On the trail of Rome’s supreme Baroque artist
There’s ancient Rome and there’s Renaissance Rome but it’s Baroque Rome that showcases the city at its grandest and most exuberant. Rome was the birthplace of the dramatic, opulent style, after all, beginning around 1600 and spreading to the rest of Europe after that. As part of the Counter-Reformation after the Council of Trent, the Roman Catholic Church encouraged the Baroque style as a means of bringing back the faithful by appealing to their emotions. The visual arts changed from its intellectual Mannerist ways to a more visceral approach that seduced the senses and captivated the heart.
And there was no one more savvy in the art of seduction than the artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini who created the Baroque style of sculpture and was one of the leading figures in the development of Roman Baroque architecture. He was actually multi-talented, aside from being extremely charming. He also painted, wrote plays and designed stage sets. Originally from Naples, he went to Rome in 1606 at the age of eight, accompanying his father, the Mannerist sculptor Pietro Bernini, to attend to some projects. While in the city, the boy’s artistic skills were noticed by the painter Annibale Caracci and Pope Paul V. It was a most auspicious introduction to a long, eventful career as Rome’s pre-eminent Baroque artist who worked under the reign of eight popes.
When we revisited Rome recently, we realized that Bernini had left his mark on almost every corner of the city — from churches and palaces, museums and galleries, to fountains and monuments — making his work integral to the history of the city itself. He transformed the face of 17th century Rome the way Michelangelo did the century before. We decided to do a Bernini trail – tracing his creations and his life through the major landmarks of the Eternal City.
First stop was the Galleria Borghese, housed in the former summer mansion of Cardinal Scipione Borghese, nephew of Pope Paul V and leading patron of Bernini. The Cardinal commissioned the villa and surrounding gardens from 1613-1616 and used it as a place to entertain as well as showcase his growing art collection. Now considered one of Rome’s top museums, the Galleria Borghese owns some of Bernini’s finest sculptures as well as paintings by Raphael, Titian, Caravaggio, Rubens and other masters. Self-portraits of Bernini can also be found in their painting gallery. But sculpture was really his medium. He captures dramatic moments with amazing realism and sensuality in such works as ”The Abduction of Proserpina” (1621-1622) where Pluto seizes the Roman goddess and takes her to the underworld. In “Apollo and Daphne” (1622-1625) the god of light captures Daphne as she turns into a laurel tree to escape her aggressor. “David” (1623-1624), modeled on the artist’s own face as he struggled with his tools sculpting the marble, shows the youth with pursed lips, twisting his torso as he confronts the giant Goliath. A bust of Cardinal Borghese (1632) is so lifelike you can almost feel his chest heaving and his lips about to open to utter a word. This apparently reflects Bernini’s “speaking likeness” technique of capturing the moment when a person is just about to speak or right after he has spoken, revealing his innermost thoughts and psychological state. A very personal bust he created which is now in the Bargello Museum in Florence is that of Costanza Bonarelli (1636-37), the wife of one of his pupils. He fell passionately in love with her and executed her portrait which was a first because such sculptures of women in marble were normally reserved for nobility or for a tomb. They were also quite formal, depicted with elaborate hairdos and opulent dresses not like the way Bernini did his lover which was very casual, wearing a skimpy chemise and with her hair undone. He obviously did away with all the superficial trappings and just went straight to the heart of this person he loved dearly. His feelings were so intense, in fact, that when he caught his brother Luigi in bed with Costanza, he beat him almost to his death and sent a servant to slash Costanza’s face. It was such a scandal that Pope Urban VIII had to intervene to save the artist from ruin. Bernini was fined and he was encouraged to finally settle down and marry, which he did in 1639 at age 40. His wife, Caterina Tezio, bore him 11 children during his lifetime.
He remained relatively stable, attending Mass daily, devoted to the Church which was his greatest patron, and concentrating on his art.
