her husband, because of her decency and propriety. This is
that Jerusalem, which according to the prophet is built as a city, that is, in similitude to that City which
participates in chis
this one. Christ the bridegroom increases her through the multitude of the converted,
clearly implying to us that she should be increased by the number of her servants; translation thanks
to
to Samatha Kelly);
Gay 1938, no. 517, 197- 213, "De canonicis et beneficiatis basilice S. Petri inservientibus, decultu divino et
carta'' of the
capitularis mense rebus complure sancit," cf. 197. This lengthy missive has been called the "magna carta"
80- 2; Andaloro 1984, 143-77 (English resume, 178-81).
Vatican Chapter; Mann 1902-32, XVI, 80-2;
82
Notum est, Christum in Cruce meruisse Spiritus sui gratias

gracias non solum fidelibus Novi Testamenti,
sed etiam Antiqui Foederis. Licet mirum videri posit, ramen
tamen et hoc mysterium sub allegoria unionis
tum Ecclesiam, in Cruce Christo
sponsalis propositum est. Docet cnim S. Irenaeus cum Synagogam cum
unitas, a Salvatore accipisse Spiritum, idque explicat in memoriam revocans historiam Lot et filiarum
eius, Postquam enim Dominus potum
porum sumpserat in Coena Eucharistica
Eucharisrica - ita ad Irenaei mentem recubuit in Cruce, ibique dormivit et somnum coepit, seseque univit plasmati suo, per semen divinum,
qui est Spiritus Dei, sibi copulans duas synagogas, maio
maiorem
rem et minorem natu, ut ipsae ex Patre suo, qui
Christus est, fructificarent filios vivos Deo. (Tromp 1937, 16; also 7,9,15,20)
7, 9, 15, 20)
83
67. Apse mosaic with Innocent III and Ecclesia Romana, Old St. Peter's, watercolor.
MS Barb. Lat. 2733, 158f., Biblioteca Apostolica
Aposrolica Vaticana, Rome.
mosaic were preserved and the head of Ecclesia Romana, now in the Museo di Rorna,
Roma, carne
came
83
from the Barberini collection.
The Chastity ofBees

Spiritual betrothal and the laborious creation of its progeny is exactly what is emblematized
in the pedestals of the Baldacchino: the birthing that takes place in the embrace of the
papal arms, with the expressive heads above, the bees marking the breasts and the belly in
the swollen torso, and the groin covered or replaced by the ghoulish masks that echo the
goatskins with which, in the Lupercalia, pagan women were lashed at their groins to insure
fertility. This increase in the faithful through conversion and baptism is precisely the kind of
progeny envisaged by Methodius and other churchmen as resulting from the travails of the
apocalyptic Woman clothed in the Sun, and Christ's own procreative passing from his death
Corning - a troubled birth with a happy issue. This construct of the ideology
to his Second Coming
of the Church depends wholly on the virginity of Mary, which is expressed in the Barberini
coats of arms by the bees.
83
83
Iacobini
lacobini 2005, 49f.
84
Among the leading intellectuals who expected great things from the urbane and humanistically inclined new pontiff were the members of the nascent scientific society, the Accademia
dei Lincei, which included the pope's controversial protege Galileo. To celebrate the Jubilee
of 1625, the major event that followed, fortuitously, as if in celebration, the pope's election
(and the beginning of work on the Baldacchino), the group produced three novel, even revolutionary works of science and scholarly erudition, all devoted to the bee. 84 1he
The first was the
famous engraving, the Melissographia, dated 1625, showing three greatly magnified views of
the bee, top, bottom, and side, arranged as in the pope's coat of armsarms - the first illustration
Stelluti,
of a subject observed (by Francesco Stell
uti, so inscribed at the bottom of the print) under a
microscope (Fig. 68). The main preoccupation in the Lincei circle was with one above all of
the seeming miraculous virtues of the bee, its mysterious capacity to procreate autogenetically, without intercourse. This divine chastity had in antiquity made the bee sacred to the chaste
and virgin goddess, Diana, commonly identified with the Virgin Mary, and the second work
was a poetic numismatic tract with elaborate explanatory notes by the Belgian Lincean Justus
Riquius, devoted to the cult of Diana as represented on coins with her sacred bee (Fig. 69).
"Even the many-breasted statue of Diana at Ephesus ... did not mean that she was in any way
unchaste. Her abundant breasts were not for any sexual purpose, but to imbibe nurture and
nourishment. 85 So too the ample bee-breasts of the coats of arms. The chastity and fecundity
of the bees are inherent in those of the pope. 86 1he
The third Jubilee publication of the Linceans,
also in 1625, was an extensive treatise on the natural history of the bee by Federico Cesi
87
tided Apiarium. 87
himself, titled
Printed with extreme density in perfect order, like a bee-hive, on
four sheets conjoined to make a huge broadside (107 x 69.5 em), the work is a wonderment
in itself (Fig. 70). Cesi also starts with Roman bee coins, and eulogizes the many qualities
of the bee that correspond to those of the pope and his "Urban bees." But his prime interest
was precisely in the wondrous autogenesis of the bee, since it focused on the very nature of
creativity. Cesi is at pains to explain, in purely "natural" terms, how the king bee (actually the
queen) creates its myriad progeny without intercourse, while the females remain inviolate.
Nowhere does he appeal explicitly to divine intervention, but the reference to the pope as
the chaste King Bee is explicit, and he does appeal to what he calls the "seminal" or "vital"
spirits of the King; and the parallel with the theology of the incarnation and the progeny of
the Mother Church is implicit. All this under the aegis, as it were, of the triune image of the
Barberini bees. It is particularly significant in our context that this mysterious natural history
of the bee had long since been epitomized in the traditional explanation of the most famous
ritual of the Feast of the Purification of the Virgin, in Voragine's Golden Legend: the wax
84
84
85
85
For what follows here I am wholly dependent on the splendid work of Freedberg 2002, esp. 154-78.
Riquius 1625. Freedberg 2002,439,
2002, 439, n. 26:
His alitur mortale genus, vitaeque animantium,
Vi tales succos hinc elemema
elementa bibunt.
86
86 "The leitmotif of the poem would thus be the parallel between the chastity of the bees and that of Urban
himself." Freedberg 2002, 165.
87
87 Undated but mentioned in a letter by Cesi of September 1625 (Freedberg 2002, 166). The work has recently been edited and translated by Guerrini and Guardo 2005. A fine
nne English edition and translation remains
Kidwell1970.
1970.
unpublished, Kidwell
THE APSE AND

AND CROSSING
THE
Greuter. Melissographia, engraving, 1625.

68. Hans Greuter.
85
86
'
69. Coins of Diana with bees, in a laurel wreath

(Riquius 1625, engraved frontispiece)
frontispiece)..
AP I A R
IVM
EXFRONTISP ICIIS.NATVRALIS.THEATRI
EX.FRONTISP
ICIJS.NATVRAL!S.THEATRl
P R INC
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70. Federico Cesi, Apiarium, Rome, 1625

(photo: Ragazzini, Rome).
87
88
of the candles carried in the Candlemas celebration was "a sign of his [Christ's] body, which
was born of the Virgin Mary without corruption of the flesh, as bees make honey without
mingling with each other."88
other." 88
Born From the Dunghill
Another important tradition related to the theme of the progeny of the pope in his marriage
with the church relates to the ritual of the investiture of newly elected popes, from the
Coronation, when he is vested with the accouterments of his office, including the episcopal
ring as a sign of his ecclesiastical marriage, to the ceremony of taking possession of his
cathedral, in this case St. John's in the Lateran, the ancient seat of the papacy founded by
Constantine on the site of the Sessorian Palace. In the case of Rome the possession signified
the world dominion of the pope and the institutional church. Two biblical texts are crucial to
an understanding of how this process was conceived. The first is recited by Hanna, the famous
Song of Hanna, in the first Book of Samuel, where the prophetess intones her than~s to the
Lord for opening her womb, previously barren, to bear her son, whom she had promised to
dedicate to the priesthood, and who became the future leader of Israel.
Samuel1:
1:
1 Samuel
27 For this child I prayed; and the LORD hath given me my petition which I asked
of him:
28 Therefore also I have lent him to the LORD; as long as he liveth he shall be lent
to the LORD.
1 Samuel
Samuel2:
2:
7 The LORD maketh poor, and maketh rich: he bringeth low, and lifteth up.
8 He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill
(de stercore elevat), to set them among princes, and to make them inherit the throne
of glory: for the pillars of the earth are the LORD's, and he hath set the world upon
them.
The theme and much of the wording is repeated in Psalm 112,
5 Who is as the Lord our God, who dwelleth on high:
6 and looketh down on the low things in heaven and in earth?
7 Raising up the needy from the earth, and lifting up the poor out of the dunghill:
8 That he may place him with princes, with the princes of his people.
9 Who maketh a barren woman to dwell in a house, the joyful mother of children.
sa Voragine
voragine 1993, I, 149. For associations of Mary with the bee, the candle, and wax, especially with respect
to the virgin birth, the references in Marracci 1710, 30f., 89; Salzer 1967, s.v. Biene, Kerze, Wachs.
89
about the genesis and elevation of Samuel was recited by the assembled
and the passage abour
cardinals as the newly elected Pope assumed his exalted position, reminding him of his humble
origin, of the divine act that had elevated him, and of the promise of sanctified progeny.
These texts are of primary importance in the history of rulership, in that they articulate
the moral conditions under which God bestows the authority of dominion over others. The
first is that it is indeed God on high who bestows this power. The second is that the rulership
results from God's charitable act of lifting the poor and needy to the company of princes.
The third is the promise of fulfillment through increase, expressed through the metaphor or
analogy of joy in the wonderment of a barren woman who bears children. In sum, the ruler
in his exaltation must remember that his power is not of his own making but stems from
God, that his origin is humble, earthly, and poor, and that God's benefice will be the joy
of his faithful subjects. For Cardinal Bellarmine, commenting on the psalm in the time of
Urban VIII, the man raised from the filth of original sin joins the possessors of the Heavenly
Jerusalem, and the participants of the Kingdom of Heaven. He compares this elevation to
the childless woman made fertile; and the latter generally to individual women from Sarah
to Anna. In a higher sense the elevation also applies to the church comprised of the gentiles,
ecclesia ex gentibus, which remained sterile for a long time, until in old age it gave birth to
89
many. 89
In the Middle Ages these biblical definitions of rulership gave rise to a traditional ceremony of taking possession in which once the pope was enthroned, all the cardinals honored
him by elevating him and intoning the stercore verse from the book of Samuel, after which he
threw three handfuls of coins to the people, intoning the line from the Acts of the Apostles
(3: 6) spoken by Peter when he healed the lame man at the Temple of]erusalem
ofJerusalem "Silver and
gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee."90
thee." 90 The medieval white marble throne in the
Lateran used for this ceremony came to be known, from the biblical vocabulary, as the Sedes
Stercorata or Stercoraria (the dung chair) (Fig. 71). The ceremony, in effect, consummated the
marriage between the Church and the pope. The term became notorious, however, when it
was associated with two other, altogether different "thrones" that were used in the ritual that
followed (Fig. 72).91
72). 91 Made of red marble thought to be porphyry, perforated and cut open at
89
89
Bellarmino II, 1866, 268:

stercora peceati originalis et consequentiam rniseriarum; et
nam genus humanum jacebat in terra, et in stercoro
ramen Deus sedens in coelo respexit in terram, et inde suscitavit inopem, hominem videlicet spoliatum
tamen
much a latronibus, et relictum semivivum, et jacentem in stercore miseriarum, ut collocaret eum a
"cum principibus : " non quibuscumque, sed "cum principibus populi sui," possessoribus coelestis
Jerusalem, et participibus regni coelorum.
Quemadmodum infelicitas virorum est status humilise et despectus, ita infelicitas mulierum
est sterilitas. Sed quomodo Deus respicit viros humiles, ut de statu infima
infimo erigat ad regnim, ita respicit
humiles feminas, ut de steriIitate
sterilitate perducat ad fecunditatem.
fecunditatem . Potest autem hoc tatum
totum referri ad singulas
feminas, ut Saram, Rebeecam, Rachelem, Annam, et similes. Sed altiore sensu pertinet ad Ecclesiam ex
gentibus congregatam, quae longo tempore mansit sterilis, sed in senectute peprit plurimos
plutimos ..
....
90
9o Burckard 1906-14, 83.
91 On the chair in the Vatican, see Helbig 1963-72, I, 156, no. 212, with references. The second chair,
91
identical, was removed to the Louvre by Napoleon. There is also a polychrome marble specimen in the British
Museum that came from the Baths of Caracalla.
90
71. Papal dung throne (sedes stercorata),

marble. San Giovanni in Laterano,
Rome.
72. Porphyry chair. Musei Vaticani,

Rome.
91
73. Ancient Roman Latrine. Ostia.
the front, these chairs were of a shape that actually embodied the three elements of the biblical
theme of enthronement. The perforations corresponded to those used by ancient Romans in
their latrines and in obstetrical chairs, when women were delivered from a seated or reclining
position, and by virtue of their material they were indeed imperial thrones (Figs. 73-4).92
73-4). 92 1he
The
sedes stercorata and these extraordinary objects of papal ritual were notorious evidence, perhaps
even the progenitors, in the endless polemics about the supposed medieval female pope Joanna
who gave birth during the possession ceremony, and hence their use in verifYing the sex of
newly elected popes. 93 Through the Middle Ages the popes were indeed described as seated
successively on the two porphyry chairs in a distended position as if reclining. In point of fact,
however, early accounts of the coronation ceremonies give a quite specific explanation of the
two chairs and the reclining position - that the newly elected pope appeared to lie between
the primacy of Peter the Prince of the Apostles and the preaching of Paul, the apostle to the
Gentiles. In my view the phraseology, to lie "between the two lectulos"
fectufos" (biers) of Peter and
Paul, entombed at St. Peter's in the Vatican, refers to the transitoriness of the Pope's reign, an
idea by no means inconsistent with that of the "progeny" expected of his marriage with the
Church. 94 In this sense the election ceremony of a new pope may be understood as a sort of
mimetic commemoration of the passing of the apostles, as well as a rebirth of the Church,
92
92
On the terracotta relief at Ostia, see Helbig 1963- 72, IV, 14f., no. 3004.
Except for the ideological implications of the biblical passages that underlay the whole phenomenon, the
stories of the sedes stercorata and Pope Joanna have been amply studied by D'Onofrio 1979, to whose work I
have been indebted. Important subsequent studies are those by Gussone 1972, esp. 251-87, Maccarrone 1991,
II, esp. 1304-25, Paravicini-Bagliani 2000, 39-57, and Boureau 200l.
2001.
94 Qui siquidem electus illis duobus sedibus sic sedere debet ac si videatur inter duos lectulos jacere, id est,
94
ut accumbat inter principis Apostolorum Petri primatum et Pauli doctoris gentium praedicationem.
93
93
92
both points expressed in the pair of perforated porphyry thrones and the reclining position.
The scandalous stories nevertheless became powerful instruments of anti-papal Protestant propaganda, engendering a vicious polemic through the sixteenth century, including depictions
of the pope giving birth, being examined, as a female demon, as Satan himself with female
breasts, wearing a quasi-tiara, enthroned, legs spread to reveal an open-mouthed, jeering face;
the nether mask of Satan could also function ambiguously, expelling nude souls to a new,
eternal life in Hell (Figs. 75-9).9
75-9). 955 Partly owing to these unsavory associations, no doubt, the
sedes stercorata and porphyry chairs were long abandoned by Urban VIII's time. 96 But the
underlying ecclesiological theme was certainly not forgotten - Bellarmine and Baronio were
among the main protagonists in the debatedebate - and the biblically mandated, three-fold constituents of papal rule, redemption from original sin, exaltation to the highest dominion, and
the divinely ordained progeny born from his spiritual marriage to the church, are reflected
in the coats of arms that adorn the pedestals of the Baldacchino. Mary's Magnificat in Luke
I: 46ff. uses language similar to that of the Old Testament, and expresses the same idea of
the Lord miraculously fecundating the barren and raising up the humble. 97 And Hannah
Maccarrone 1991, 1318 and n. 198, rejecting altogether D'Onofrio's birthing interpretation, cites this text
to suggest that the purpose of the action was to give the pope a rest during the arduous ceremonies. (D'Onofrio's
reading, p. 152, of super for inter, is indeed unacceptable.) My own view, based on the admonition to humility
in the apostolic succession, coincides perfectly with those of Paravicini- Bagliani 2000, 50f., and Boureau 2001,
90-8; they also reject any reference to progeny, however, leaving unexplained the use of perforated chairs in the
ritual.
95
95 See the rich collection of material on the sixteenth-century debate collected and discussed by Zen 1994,
1979, 94-128. The fertility connota211 - 22. The Protestant images are discussed in this context by D'Onofrio 1979,94-128.
tions of nether-faced devils, including the Satan figures reproduced here, have been explored in an illuminating
study by Paxson 1998. Concerning Boaistuau see Bates 2005, 66, 72; Morrona, who published the second
pl. 10), dated it about 1500 and thought it represented the original form of Satan
engraving (1812, II, 240-3, pI.
in Orcagna's then much restored and now largely destroyed vision of Hell in the Camposanta
Camposanra (see also Bucci
fig. 44).
and Bertolini 1960, 58, fig.
96 Evidently Leo X was the last pope to use all three chairs, beginning with the sedes stercorata, the elevation
96
and the recitation of the passage from the Song of Hannah. In each case Leo X was said to have been seated
as if reclining. D'Onofrio (1979, 159) considered this position an allusion to parturition, which in my view
would indeed refer to the miraculous birth that concludes the biblical stercore passages. It is intriguing that
this obstetrical association might have been part of the Medici-Medicus metaphor that profoundly informed
.. . tres Priores Ordinum Cardinali
Cardinalium
urn
the ideology of Leo's reign from the outset. " ... ad quem jacentem ...
dixerunt super eum, dum eievarunt, suscitat de stercore etc. et Papa stans accepit de gremio Camerarii tres pugnos
. . .primo sed
sedens,
ens, quasi iacens ... et deinde ...
.. .
quatrinorum, et projiciens dixit, argentum, et aurum etc .... Postea ..
Papa surgens
surgens ivit ad aiiam Sedem, et jacuit ... (from the description of the papal Master of Ceremonies Paris de
Grassis, published by Cancellieri 1802, 64).
97
97 Magnificat, Luke 1:
46. And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord,
47. And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.
48. For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth all generations
shall call me blessed.
49. For he that is mighty hath done to me great things; and holy is his name.
50. And his mercy is on them that fear him from generation to generation.
74. Scene of Birth, terracotta. Ostia, Museo Ostiense

No.4,
(Mus. No.
4, Inv. 5204).
75. Pope giving birth, woodcut. (Wolf 1600, I, 230).
93
94
76. Pope being examined, woodcut

(Wolf 1600, I, 224).
77. Female Pope-Donkey, woodcut

(Melancthon and Luther 1523).
78. Pierre Boaistuau, Satan

(Boaistuau 1560, 1) .
. . . . . .,.
A
__
__
_ or
'P J
J
.....
_
79. Satan, engraving ca. 1500,