At the Musei Capitolini, another must-visit museum, there is a Bernini bust of Medusa (1630) that also shows his virtuosity — Snakes are virtually writhing all over the Gorgon’s head, belying its stone origins. Pope Urban VIII, his greatest patron, has a life-sized statue. They had been friends even when the Pope was still Cardinal Maffeo Barberini and gave him one of his architectural commissions – The Palazzo Barberini (1629-1633). Palazzo Barberini is worth a visit because it also houses the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, famed for its spectacular frescoed ceiling by Pietro da Cortona and works by Raphael, Caravaggio, Titian, Tintoretto, Filippo Lippi, Guido Reni and Holbein.
Nearby, at the piazza Barberini is the artist’s Fontana del Tritone (1642-43), also commissioned by Barberini but when he was already pope. Executed in travertine, a muscular, Greco-Roman sea god Triton is depicted as a merman atop four dolphins that entwine the papal tiara with crossed keys and the heraldic Barberini bees. This was Bernini’s last major commission from his patron who died in 1644.
At Piazza Navona, while having the famed tartufo ice cream at the Tre Scalini café, you can marvel at another Bernini fountain — the Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi (1651), a basin from which travertine rocks rise to support four river gods and a central Egyptian obelisk with the Pamphili family emblem of a dove with an olive twig. It was made as a representation of the four major rivers of the four continents to which papal authority had spread: the Danube for Europe, the Nile for Africa, The Rio Plata for the Americas, and the Ganges for Asia. The fountain was designed for Pope Innocent X whose family palace, the Palazzo Pamphili, faced onto the piazza. The pope, who replaced Bernini’s patron Urban VIII, actually favored Bernini’s rivals after his predecessor died but Bernini persisted and submitted a proposal even if he was not invited. Upon seeing Bernini’s model of the fountain, the pope was overwhelmed and just had to give in. Bernini has another work on the southern end of Piazza Navona where the Fontana del Moro features his sculpture of a moor (1653), a new addition to the original 1575 design of Giacomo della Porta.
If you head east to the Pantheon area, on Piazza Minerva you will find Bernini’s Pulcino della Minerva (1667) in front of the church of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva — one of the most curious monuments of Rome with an elephant as the supporting base of an Egyptian obelisk. The elephant looks like he’s smiling and when you look at its back it becomes apparent why. This was supposedly one of the jokes of Bernini who was quite a prankster. The monument required a redesign forced upon him by a Dominican friar who insisted that a sturdier base was needed to make it more believable that it could bear the weight of the obelisk. As tit for tat, the artist rendered the elephant’s behind in graphic detail and made it face the office of the unreasonable friar.
Not far south from Piazza Barberini is the church of Sant’Andrea al Quirinale (1661-1670), an architectural work of Bernini which was one of his favorites, a church he would visit often in his old age, spending hours inside it and contemplating his work. It is indeed worthy of reflection, with a painting of the Martyrdom of Saint Andrew by Guillaume Courtois in the main altar, showing the saint on an X-shaped cross. The saint makes a second appearance above, this time in sculpted marble, rising from the pediment on a cloud, on his way to heaven as represented by the church’s golden dome. The dramatic visual narrative is achieved with Bernini’s skill of combining painting, sculpture and architecture into a “unity of visual arts” that illustrates an idea with maximum theatrical impact.
Nowhere is this sense of drama more evident than at the Vatican which was one of our major stops. We passed the Castel Sant’Angelo first on the way to see his angels on the bridge leading to the mausoleum of the Roman Emperor Hadrian. It was quite fitting because this bridge was used by pilgrims in the past to reach St. Peter’s Basilica. The angel with the crown of thorns and the angel with the superscription “I.N.R.I.” are actually copies since Pope Clement IX kept the originals for his own pleasure and later relocated them to the church of Sant’Andrea delle Fratte where they are now.
Approaching St. Peter’s Basilica, you cannot but be awed by the sheer majesty of it all and this is in large part because of the design of the Piazza San Pietro (1656-1667) by Bernini. Colonnades made of four rows of Doric columns define the square, framing the trapezoidal entrance to the basilica and the piazza’s main elliptical area which precedes it. Instead of the usual approach, Bernini created a breathtaking one where the colonnades first stretch out straight on the sides from the basilica then curve out sideways enclosing you in a sweeping embrace “like the maternal arms of Mother Church,” as Bernini described it. Commissioned by Pope Alexander VII, the piazza had to make it possible for the greatest number of people to see the Pope give his blessing, either from the middle of the façade of the church or from a window in the Vatican Palace.