pl. 10).
det. (Morrona 1812, II, pI.
95
96
presented the infant Samuel in the Temple at Shiloh, as Mary presented Christ in the Temple
98
of Jerusalem. 98 98a
MARGINALIA: EMBLEMS OF SALVATION
jubilee
Jubilee
The main themes we have discerned in the imagery of the coats of arms affixed to the pedestals
are encapsulated and incorporated into the fabric of the Baldacchino itself
itselfin
in the form of what
might be called marginalia, or rather footnotes distributed here and there on the plinths of
the bronze columns. 99 1hese
These seemingly incidental details, seven in all, are in fact serendipitous
testimonies to the kind of divine intervention that occurred with the invasion of bees at the
pope's election (Figs. 80-7). They are of two kinds: commemorative medals, personal as
well as devotional; and explicitly emblematic animals. Be it noted that these mementoes
51. He hath shewed strength with his arm; he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their
hearts.
52. He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree.
53. He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away.
54. He hath holpen his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy;
55. As he spake to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed for ever.
Luke 1
46. Et ait
air Maria: "Magnificat anima mea Dominum,
47. et exsultavit spiritus meus in Deo salvatore meo,
48. quia respexit humilitatem ancillae suae. Ecce enim ex hoc beatam me dicent omnes generationes,
49. quia fecit mihi magna, qui potens est, et sanctum nomen eius,
50. et misericordia eius in progenies et progenies timentibus eum.
51. Fecit potentiam in brachio suo, dispersit superbos mente cordis sui;
52. deposuit potentes de sede et exaltavit
exalravit humiles;
53. esurientes implevit bonis et divites
divires dimisit inanes.
54. Suscepit Israel puerum suum, recordatus misericordiae,
55. sicut locutus
locurus est ad patres
parres nostros,
nosrros, Abraham et semini eius in saecula ".
98
98 Anna presented Samuel to the Lord in the temple of Shiloh (lSam.
(1Sam. 1:24-28)
1:24-28);; the Virgin Mary presented
2:22-39) .
Jesus in the Temple of Jerusalem (Luke 2:22-39).
9
& An astonishing parallel for the main theme encapsulated in the pedestals of the Baldacchino has recently
98:1
come to light, in the form of an allegorical painting by the Antwerp artist Frans Francken II (1581-1642). The
picture is composed in two horizontal registers, the empyrean above, centered upon the three cardinal virtues
flanked on left by Hercules, emblematic of Fortitude, and on the right by Minerva, emblematic of Divine
Wisdom; below, a scene of Hell, flanked by Death as a skeleton entering from the left, and by Father Time
fleeing from the right. The kind of moral allegory portrayed here is characteristic of Jesuit school drama, the
plays produced, often very elaborately and in emulation of classical drama, by the students in Jesuit seminaries
Harring 1989, 342f.
342( No. 362*).
everywhere. (Harting
(Harring 1983, 185 n.
n. 437; Harting
99
99 These details
Portoghesi 1967, 33; Antonazzi 1975,
derails have been discussed and in part reproduced by Porroghesi
2, Scarfone 1977, Wallace 1978, 161, Fehl 1986, 176f., Kirwin 1997, 140-5,
140-5 , Spagnolo, in Pinelli 2000 ,
Schede, 796, Noe 2001, 62f., and in the exemplary monographic study of Urban VIII's medals by Simonato
2008,50.
2008, 50.
97
are life-size, literally true to life, and partly for this very reason, they refer to the real world,
the altar itself and its role in the mission of the church. Suspended from beads or ribbons
draped over the edges of the column stylobates, the medals are all of the sort that would
have been acquired by pilgrims to the 1625 Jubilee and deposited by them anonymously as
votive signs of their devotion, in the hope of finding miraculous cures for their afflictions.
They came to St. Peter's as if to Jerusalem, circled around the Baldacchino, and ultimately the
passion relics displayed in the crossing piers, celebrating Holy Year in perpetuity in a kind
of virtual via crucis - exactly as Eisenstein understood. Two are medallic portraits of the
pope, such as were often inserted in the foundations of new structures as good omens and
historical records. One shows the pope facing left, his hand raised in blessing, wearing the
papal cap (camaura) and cape (mozzetta). The medal is shown backwards (the pope blesses
with his right hand, always the near hand on profile medals), probably as a negative form
prior to casting. The anomaly is no accident: shown thus on the north face of the Veronica
pedestal, the pope's blessing is toward the altar. No example of this type is extant, but
bur there is
a correspondence to the single medallic portrait of Urban shown blessing, wearing tiara and
cope, issued to commemorate the canonization of Andrea Corsini, which took place on the
same spot, as it were, in 1629; the scene on the reverse includes an important version of the
Baldacchino itself (Fig. 88). A third medal, which shows the pope facing right toward the
choir, hatless and wearing the papal cope, is doubtless the one issued in 1624, with an image
of Justice on the reverse, recording the pope's efforts to achieve a peaceful settlement to the
Thirty Year's War (Fig. 89).
WEST
Choir
Andrew
(1]. north face
face Fly
1 Southeast Pedestal [I].
Veromca
Veronica
2 Southwest Pedestal [II]. west face Rosary With
Vero111ca-Porta Santa Medal
Verolllca-Porta
[II]. north face Medal suspended from
3 Southwest Pedestal [II),
a ribbon,
nbbon. Urban VIII facing left,
left. right
nght hand raised
ra1sed biesslllg,
blessmg ,
weanng camaura and mozzetta
wearing
Helen
4 Northwest Pedestal [III).
[Ill]. west face Urban VIII medal
(obverse and reverse) suspended from a sash
5 Northwest Pedestal [III].
[Ill]. west face lizard
Lizard crawling up
[Ill]. north face lizard
Lizard crawling up
6 Northwest Pedestal [III].
Longinus
Longillus
Nortl1east Pedestal [IV),
[IV]. west face
Lizard crawling down
7 Nortlleast
face' lizard
clevo
Uri ng a scorpi
on
devouring
scorpion
1\nd'cw
I\ndrew
80. List and Diagram of Locations of

ofBaldacchino
Baldacchino Marginalia.
Longlno.r;
Longlnus

PETER'S
98
81. Southeast Pedestal [I],

north face, Fly (1).
82. Southwest Pedestal [II],

west face, Rosary with
Veronica-Porta Santa
medal (2).
99
'
)
100
83. Southwest Pedestal [II],

north face, Medal suspended
from on a ribbon, Urban VIII
facing left right hand raised
blessing, wearing camaura and
mozzetta (3).
84. Northwest Pedestal [III], west face, Medal of Urban VIII

(obverse and reverse) suspended on a sash (4).
101
102
85. Northwest Pedestal [III],

west face, Lizard crawling
up (5).
86. Northwest Pedestal [III],

north face, Lizard crawling
up (6).
103
104
87. Northeast Pedestal [IV],

west face, Lizard crawling
down devouring scorpion
(7).
'
105
Of a devotional nature is a rosary from which is suspended an oval medal showing the
Porta Santa flanked by Peter and Paul; this was specifically a souvenir of the Jubilee, recalling
the indulgences earned by those who made the pilgrimage, passed through the portal and
100
performed this venerable devotion to the Virgin at the high altar. 100
The Porta Santa, as the
entrance both to St. Peter's and via the Church to redemption, was also known as the Porta
Coeli, the gateway to heaven, one of the most common epithets of the Virgin, referring both
to her virginity and the incarnation, and to her intercessory role in the process of salvation.
The reverse of the medal in the one known example of this oval type, shows Veronica presenting her miraculous image of the Savior, the display of which during Holy Year, very rare at
101
other times, was one of the celebration's most important features and attractions (Fig. 90).
90).101
The rosary had a particular relevance to the virginal theme of the pedestals and the Trinitarian ideology of the Baldacchino as a whole, since they evoked the Woman of the Apoca102
lypse and were recited in honor of the Trinity. 102
The rosary was also given special prominence
1he
during the 1625 Jubilee in a vast celebratory procession organized by the Dominicans at
Santa Maria sopra Minerva, 5-12 October. The celebration centered on a huge temporary
structure designed by Orazio Torriani (who the following year collaborated with Bernini on
the high altar of Sant' Agostino), which clearly reflects the Baldacchino in overall design and
103
in many details (Fig. 91).
91).103
Particularly significant, however, is the fact that in a detailed
contemporary account of the celebration the structure is called a "talamo," that is, a nuptial
chamber, in reference to the image it contained of the Queen of Heaven holding the Christ
child, striking
str~king exactly the same note as do the pedestals of the Baldacchino. The patron of the
event was Carlo Barberini, the new pope's brother.
Lizards and the Sol Iustitiae

Justitiae
Many small animals populate the natural tendrils of the ancient marble columns, but here,
isolated on the plinths, there are only lizards, a scorpion, and a fly. 104
104
The importance and meaning of two of the lizards may be illuminatedilluminated - I use the word
deliberately - by one of the great contributions to the art history of classical sculpture, made
deliberatelyas recently as 2002 in a brilliant study by Renate Preisshofen. Preisshofen resolved at last
100
100 For what follows here concerning the imagery, symbolism, and ritual related to the Holy Year, see the
comprehensive survey by Fagiolo and Madonna 1984.
101
101 Fagiolo and Madonna 1984, 54, fig. II 2.12a.
10
102z Lapide 1866-88, XXI, col. 238. Comment on Rev. 12: 1: et in capite eius corona stellarum duodecim:
Ex hoc loco nonnulli viri religiosi et cultus B. Virginis studiosi, conficiunt coronam, sive Rosarium
duodecim stellarum, illudque hoc modo recitant. In honorem S. Trinitatis legunt interpolate ter
orationem Dominicam, puta ter Pater noster...
103
103 First published by Lavin 1973; see Fagiolo dell'Arco 1997,262-4.
1997, 262-4. On the work at S. Agostino, Wittkowerl997, 246, no. 23.
kower1997,
104
II)4 1he animals on the marble columns, including a lizard on the health-giving Colonna Santa are noted by
Nobiloni 1997,
1997 ,passim,
passim, and see 94).
106
'
the traditional but patently anomalous and contradictory interpretation of one of the major
monuments of Greek art, the so-called Apollo Stauroctonos, originally a work in bronze by
Praxiteles, famous from the references to it in ancient sources and from the innumerable extant copies and variants in virtually all media (Fig. 92). The sculpture showed the god leaning
against a tree or tree stump, with a lizard climbing up the trunk. The god carried a bow and
arrow, as if preparing to shoot an arrow at the animal, hence the epithet, stauroctonos, lizard
killer, attached to the figure by Pliny, "He also made a young Apollo with an arrow watching a
lizard as it creeps up with the intent to slay it close
dose at hand; this is known as the Sauroktonos
or Lizard-slayer," whose interpretation was followed by the poet Martial, "Corinthian Lizard
Slayer. Spare the lizard, insidious boy, as she creeps toward you; she wants to die by your
fingers." 105
105 Preisshofen showed that Pliny was simply in error, misinterpreting the meaning
of Apollo's gesture, perhaps by association with the story of Apollo killing the python; and
especially misunderstanding the action of the reptile, which climbs up toward the god, rather
than scampering away to hide, as is the animal's wont under such circumstances. Most important is the fact that throughout the physiological tradition the lizard is sacred to Apollo,
dearly medicinal, invoked to augur
with whom it is frequently associated in contexts that are clearly
healing from disease, and one ailment in particular, diseases of the eyes. It was said that the
lizard had the extraordinary capacity when it lost its eyesight, by accident or as it aged, to face
the sun and regain its eyesight miraculously from the rays of light cast from the sun's rays.
Far from slaying the lizard, Apollo's luminous arrows actually heal him. The mythographer
Hyginus describes Apollo, the father of Asclepius,
Asdepius, as the first to practice the art of treating
106
the eyes. lOG The Praxitelean statue is not of a type known only from a single, misguided and
misguiding phrase in Pliny, repeated by Martial, but instead embodies one of the best known
(1a'tQ6c; Iatros in Greek, Medicus
and oft-repeated epithets of the god, Apollo the Physician (1a'rQ6c;
and Salutaris in Latin), perfectly embodied in the figure's tender form, gentle attitude, and
benign expression. 107 Hence the lizard itself became a medication and magical talisman to
ward off or recover from eye ailments; and the relationship was explicit, as can be seen, for
example, in a gem amulet showing a lizard and inscribed LVMINA RESTITVTA, where the
108
translucency of the material invokes the agent of the charm (Fig. 93).
93).108
It is astonishing to discover that Bernini may have been aware of the true meaning of
the Praxitelean work, even though the error was only corrected by modern scholarship in
IOS NH 34, 70: "Fecit

lacerate comminus sagitta insidiantem quem saulOS
"Fecir et
er puberem Apollinem subrepenti lacerare
roctonon vocant" (1896, 56)
292) :
56).. Martial, Epigrams, 172 (Bailey 1993, III, 292):
rocronon
Sauroctonos Corinthius
Saurocronos
Ad te
re reptanti,
repranti, puer insidiose, lacertaep
parce; cupit digitis ilia perire tuis.
106
106 Hyginus, Fabulae,
2002, 196: Apollo artem oculariam medicinam
Fabulae, No. 274; Grant 1960, 173; Marshall
Marshall2002,
primus fecit.
107
107 The epigraphical evidence for the Greek term has been collected by von Staden in an essay "The Oath
and the oaths", that will appear in France in a Festschrift for Jacques Jouanna.
108
108 Panofka 1852,474,
1852, 474f., No. 109. The many physiological and medicinal sources may be traced through
the citations in Preisshofen 2002, 51-3. While correcting the proof of this work I discovered Jean Sorabella's
wide-ranging discussion (2007) of lizard lore and representations in antiquity, in which, however, Preisshofen's
study was overlooked.
88. Medal of Urban VIII facing right wearing tiara and cope, blessing;
reverse: Canonization of Andrea Corsini, 1629. British Museum, London.
89. Medal of Urban VIII facing right, bare-headed wearing cope;

reverse: Justice seated holding balance and sword, 1624. British Museum, London.
107
108
'
90. Jubilee medal, Veronica and Porta Santa

with SS Peter and Paul, 1625. Private collection
(Fagiolo and Madonna, eds., 1984, Fig. 11. 2.
2a).
91. Orazio Torriani, "Talamo" at S. Maria

sopra Minerva for the procession of the
Rosary, engraving (Brandi 1625,61).
1625, 61) .
Efcmpiare
Efcmplare del Talamo di fopra dcfcritto
92. Apollo "Salutari" (Sauroktonos)

from the Borghese Collection, marble.
Musee du Louvre, Paris.
93. LVMINA RESTITVTA, intaglio gem stone in gold ring.

Staadiche Museen, Berlin.
94. Faustina Minor, 145-76 AD, reverse,

Apollo with Lizard on column,
Philippopolis.
Gorny & Mosch Giessener Miinzhandlung,
Auction 115, March 5th, 2002,
Lot number: 1305
(Photo courtesy Christoph Mosch).
95. Antoninus Pius, 138-61 AC.,

reverse, Apollo in a tetrasryle temple front,
Mysia. Staadiche Museen, Berlin.
109
110
96. Sauras and Batrachos Capital. San Lorenzo fuori le

Ie Mura, Rome.
Synagogue. South Transept Portal, Cathedral, Strasbourg.

97. Synagogue.
Ill
111
2002. The statue was first associated with the passage in Pliny in the eighteenth century. The
version now in the Louvre was in the Villa Borghese in the early seventeenth century, where
in Jacomo Manilli's 1650 description of the villa the subject is correctly identified as Apollo
Salutare (Apollo the Physician), and the animal on the trunk identified as a snake, which
had the same attributes of shedding its skin and renewing its eyesight in the sun and was
109
Manilli may fortunately have been unaware of Pliny's and
also deemed a symbol of health. 109
Martial's misidentification, relying instead, as did Preisshofen, on the abundant literary and
numismatic evidence that associated Apollo with healing.
Bernini and his contemporaries very likely knew the sculpture and understood it in this
way. On the Baldacchino column bases two of the lizards are also shown climbing up the
face of the plinth toward the emblems of the sun that alternate with bees on the torus above.
Association of the Praxitelean type of Apollo healing the lizard with the architectural context
of the Baldacchino may have come from coins on which the figure is actually shown leaning on a column taking aim at the lizard crawling upward (Fig. 94). A further relevance to
the Baldacchino may have been suggested by coins that show the statue as a cult figure in a
110
four-columned front of the temple of the sun god (Fig. 95).
95).110
There may even have been an
association with the twisted columns, from the appearance of a lizard in the spiral volute of a
famous ionic capital in San Lorenzo fuori le
Ie Mura in Rome, where a frog appears in the other
111
volute (Fig. 96).
96).111
The names of the animals in Greek, Sauras and Batrachos, are recorded
in Pliny as two architects who designed temples in Rome; foiled in their wish to sign the
buildings, instead they inserted the homonymic animals in the "spiris" (literally spirals) of the
columns (in columnarum spiris inscalptae).112
inscalptae). 112 Winckelmann was the first to link the passage
to the capital at San Lorenzo, but the text might easily evoke the spiral columns at St. Peter's,
and serve as a personal commemoration and association with the ancient architect. 113 The
motif thus alludes to the same kind of healing process as that associated with the Colonna
Manilli 1650, 30: " ... tra le

Ie due finestre del Piano terreno, e alzata in vna nicchia la
Ia Statua d'Apollo
salutare, con vn dardo in mano, e dall'altro lato, auuolto in un tronco il Serpe, simbolo della Salute."
11
110 Fritze 1913, 33, No. 237.
111
III On the S. Lorenzo capital, see Claussen 1992, 34-8.
112
112 Pliny, Natural
Natura! History, XXXVI, 42, ]ex-Blake
Jex-Blake 1977, 212/215 :
nee Sauram atque Batrachum
Invenio et Canachum laudatissimum inter statuarios fecisse marmorea. nec
obliterari convenit, qui fecere templa Octaviae porticibus inclusa, natione ipsi Lacones. quidam et
opibus praepotentes fuisse eos putant ac sua inpensa construxisse, inscriptionem sperantes, qua negata
hoc tamen
ramen alio modo usurpasse. Sunt certe etiam nunc in columnarum spiris inscalptae nominum
eorum argumento lacerta atque rana [emphasis mine] .
Saura and Batrachos, Lakonians by birth, ... built the temples enclosed by the galleries of Octavia.
Some say that they were rich men who built the temples at their own cost, hoping that their names
would be inscribed upon them. Foiled in this, they yet achieved their object in another way, so it is
said, and it is undeniably true that a lizard and a frog, typifying their names, are still to be seen carved
on the bases [spiris] of the columns.
113
11 3 Winckelmann thought the capital antique, whereas, like its companions, it dates from the early thirteenth century (see Claussen 1992,
1992,35).
35). The medieval artist likewise must have interpreted Pliny's text as referring to a spiral and executed the capital in emulation of the ancient architects' signatures.
signatures. The term, however,
is normally used for the base, or torus, of a column, which Bernini may also have realized, so that his lizards
conform to both readings.
109
109
'
112
Santa and the themes of purification and Petrine thaumaturgy Raphael had associated with
the twisted columns transferred from the Temple of Jerusalem to the high altar at St. Peter's.
Christian thought had long considered the obstinacy of disbelief a malady of the soul associated with blindness, as in depictions of Synagoga blindfolded (Fig. 97 ). In the Baldacchino
the miracle of healing from original sin was linked to the Church and hence to Urban. And
it involved a fundamental shift of emphasis and meaning from ritual and physical healing to
what might be called visionary healing that involved the double meaning of the verb to see,
that is, to verify with the physical eye, and to understand and believe with the inner eyeeye - to
be "illuminated" and "restored" to the "visio dei" of Paradise before the Fall. It is in this new,
visionary sense that Urban succeeds Leo X, in the role of vicarious Christus Medicus.
The relevance of this theme in particular to the papacy under Urban VIII is evident from
another attribute under which Apollo as healer was worshiped in antiquity - so devoutly
that the Hippocratic oath actually begins by invoking him, "I swear by Apollo the Physician
114
and by Asclepius and by Health and Panacea and by all the gods as well as goddesses ..." 114
Shown on coins, the healer holds in his left hand a branch of laurel, famous in antiquity for
115
its many medicinal powers, and in his left a bow and arrow (Fig. 98).
98). 115
The type is most famous from a figure of Apollo by the sculptor Calamis, which was
moved from Apollonia in Pontus to the Capitoline in Rome. The sculpture was a colossal
bronze, as tall as a tower, singled our
out by Pliny as a technical tour de force, a challenge that
must have appealed to Bernini as he prepared his colossal bronze columns. 116 One of the
important functions of the Sun God was to protect the populous from the plague, and the
coin type related to the Borghese statue, which bore the inscription Apollo Salutaris, was as117 Livy records that a famous temple
sociated with a third century plague epidemic (Fig. 99). 117
of Apollo Medicus in Rome, near the Theater of Marcellus, the remains of which are still
to be seen, was motivated by the plague. 118 The disease, always menacing, must have been
especially worrisome to Urban since the city had been threatened at the very beginning of
his reign. 119 Laurel, the plant sacred to Apollo, immune to lightning, capable of regenerating
from a branch, rather than from seed, was the third, along with the bee and the sun, of the
trinity of Barberini emblems. 120
120 In the Baldacchino, the laurel, symbol of eternal life, climbs
111
111
Translation from Von Staden 1996.