At the Basilica itself, the magnificence continues with Bernini’s Baldacchino (1623-1634), a bronze canopy commissioned by Pope Urban VIII to mark Saint Peter’s tomb underneath. All of four stories tall with twisted Solomonic columns, it is positioned at the center of the crossing and directly under the dome. Updated in the Baroque style, the form is that of a ciborium or architectural pavilion found over altars of important churches. The plinths, decorated with the Barberini coat of arms, feature three bees which look identical until you realize upon closer inspection that one has the tiny head of a woman with a face in agony. Another plinth has a shield with the head of a child. These strange details are said to be a tribute to childbirth, an inspiration that came to the pope when a favorite niece experienced a difficult delivery. Legend has it that to supply the huge amounts of bronze needed, they even had to pilfer from the ceiling and exterior of the ancient Pantheon. It was a common Roman saying then that “What wasn’t done by the barbarians was done by a Barberini!”
Other works of the Baroque artist at the basilica include the bronze throne above the main altar, the four saints under the dome (although only Longinus was done by Bernini himself, with the others delegated to his pupils), the Altar of the Holy Sacraments and several funerary monuments including the tomb of Urban VIII. The Royal Staircase which connects St. Peter’s to the Vatican Palace was also his work.
But just as St. Peter’s was the home of some of his most glorious creations, it was also the scene of his biggest disgrace: The two bell towers he designed for the façade which turned out to be too tall and unwieldy for the basilica’s faulty foundation. While completing one tower in 1641, cracks had begun to appear, causing a big scandal which ruined Bernini’s reputation..
This low point in his career was only temporary, however. His winning the commission for the fountain in Piazza Navona under Pope Innocent X restored his pre-eminence. He received other commissions from the pope and other senior members of Rome’s clergy and aristocracy. He actually became so famous that he was summoned to France to work for King Louis IV and when he arrived in Paris the streets were lined with admiring crowds. His artistry also flourished with the development of new types of funerary monuments like the floating medallion for the nun Maria Raggi at the church of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva. His chapels like the Raimondi in the church of San Pietro in Montorio used innovative lighting with four hidden lateral side windows instead of the traditional central dome variety, evoking light of seemingly divine intervention.
It was the commission for the Cornaro chapel (1647-1652), however, that can be considered the apotheosis of his genius, integrating sculpture and architecture to create “un bel composto,” a beautiful whole. Found in the church of Santa Maria della Vittoria near Palazzo Barberini, the star of the chapel is Bernini’s masterpiece: the statue of the Spanish nun and saint, Teresa of Avila, in a state of swooning ecstasy as the angel hovering over her plunges his golden spear into her heart.
His sculpture of the Blessed Ludovica Albertoni (1671-74) is also in a similar state of rapture. Located in the Altieri chapel of the Church of San Francesco a Ripa in Trastevere, the sculpture depicts the Roman noblewoman who entered the Third Order of St. Francis and did pious works, helping the poor in the neighborhood where the church is situated. Several artists had competed to do the work but Bernini won the commission and undertook the job without pay. He was 71 when he started working on the project which was one of the last sculptures in his career.
These works are two of the most controversial religious sculptures because of the portrayal of the saints’ seemingly carnal, blissful expression during their spiritual communion with God. A visiting French dignitary wrote in the 18th century: “Divine love should have been depicted with more modesty.” But modesty was never in Bernini’s vocabulary and this was the only way he knew how to express spiritual rapture. All his life it was always the concetto – the governing concept or conceit that was important in every creation. Perhaps his most obvious concetto is the attempt to overcome the limitations of his materials. In this case, transcending the limits of cold, inanimate marble by making it suggest color, texture, movement and ultimately living flesh and blood. With these sculptures he was able to depict the state of divine communion by making stone simulate a corporeal body in the throes of ecstasy. It was this skill of divining the spiritual through a perfectly sculpted work of art that ultimately made him one of the world’s greatest artists who continues to move us to this day.
* * *
Follow the authors on Facebook Ricky Toledo Chito Vijandre; Instagram @ rickytchitov and Twitter @RickyToledo23.