Lexicon 1981- 1999, II, 1,217,
1, 217, No. 278. On the medicinal properties of laurel, see Pauly-Wissowa
1894- 1963, XIII, 2, cols. 1438f.
116
11 6 Pliny, NH, XXXIV, 39:
Of audacity countless instances can be given. For example artists have conceived the idea of gigantic
statues called colossi, as tall as towers. Of this class is the Apollo in the Capitol, brought from Apollonia
in POntos
Pontos by Marcus Lucullus; it is forty-five feet high, and cost five hundred talents.
11 7
11 7 See the Online essay by David R. Sear: http://www.davidrsear.com/academy/natural_disasters.html
118
118 See the essay by Alessandro Viscogliosi in Steinby, ed. 1993-2000, 1,
I, 49- 54. Livy attributes the temple
to the plague at IY.25.3,
.
IV.25.3, and identifies it as aedem Apollinis medici at XL.51 .6.
119
119 In July 1624 all the gates of the city had been placed under guard for fear of an invasion of the plague
from Naples; Gigli 1994, I, 137.
120
120 The Virgilian laurel branch as a symbol of autogenesis and eternal rejuvenation was a major theme of
the Medici in Florence, no doubt an important inspiration for Urban's ideas. See Lavin 1993, 51- 5, and the
references cited
ci ted there.
115
115
11 3
113
the twisted columns in the form of tendrils spiraling up toward the resurgent Christ, Justitiae,
Iustitiae,
as he rises to take his heavenly seat of judgment.
The medieval physiological tradition allegorized two main properties of the "Sun Lizard"
in specifically visionary terms: its capacity to heal itself in old age by shedding its skin and
to renew its eyesight by looking at the sun, is compared to the man who, clothed in old
vestments, the eyes of his heart blinded, seeks the intelligible rising sun, that is, Christ, whose
name means rising, and who is called the Sun of Justice, with healing in his wings. Thus the
intelligible eyes of the heart are opened and the man sheds his old self and dons the new. 121
121
The reference here to Malachi's prophesy of Christ as the rising Sol Justitiae
Iustitiae with healing
wings, is particularly significant in the context of what we said earlier about the Apocalyptic
Woman clothed in the Sun whose travail gives birth to the Church and the Man-Child. 122
122
The Apocalyptic Woman was also endowed with wings - "and to the woman were given
two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness" (Rev. 12: 14) 123
123 and in
121
121
Carmody 1941,134:
1941, 134:
XLIX. DE SAURA ELlACE

ELIACE HOC EST ANGUILLA SOLIS
Est qui uocatur saura eliace, hoc est anguilla solis. Cum senuerit, impeditur duobus oculis suis, et
excecatur, non uidens solis lumen. Quid faciet? ex bona sua natura inquirit parietem respicientem ad
orientem, et intrat in fissuram parietis, uidens ad orientem, et oriente sole aperientur ei oculi, et noua
efficitur.
Sic et tu, o0 homo, si ergo ueteris hominis indumentum habes [Col. 3. 9, Eph. 4. 22], uide ne quando
oculi cordis tui impediti fuerint, requiras intellegibilem oriemem
orientem solem dominum Iesum Christum,
cuius nomen uocatur oriens [ef.
[cj. Zach. 3. 8, 6. 12, Luc. 1. 78] in propheta Hieremia. Et ipse est sol
iustitie, sicut apostolus dicit [ef.
[cj. Mal. 4. 2]; et aperiet tibi intellegibiles oculos cordis tui, et nouum per
ueteris fiet tibi uestimemum.
uestimentum.
Carmody 1939, 60f.:
XXXVII Lacerta
Est uolatile animal quod lacerta dicitus clarum ut sol. Physiologus dicit de eo quia quando senuerit,
nee solis lumen uideat. Sed suae naturae huiusce modi praestat
utrisque oculis impeditur, ita ut nec
orientem, et per foramen exit, et apertis oculis
medicamentum: inquirit parietem attendentem contra oriemem,
renouatur.
Sic et tu, homo, qui ueteri tunica indutus es, quando oculi tui cordis caligentur, quaere locum
intelligibilem orientem uersus; id est, ad solem iustitiae [cf. Mal. 4,2] Christum dominum nostrum
Iesum te conuerte, cuius nomen oriens dicitur [cf. Zach. 3.8, 6.12]; quatenus oriatur in corde tuo per
spiritum sanctum, et lucem misericordiae suae ostendat tibi, qui illuminat omnem hominem in hunc
mundum uenietem [Ioh. 1.9]
I.9]
122 Malachi 4
122
1 For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do
wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that
it shall leave them neither root nor branch.
2 But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings.
1 ecce enim dies veniet succensa quasi caminus et erunt omnes superbi et omnes facientes impietatem
stipula et inflammabit eos dies veniens dicit Dominus exercituum quae non relinquet eis radicem et germen
2 et orietur vobis timentibus nomen meum sol iustitiae et sanitas in pennis eius et egrediemini et salietis
sicut vituli de armento
armemo
123
123 14 et datae sunt mulieri duae alae aquilae magnae ut volaret in desertum [...
J.
. .. ].
11 4

PETER'S
the Physiologus she was actually merged with the Sol Justitiae.
Iustitiae. 124
124 The lizard was also related
directly to Christ the Healer in one of the many late medieval concordances of the Old and
New Testaments, Ulrich of Lilienfeld's Concorida Cartiatis (ca. 1350), notable especially for
its unprecedented systematic inclusion of the natural world, mainly the bestiary, along with
the biblical texts as witness to God's providential plan for salvation. 125
125
The assimilation of the ancient concept of Apollo the Healer (Salutari) with Christ of the
resurrection as the Savior (SolSalutatis)
(Sol Salutatis) and the Sun ofJustice (Sol Justitiae)
Iustitiae) was a fundamental
theme of church doctrine and forms one of the provisions of the catechism itself, prepared by
Carlo Borromeo and published in 1566:
# 1166
"By a tradition handed down from the apostles which took its origin from the very
day of Christ's Resurrection, the Church celebrates the Paschal mystery every seventh
day, which day is appropriately called the Lord's Day or Sunday." ... The Lord's day,
the day of Resurrection, the day of Christians, is our day. It is called the Lord's day
because on it the Lord rose victorious to the Father. If pagans call it the "day of the
sun," we willingly agree, for today the light of the world is raised, today is revealed the
sun of justice with healing in his rays 126
l26
The pope succeeds Christus Medicus as Christ succeeded Apollo Medicus.
11
Il~
~
It is surely in this
the salvific light of rhe
the Woman of rhe
the
rhis context of the lizard as the
rhe believer who "sees" rhe
the Virgin in Peter Breughel's \.%y to CalApocalypse wrapped in the
rhar it appears beneath rhe
rhe sun of her Son, that
vary (see Gibson 2000, 140f.), and Schongauer's woodcut and Durer's engraving of rhe
the Flight into Egypt (Koch
the penitent Sr.
St. Jerome by Luini (rogerher
(together
1976); and, since penitence is the route to salvation, in images of rhe
with a scorpion), Bosch (Friedmann 1980, 19, 150, 168, 269)
269f.) and Parinir
Patinir (Falkenburg 1988, 84).
125
125 Ulrich links rhe
the lizard's recuperation of vision to Christ healing of the blind (Luke: 18: 35-43), ro
to rhe
the
Tobias (Tobit: 6: 8; 11: 11-13), ro
to Jonathan whose eyes were enlightarchangel Raphael healing the
rhe blindness of
ofTobias
Hies toward the sun
ened by honey (l Kings: 14: 27), and to
ro the mother eagle of Physiological tradition, which flies
with her offspring, dropping the one that is blinded, saving the one that sees (Reallexikon 1937ff., col. 833- 54,
2000,231
figs. 67, 53, 54). Bernini
esp. cols. 839 no.
no. 27, Schmidt 1959, 92-4, Munscheck 2000,
231,, Boreczky 2000, 46 figs.
later used this emblematic eagle to
ro illustrate an important Jesuit treatise on optics (Lavin 1985).
126
126 On these Apollonian-Christian convergences see especially Dolger 1925 and Rahner 1971. The
Catechism:
1166 Mysterium Paschale Ecclesia, ex Traditione aposrolica,
apostolica, quae originem ducir
ducit ab ipsa die resurrectionis
merito nuncupatur >>.
. 105
105 Dies
Christi, octava
ocrava quaque die celebrat,
celeb rat, quae dies Domini seu dies Dominica meriro
est<< prima dies Hebdomadae >>,
, memoriale primae diei creationis, et << octava
resurrectionis Christi simul est
, Diem inaugurat <<quam
quam fecit Dominus >>
dies >> in qua Christus, post Suam magni Sabbati << quietem >>,
(Ps. 118:24), <<diem
diem sine vespero .
>>. 106 << Cena Domini >> centrum est eius, quia in ea tota communitas
fidelium Domino occurrit resuscitato
resuscitaro qui eos ad Suum invitat convivium:
convivium: 107
Dies Dominica, dies Resurrectionis, dies christianorum, dies nostra est. Unde et Dominica dicitur:
vicror ascendit ad Patrem. Quod si a gemilibus
gentilibus dies solis vocatur, et nos hoc
quia Dominus in ea victor
iustitiae ortus
orcus est, in cuius
cui us pennis
Iibentissime
libentissime confitemur:
confiremur: hodie enim lux mundi orta est, hodie sol iusritiae
>>. 1108
est sanitas .
08
550 (Migne 1844-77, XXX,
(108) Sanctus Hieronymus, In die Dominica Paschae homilia: CCL 78,
(l08)
78,550
cols. 218-9).
cols.218-9).
9B. Greek silver stater, 470-450 BC,

Be,
98.
reverse, Apollo holding laurel branch
and bow and arrow, Metapontum.
Ex coli.
colI. Walter Niggeler (Lexicon
1981
19B1-- 99 II, 1,
1,217,
217, no. 278;
27B; photo
Numismatics)..
courtesy LHS Numismatics)
100. Anthropomorphic zodiac,

Scorpio identified with penis,
penis,
engraving. Valeriano 1625 ,
20B.
208.
99. Antonianus ofTrebonianus

Gallus, 251- 3 AD, reverse, Apollo
Salutari with laurel branch and lyre
(photo courtesy David Sear).
115
115
116
101. Lizard devouring scorpion head first

(photo courtesy Prof. Yehuda Werner,
Hebrew University, Jerusalem).
The third lizard, which now travels downward, displays the animal's own salvific virtue,
its enmity with the scorpion. 127 The scorpion is almost universally evil in the physiological
literature. The most notorious of these associations by far was the scorpion's identification
with the libido and lasciviousness, and indeed the genitalia, that is, the original sin of
carnal knowledge that brought about the expulsion of humankind from Paradise. In the
anthropomorphic zodiacal system (melothesia) that distributed the constellations to parts of
the human body, Scorpio was identified with the penis (Fig. 100).
100). According to Giovanni Piero
Valeriano the scorpion "represents the libido and lascivity, and among the human parts the
shameful ones are dedicated to him." 128
128 Cesare Ripa repeats Valeriano's statement, and adds
a description of the personification of Libido that is particularly interesting in our context:
''A woman lasciviously adorned, ...
. . . holding in her right hand a scorpion, nearby a goat
erotically aroused, and a vine with bunches of grapes." 129
129 When one recalls the sacramental,
originally Bacchic grape vines, that covered the twisted columns brought from Jerusalem,
analogy with the Bacchanalian and goatskin ritual of the Lupercalia is inescapable. The motif
shown here evidently reflects a remarkable phenomenon recorded by Pliny and preserved in
130
the medieval bestiary tradition. 130
The scorpion is so frightened by a certain kind of lizard, the
stellio (the name derived from its speckledspeckled - starrystarry - markings), that it is literally "scared
127
127
References in Nock 1972, 27

274.
4.
Valeriano 1625, 208 (first edition 1556): Oltre di questo, 10
lo scorpione dipinto
dip into dimostra la
Ia libidine e la
Ia
Ie parti del corpo humano, a lui so
sono
no dedicate le
Ie parti vergognose.
lasciuia, e tra le
129
129 Ripa 1603, 295
295:: Libidine. Donna lasciuamente ornata ...
. . . nella man destra terra vn scorpione, a canto
vi sara vn becco acceso alla
alia libidine, &
& vna vite con alcuni grappi d'vue.
130
130 Pliny, N
Natural
atural H
History,
istory, XXVIII, 90, ed. Rackham et al., 1938-63, VIII, 240/1
Scorpionibus contrarius maxime invicem stelio traditur, ut visu quoque pavorem his adferat et
torporem frigidi sudoris ..
....
.. in ltalia non nascitur. est enim hic
hie plenus lentigine, stridoris acerbi, et
vescitur araneis, quae omnia a nostris stelionibus aliena sunt.
The stelio is said in its turn to be such a great enemy to scorpions that the mere sight of one strikes them
with panic, and torpor with cold sweat ....
. ... This kind is not found in Italy, for it is covered with spots,
has a shrill cry, and feeds on spiders, all which characteristics are lacking in our stellios ....
Professor Arsenio Ferraces-Rodrfguez has kindly called my attention to a corresponding passage in a
Hie autem scorpionibus adeo contrarius dicitur, ut uiso eo pauorem hiis
thirteenth century English bestiary: Hic
afferat et torporem. (Oxford MS Bodley 533, fo!'
fol. 24vb, Pacht and Alexander 1966-73, III, 40, no. 443).
118
118
11 7
stiff," so that the lizard may devour his enemy without danger from its immobilized stinger.
Also interesting is Pliny's remark that the stellio is not found in Italy. The tradition has been
confirmed by scientific studies of the behavior of the stellio in Israel, where it is reported that
"scorpions were normally grabbed sideways at the mesosoma, so that initially the metasoma
(and stinger) protruded to one side of the gecko's mouth, and the pincers protruded to the
other side.
side . Only in one of the six well-observed cases was the scorpion grabbed from in front.
Thus in all cases, the metasoma and stinger were initially left free but in four of the six cases
131
they were stiff (as if paralysed) and no stinging occurred (Fig. 101)."
101)."131
Finally, it is surely
significant that at the Last Judgment, the damned should also be swallowed head first into
Hellmouth, the agent of God serving to punish sinners (see Fig. 79).
The salvific, solar lizard devouring the scorpion, head first, on its way to inferno, is thus
emblematic of the same drama portrayed in the coats of arms on the pedestals, which enact
the purification and healing of the original sin worked through the labor of Christ's sacrifice
at the altar.
The Colonna Santa, the Lizard, and Apollo

The Apollonian tradition of healing was imbued in St. Peter's in one of its most important
relics, the Colonna Santa, which had been part of the Constantinian choir with its spiral
columns from the Temple of Jerusalem (Fig. 102). Shearman noted in connection with the
theme of healing under the Medicean pope Leo X that the Colonna Santa had been singled
out as having miraculous curative powers, especially for illnesses of the mind, those possessed
by malign demons, epileptics (Figs. 103-4).132
103-4). 132 The column is first mentioned for its miraculous healing powers toward the middle of the fifteenth century, when it stood isolated and
protected from the pious and acquisitive fingers of pilgrims, in an octagonal marble enclosure provided by Cardinal Giordano Orsini; an inscription with the date 1438 described the
column's powers to expel demons and liberate those vexed by unclean spirits (Fig. 105).133
105). 133
As far as I am aware, the question has never been asked why this particular column should
have been endowed with the ability to cure maladies not of the body but of the soul. This
particular virtue was of course consistent with the tradition that Christ had leaned against
the column as he preached at the Temple, that is, its power derived physically from contact
131
13\
Zlotkin et
aI., 2003, 644.
eta!.,
The sources are cited in Shearman 1972,56,
1972, 56, n. 69, 71. On the Colonna Santa drawing by Francisco da
Hollanda reproduced here, see Nobiloni 1997, 97, Tuzi 2002, 177
133
133 The inscription speaks of demons expelled, the liberation of those vexed by malign spirits, and many
miracles worked daily. Ward-Perkins 1952,24
1952, 24 n. 19:
H(a)ec e(st) illa colu(m)na . in qua(m) d(omi)n(u)s n(oste)r YH'VS XPS appodiatus . dum populo
predicabat et deo p(at)ri p(re)ces i(n) templo effundebat . adherendo stabat qu(a)e una cu(m) aliis
triumphum
urn hui(us) basilic(a)e . hie locata
undeci(m) hic
hie circu(m)stantibus de Salomonis templo in triumph
fuit: demones expellit et ab inmuidis (sic) spiritibus vexatos liberos reddit . et multa miracula cotidie
Card(ina1em)
(ina 1em) de Ursinis ornata: anna
anno domin(i)
facit; p(er) reverendissim(um) p (a)trem et d(omi)num Card
MCCCCXXXVIII
132
132
118
102. Colonna Santa.

Museo del Tesoro,
St. Peter's, Rome.
Rome.
103. Colonna Santa in

Piera,
the Chapel of the Pieta,
1888. St. Peter's, Rome.
104. Francisco da Hollanda, Christ leaning

against the Colonna Santa, drawing. Biblioteca
del Real Monasterio de San Lorenzo, Escorial.
105. Colonna Santa with protective

cage, in the Chapel of the Pietit,
Pieta, 1888.
St. Peter's, Rome.
119
120
106. Colonna Santa, lower front figurated

section, symbolic details indicated.
St. Peter's, Rome.
107. Colonna Santa, lower front figurated

section, showing symbolic details.
St. Peter's, Rome. ,
108. Mosaic of Christ-Apollo. Tomb of the Julii, Grotto, St. Peter's, Rome.
121
122
'
109. Andrea Busiri Vici, plan of the Cappella della Pi

Pieta
eta showing old and new disposition
pl. II).
of the Colonna Santa (Busiri Vici 1888, detail of pI.
110. Cappella della Pieta before

removal of the Colonna Santa
to the Museo Sacro (now Museo
del Tesoro).
Tesoro) . St. Peter's, Rome.
123
with Christ's body and spiritually from the words he uttered to convert (heal) his listeners.
But fundamentally Christ's sanctity was incorporated in the column itself by a providential
grouping of motifs sculpted in relief on its front face: a tiny lizard flanked on the left of a vine
rinceau by a winged putto reaching to pluck a grape from a cluster
duster on a branch nearby, and
on the right by a bird flying heavenward (Fig. 106-7). The vine scroll and the grapes were
of course emblematic of the Eucharist, and the heaven-bent bird emblematic of the Holy
Spirit and the heaven-bent soul. Although small animals populate the vine scrolls of the other
spiral columns, this motif is unique to the Colonna Santa, and that this face was considered
the front of the column is evident from the fact that it confronts the devotee approaching
Cardinal Orsini's enclosure. 134 As we have seen, the lizard was from antiquity sacred to the
Sun God Apollo by virtue of its ability to renew its failing or lost eyesight by looking to the
rays of the sun. It thus became emblematic of divinely effected cures of vision, conceived in
the case of the Colonna Santa, as demons and unclean spirits. The Apollonian association of
the lizard must have seemed providential in view of the fact that St. Peter's was long believed
to have been built adjoining a temple of Apollo, variously identified with one of two ancient
rotundas later converted, one to St. Petronilla, the other to St. Andrew; both were destroyed
to make way for the new basilica. 135
135 In the Mirabilia Romae, the early pilgrims' guide book
to Rome, the very name Vatican came from the rituals practiced by the priests (vates) of the
temple of Apollo. 136
136 In this way the translation of the column to St. Peter's converged with
the pagan therapeutic legacy at the site. The same legacy evidently underlay the tradition
evinced in the twelfth century description of the basilica by Petrus Mellius, who states that
the twisted columns came from the temple of Apollo at Troy. 137
137 In 1574 during excavations
under the high altar an early Christian tomb was discovered, whose vault was covered with a
splendid mosaic representing Christ-Helios rising heavenward in his quadriga, amidst aacecelestial canopy of interlacing vine-scrolls (Fig. 108). Although the subject was not recognized
1134
34 Two winged putti reaching to pluck clusters of grapes appear on the back side of the Colonna Santa,
depicted by Francesco da Colonna. A winged putto and a lizard appear, without the bird, on one of the columns
flanking the reliquary niche of St. Longinus (Nobiloni 1997, fig. 26, p. 96).
I})
ll> No Temple of Apollo is known to have existed at the Vatican, but the tradition, first recorded in the
sixth century, persisted well into the sixteenth. The tradition is the subject of an exemplary study by Elisabeth
Schroter 1980. Schroter is mainly concerned with the humanistic repercussions of the Apollonian association,
however, and does not consider its importance for the papal mission of spiritual healing
1136
3G Yalentini
VaJentini and Zucchetti 1940-53, III, 43:
Infra palatium Neronianum est templum Apollinis, quod
dicitur Sancta Petronilla, ante quod est basilica quae vocatur
vacatur
Vaticanum, ex mirifico musibo laqueata auro et vitro. Ideo dicitur
Yaticanum,
Vaticanum, quia vates, id est sacerdotes, canebant ibi sua officia ante
Yaticanum,
templum Apollinis, et idcirco tota ilia pars ecclesiae Sancti Petri
Yaticanum
Vaticanum vocatur.
vacatur.
The rotunda converted to St. Andrew was variously identified with Mars, Diana, and Apollo (Cerrati
138- 9, 180).
137 Yalentini
137
Valentini and Zucchetti 1940-6, III, 348: "XII. columpnas, quas di Graecia portari fecit, quae fuerunt
di temploApollinisTraoiae"; cf. Ward-Perkins 1952,24;
1952, 24; Nobiloni 1997,
1997,117,
117, 119.
124
at the time, and there is no further reference to the tomb until it was reopened in modern
excavations at the end of World War II, the discovery may have reinforced the Apollonian
138
heritage of the site. 138
A measure of the significance of the spiritual healing embodied in the Colonna Santa,
not only for the ideology of the Baldacchino but for the role of St. Peter's itself in the process
of salvation, is evident from the fact that in 1632 it was installed in a chamber adjoining
the first chapel on the north side of the nave, the furnishing of which was then in course of
completion (Figs. 109-10). The column was joined at the same time by another miraculously
salutary relic, a frescoed image of the Virgin and Child, the Madonna della Febbre, that had
come from the converted rotunda of S. Andrea, to which the painting had given its own
name. 139 No doubt the location, immediately adjacent to the Porta Santa, was conceived as
the ideal starting point of the pilgrim's procession through the basilica to the high altar. The
intention was evidently to concentrate the focus of miraculous healing in the basilica on this
primary location.
Giotto's Navicella, the Natalis Solis Invictus, and the Sol Iustitiae
What might well be called the sun mysticism of Urban VIII worked its magic not only at the
center of St. Peter's in the Baldacchino, it also embraced the church at either end, in the apse
at the west where the window above the Cathedra Petri would have illuminated the emblem
of the Trinity (see pp. 41, 43, and Fig. 31 above), while at the east entrance the rising sun
shone through two huge windows that flanked one of the most important relics of
of Old St.
Peter's, Giotto's famous mosaic of the Navicella (Christ summoning the fisherman Peter from
his boat in the stormy Sea of GalileeGalilee - the act that inaugurated the established Church) (Fig.
111).140
111). 140 Urban had the mosaic installed in this location in 1628 in tandem, conceptually as
well as chronologically, with the execution of the Baldacchino. The Navicella had originally
138
1)8
Apollonji-Ghetti 1951, 37- 42. Alfarano described the mosaic, but conjectured that it was pagan: Fu
fatto in questo medesimo anno (1574) un portichetto innante la
Ia porta dell'altar maggiore, appresso all'altare
di S. Sisto PP. primo,
prima, 2 sostentato di doi colonne
colo nne bellissime, dei quali volendosi fare i fondamenti fu ritrovata
I'una colonna e l'altra
I'altra innante !'altar
l'altar maggior tutta di musaico antiquo con figure che
una bella sepoltura fra !'una
piu presto giudicai fosse di gentili. (Cerrati 1914, 154, also 168)
parevano cavalla pili
139
139 Torrigio 1635, 17: "Nel1632.
"NelI632. [the Colonna Santa] estata posta
pasta presso alia Cappella del Crocifissso, e vi
dell' altar
estata anco collocata vna diuota Imagine di Maria Verg. che staua gia nella Basilica vecchia nella naue dell'altar
diS.
di
S. Andrea." In 1631, evidently to enhance the image in preparation for the move, the Madonna and Child
were given golden crowns (Rice 1997, 184). The chapel is now the Chapel of the Pieta, from Michelangelo's
sculpture installed at the altar in 1749 (Rice 1997, 2219).
19). The 1643 date of an inscription over the door to the
chapel recording the exposition of the image, presumably refers to the completion of the work (Rice 1997, 184).
The Colonna Santa was moved into the Cappella della Pieta proper, at the flank of Michelangelo's sculpture, in
1888 (Busiri Vici 1888, pI.
pl. II, shows the former and the new locations). In 1975 it was moved to the Museo del
Tesoro in the Sacristy (Petrassi 1975).
14
140
Navicefla (though not in relaFor what follows here concerning the solar history and significance of the Navicella
tion to the Baldacchino)
Baldacchino),, see K6hren-Jansen
Kohren-Jansen 1993, 230- 3. On the vicissitude of the mosaic see also Marder
1997, 76- 8, Bauer 2000. On SolInvictus
1997,76Sol!nvictus and its Christian legacy, Halberghe 1972, 373-5.
373-5 .
125
111.
Ill. Giotto, Navicella, mosaic (much restored).
St. Peter's, Rome.
been made ca. 1300 for the inside of the entrance wall of the open atrium of the old basilica,
facing the facade (Figs. 112- 3). Mter the atrium was demolished the mosaic was preserved,
elaborately restored, and installed near the entrance to the Vatican Palace - until Urban
decided to return it to its featured location at the entrance to the church, but now high
up, between the windows and on the inner facade facing the worshiper exiting toward the
east. The choice was deliberate, and its purpose was to create in the new basilica an exact
counterpart to the cooptation-conversion at the high altar of the ancient Lupercalian and
Hebrew purification rites. In this case, the celebration was that of the third great Apollonian
tradition, besides the Salutaris and Iustitiae,
Justitiae, the Sol Invictus
Jnvictus that had long been identified
with the Roman emperors and whose birth was celebrated in the winter festival of the
Natalis Solis Invictus,
Jnvictus, on December 25. In the time of Constantine the ancient festival was
converted to Christmas and the birth of the Christian Sol Iustitiae,
Justitiae, but Leo the Great (440(440461) complained that pilgrims visiting the basilica were still wont to turn and kneel facing
eastward in devotion to the rising sun. Eventually, in fact, the celebration of Christ's birth
was shifted from Epiphany, January 6, to December 25. All this was well known in Urban's
time. It was said, indeed, that the Navicella was originally intended to substitute the Calling
of Peter for the pagan sun worship. As the high altar was intended to replace the Lupercalia,
Urban's installation of the Navicella was clearly intended to replace the Sol Invictus
Jnvictus with the
Calling of Peter and the rising of the Sol Iustitiae.
Justitiae. The basilica through its entire length thus
126
112. Domenico Castelli, inside (eastern)

entrance wall of St, Peter's, drawing.
MS Barb. Lat. 4409, fol. 3r., Biblioteca
Apostolica Vaticana, Rome.
113. Inside (eastern) entrance

wall. St. Peter's, Rome.
127
superseded the classical solar heritage, fulfilling the spiritual promise of Malachi, the last of
the Hebrew Prophets (1:11):
For from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same my name shall be
great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense shall be offered unto my name,
and a pure offering: for my name shall be great among the heathen, saith the LORD
41
of hostS.
hosts. 1141
Again, Cardinal Baronio may have been a prime mover in this grandiose scheme of cosmic
historical theology; his great reverence for the mosaic and understanding of its history was
still reported later in the century. One day he was asked why it had been placed in the middle
of the portico, in front of the portal of the basilica, rather than elsewhere. "He replied that
it was to eliminate the superstitious custom of some people who, entering the church, in
the ancient manner of the Gentiles turned toward the east, as pope St. Leo reported, and
142
lowering their heads in honor of that luminous planet, gave it profound reverence." 142
It was said that Urban opened the flanking windows so that the mosaic could be better
143
appreciated with the great flood of light. 143
Urban's antagonistic successor, Innocent X, later
removed the Navicella from its place in the sun, as it were, because it was too high and diffi144
cult to see in the glaring light. 144
In 1675 it was transferred to its present, in effect, the original
location on the inner wall of the narthex portico above the central entrance, facing Bernini's
"Feed my Sheep" (c Fig. 139).145
139). 14 5
141
141 Ab artu
ortu enim solis usque ad occasum magnum est nomen meum in gentibus et in omni loco
meo oblatio munda quia magnum nomen meum in gentibus dicit
sacrificatur et offertur nomini mea
exercituumo
Dominus exercituum.
142
142 "Divozione singolare del Card. Baronio alia Navicella di s. Pietro: Guardava egli un giorno Ia
la Naviposta
cella di S. PIETRO fatta con nobil megistero da Ghiotto celebre artefice, di esquisito Mosaico, pasta
aile porte della Basilica, & erano con esso lui Ii
li Cardinali Dietrestain,
nel mezzo del Portico, dirempetto alle
de'quali
quali 10
lo prega
prego adir !oro,
loro, per qual cagione fosse
Fosse stata da i Maggiori
Taverna, Pamfilio, e Tarugi, uno de'
in quel
la superstiziosa usanza d'alcuni;
d'alcuni; Ii
li quali
que! sito piu tosto, che in alto; al quale rispose; Per togliere Ia
l'Oriente, come avnell'entrare del Tiempo, secondo I'antico
l'antico costume de'Gentili, si rivolgevano verso !'Oriente,
visa
viso S. Leone Papa, e piegato il capo in onore di cosl luminoso Pianeta, facevano a quello
queUo profonda
riverenza. Sono tant'anni continui (disse il pio, & eruditissimo Cardinale) che io seguito a visitare
lstoria, e Pittura; ne mai tralasciai di venerarla in ginocchio, aggiundendovi questa breve
questa Sacra Istoria,
undis. Le quali parole
orazione, Domine ut erexisti PETRVM a fluctibus, ita eripe me a peccatorum undis.
furono ricevute con godimento da quei divoti Cardinali, e subbito Pamfilio con gli altri, genuflessi
Ia medesima Orazione con grand'edificazione de'circostanti, proseguendo poi sempre il
recitarono la
medesimo pio costume essi, e molti altri, che visitano questa S. Basilica sino al giorno d' oggi." (Piazza
1687,388;
1687, 388; cited by Kohren-Jansen 1993, 132)
143
143
da ambi i lati gli apri fenestroni perche meglio con Ia
la copia de raggi potesse essere vagheggiata (from
a report of 1644-53, cited by Marder 1997, 268 n. 112).
144
144 non godendosi per la
Ia troppa altezza, et abbarbagliandosi Ia
la vista nel rimirarla per le
Ie due finestre
...
..
(report
by
Virgilio
Spada
published
by
Giithlein
1979,
186).
laterali
145 Marder 1997, 78.
145
0
128

PETER's
Beelzebub
The last and least conspicuous of the animal marginalia is perhaps the most important of them
all. In the biblical tradition the fly has one and only one association, that is, with the Philistine
God Beelzebub, whose name was commonly translated as Lord of the Flies and equated with
Satan. Of particular relevance here is the fact that he was consistently invoked in matters of
healing. So in the second Book of Kings the ruler Ahaziah, who had suffered a fall, sent to
inquire of Beelzebub the God of Ekron, whether he would recover. Offended by this want
of faith in himself, the God of Israel decreed that he would indeed die of his injury. 1146
46 He
appears repeatedly in the Gospels when the disbelieving Jews attributed Jesus's power to heal
and cast out devils to the power of Beelzebub, now identified as Satan himself; to which Jesus
47
replies, that cannot be so, since the house divided against itself shall not stand. 1147
Matt. 12:23-8
23 And all the people were amazed, and said, Is not this the son of David? 24 But
when the Pharisees heard [it], they said, This [fellow] doth not cast out devils, but by
Beelzebub the prince of the devils. 25 And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto
them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city
or house divided against itself shall not stand: 26 And if Satan cast out Satan, he is
divided against himself; how shall then his kingdom stand? 27 And if I by Beelzebub
cast out devils, by whom do your children cast [them] out? therefore they shall be
your judges. 28 But ifl
if! cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God
148
is come unto you.
Comelis aLapide interprets the passages in 2Kings and the gospels in exactly this way,
Cornelis
ascribing all manner of evils to the Lord of the Flies, especially the libido and anabaptism. 149
146
146
2Kings 1: 2, 3, 6, 16.
Matt. 10:25; 12:24; 12:27; Mark 3:22; Luke 11:15.
148
148 23 et stupebant omnes turbae et dicebant numquid hic
hie est Filius David. 24 Pharisaei autem
audientes dixerunt hic
hie non eicit daemones nisi in Beelzebub principe daemoniorum 25 Iesus autem
sciens cogitationes eorum
eo rum dixit eis omne regnum divisum contra se desolatur et omnis civitas vel
domus divisa contra se non stabit 26 et si Satanas Satanan eicit adversus se divisus est quomodo ergo
stabit regnum eius 27 et si ego in Beelzebub eicio daemones filii vestri in quo eiciunt ideo ipsi iudices
erunt vestri 28 si autem ego in Spiritu Dei eicio daemones igitur pervenit in vos regnum Dei
149
149 For Beelzebub see on 2Kings 2, Lapide 1866-88, IV, 3:
Vide dicta Matth. x, 25. Quibus adde nonnullos cum Serario sentire, quod Beelzebub sive Myodes, id
est Deus muscce, fuerit libidinis deus, aut dea qua:piam, ob impudicitiam et libidinem qua: in muscis
notatur ; unde Lucianus in Encomio musca: tradit olim fuisse meretrices, qua: musca: vocabantur.
Insuper dit (da:mones) omnes propter multitudinem, insolentiam, impudicitiam, mordacitatem,
sordes, fcetorem, musca: vocari possum:
possunt: unde hoc sa:culo da:mon specie magna: musca: vel crabronis
involans in eum, qui relicta fide orthodoxa Anabaptismum profitebatur, illico eum quasi possidens, S.
Scriptura: peri tum efficiebat, eumdemque hac peritia privabat, si ab Anabaptismo ad fidem rediret, uti
oculati testes narrant.
On Mathew 10: 25, Lapide 1876- 1908, II, 33f. and Lapide 1866-88,
1866- 88, xv,
XV, 27lf.
271f.
147
147
129
114. Jacques de Cheyn,

Gheyn, Three
1hree
Flies, drawing. Frankfurt am Main,
Stadelsches Kunstinstitut.
The little, insidiously inconspicuous insect thus represents the very devil and his myriad
150
hosts, whose power is exorcized at the altar of St. Peter's.
Peter's.150
An ironic inversion of zoological healing under the aegis of Urban VIII may be found
in an extraordinary drawing by the great Dutch master of natural and supernatural
imagery Jacques de Gheyn II (1565-1629) (Fig. 114). The composition emulates the
Barberini microscopic bee emblem (Fig. 68), substituting three microscopic views of
151
"real" flies (including their shadows) arranged in a similar way. 15l
The relationship can
scarcely have been coincidental, and the metamorphosis into flies was surely inspired by
the knowledge of the fact that the Barberini crest originally consisted of three large but
humble horse-flies - tafoni, whence Tafano, the name of the Tuscan locality whence
the family sprang. The tafano, whose bite was vicious, even mortal in droves, had a
particularly bad reputation, and Maffeo adopted the noble bee instead when he became
cardinal. The matter was important enough so that some years later the pope's nephew
Cardinal Francesco sent to Florence to have the flies excised from the coats of arms visible
there and in their subsequent home town nearby, Barberino in Val d'Elsa. 152 In antiquity
the fly was identified with the plague and, by a familiar homeopathic principle of like
healing like, fly amulets were worn to ward off the enemy. The medieval Mantic Virgil
was said to have warded off the plague from Naples with a huge bronze fly. 153
153 There was a
major outbreak of the plague in the Netherlands in 1624, and de Gheyn, who was deeply
150 I believe, in fact, that this "devilish" import may underlie many works in which "illusionistic" flies alight
150
as if from the "real" world (for which see Pigler 1964, although he does not consider the biblical Beelzebub).
151
I 5 I On de Cheyn's
Gheyn's flies see "Nach dem Leben . .. ,"
, "2000,
2000, 94, where it is noted that his microscopic works
date from the last years of his life.
152 On the Barberini coat of arms and its transformation by Maffeo from menace to munificence, see Lavin
152
2007.
153 See the references given in Pigler 1964, 60f., Heckscher 1985, 78.
153
130
'
involved with witchcraft and devilry, may have had this kind of Barberini Trinitarian papal
therapy in mind. 154 Although married to a Catholic, de Gheyn in 1598 had made a portrait
of Marnix van St. Aldegonde that was published repeatedly beginning in 1631 in Marnix's
famous pre-Barberini anti-catholic bee diatribe The Beehive of the Holy Roman Church (De
Byencorfder H Roomsche Kercke), first published in 1569.155
1569. 155 Here, alone among the animals
that inhabit the columnar plinths, the minuscule fly is gilt, glowing with the glittery allure
of sin.
The mementoes that grace the lowermost plinths of the columns appear to have been left,
as if inadvertently, by the "providential" hand of the Baldacchino's creator. They appear
inexplicably, and their very inadvertency is an essential ingredient in the heaven-sent message
they convey. For taken together these memorabilia tell a memorable story of their own,
consistent with and underlying the main theme of the pedestals, that is, the expiation for
original sin purchased by Christ's sacrifice and achieved through its reenactment at the altar.
. In that case the initial fornication begins at the left, or sinister side of the entering worshiper,
moves in a purificatory circuit clockwise about the altar to end with the felicitous newborn
soul at the right, as the pilgrim prepares to depart. Accordingly, Beelzebub the King of the
Flies lurks unseen, from the beginning, back inside the first pedestal; the pope, the rosary, and
the healing lizards, placed nearest the sanctuary of the choir, guard the route; and at the end,
the embodiment of the original sin is finally destroyed by the Apollonian agent of the sun's
salubrious power. The drama unfolded in these details seems to encapsulate the overarching
theme with which Urban imbued the basilica itself, to which he may himself have referred
when he described Bernini:
"Rare man, sublime intelligence, and born for Divine Purpose, and for the glory of
Rome to bring light to that Century."l56
Century." 156
With all their depth of meaning, however, the Baldacchino's little marginalia are also
charming, sophisticated, witty, even humorous, and thus ingratiating in a spirit that can best
be described, I think, as "urbane." This quality, characteristic of Bernini, also permeates other,
contemporary work he carried out for Urban VIII, and corresponds to a fundamental cast of
157
the new pope's mind, his public policy, as well as the very name he chose as Christ's vicar. 157
Except for the scorpion and the fly, the Baldacchino of St. Peter's pullulates with animation;
everything everywhere is in motion, a living organism, a veritable chimaera and justly a
divine creation, at the very center of Christianity.
154
154
On the 1624 plague in the Netherlands, see Israel
1995, 484, 625. On de Gheyn's conflation of natural
Israel1995,
science and witchcraftery, see Swan 2005.
II~~
SS Waard 2002; Beemon 1992.
156 Huomo raro, Ingegno sublime, e nato per Disposizione Divina, e per gloria di Roma a portar luce a quel
156
que/ Secolo
(Bernini 17 13,
13,27).
27).
157
157 On Urban's choice of name and the theme of urbanity see Lavin 2007.
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Visible Spirit - Bernini

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vi

The Pindar Press

Published by The Pindar Press

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

ISBN 978-1-899828-39-5 (hb)

This book is printed on acid-free paper

Review of Rudolf Wittkower, Gian Lorenzo Bernini. The

Bernini and the Theater

Bozzetti and Modelli. Notes on sculptural Procedure

Bernini and the Crossing of Saint Peters

Five New Youthful Sculptures by Gianlorenzo Bernini

Afterthoughts on Berninis Death

Letter to the Editor on a review by Howard Hibbard of

Calculated Spontaneity. Bernini and the Terracotta

On the Pedestal of Berninis Bust of the Savior

High and Low before their Time: Bernini and

Berninis Memorial Plaque for Carlo Barberini

Berninis Baldachin: Considering a Reconsideration

Berninis Bust of Cardinal Montalto

Berninis Cosmic Eagle

Berninis Image of the Sun King

Review of Rudolf Wittkower, Gian Lorenzo

HE modern Bernini revival may be said to date from a great exhibition

legacy of drawings. In addition to presenting much new material, both

THE SCULPTURES OF GIAN LORENZO BERNINI

Berninis figures of religious subjects are considered in the following

THE SCULPTURES OF GIAN LORENZO BERNINI

flicting. Two things are certain, however: that a complete transformation of

which Bernini monumentalized and placed on public view in the streets

THE SCULPTURES OF GIAN LORENZO BERNINI

mented by a chronological chart, which allows a most welcome birds-eye

here again it might be premature to attempt a conclusive definition. Great

THE SCULPTURES OF GIAN LORENZO BERNINI

interpretation of Berninis entire development is involved, rather than

Wiener Jahrbuch fr Kunstgeschichte, VIII, 1932, pp. 69 ff.

THE SCULPTURES OF GIAN LORENZO BERNINI

explanation. Moreover, the main conclusion of Wittkowers argument, that

THE SCULPTURES OF GIAN LORENZO BERNINI

high standards and do justice to the photographs themselves, as well as to the

Lavin II:Lavin 2 Chap VII

Bernini and the Theater

1 What follows is a somewhat revised and enlarged version of a review of DOnofrio,

Lavin II:Lavin 2 Chap VII

monograph of Fagiolo dellArco, Bernini, is the most recent attempt to interpret

Lavin II:Lavin 2 Chap VII

BERNINI AND THE THEATER

Lavin II:Lavin 2 Chap VII

Lavin II:Lavin 2 Chap VII

BERNINI AND THE THEATER

Lavin II:Lavin 2 Chap VII

at his own expense and costing no more than tre baiocchi.

68, 69, 115, 116f., 213.

Lavin II:Lavin 2 Chap VII

BERNINI AND THE THEATRE

through lavish settings and costumes which were probably rare in

Lavin II:Lavin 2 Chap VII

BERNINI AND THE THEATER

1. Stage set from Il S. Alessio, 1634, pl. 2, engraving.

Lavin II:Lavin 2 Chap VII

Lavin II:Lavin 2 Chap VII

Immediacy of effect and simplicity of technique are also the keys to an

Lavin II:Lavin 2 Chap VII

BERNINI AND THE THEATER

19 Compare Berninis description, reported by Baldinucci (145), of a painting of una

Bernini and the Theater

Bernini and the Crossing of Saint Peters

Afterthoughts on Berninis Death

On the Pedestal of Berninis Bust of the Savior

Berninis Memorial Plaque for Carlo Barberini

Berninis Baldachin: Considering a Reconsideration

Berninis Bust of Cardinal Montalto

Berninis Cosmic Eagle

Berninis Image of the Sun King