Gian Lorenzo Bernini
was born in Naples on the 7th December, 1598, the city
where his father had only just moved to with his wife,
the Neapolitan, Angelica Galante, to work on the
building site for the Charterhouse of St. Martin's. When
he returned to Roma, he took part in the works begun by
Paul V in Santa Maria Maggiore, gaining the protection
of cardinal Scipione Borghese and the chance to show off
the precocious talent of his son. An important anecdote
attributes cardinal Maffeo Barberini (the future pope
Urban VIII) with the phrase aimed at Pietro Bernini "Be
careful.This lad will overtake you a will without doubt
be more able than his teacher':
Fascinated by the examples of old sculptures, from which
he got the inspiration for the Borghese groups, when
cardinal Scipione suggested that he might complete his
Hermaphrodite (now in the Louvre) he didn't hesitate in
adding the silky softness of a marble mattress to the
perturbing sensuality ofthe statue. |
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In 1622, he was ready to try a
personal work on the Ares (or Achilles) Ludovisi (now in the
Altemps Palace), especially in the feral grimace of the
monster on the hilt of the sword. Havi ng ga i ned the Cross
of the Order of Ch rist in 1621 for havi ng done the
Portrait of Gregory XV, his fame as a new Michelangelo
brought him, in the Barberini Pontificate, a long series of
official commissions. With his ubiquity he would exercise a
strict dictatorship over artists such as Sacchi, Finelli or
Borromini dragging the clients into mad expenses (the duke
of Modena was disposed to spend 3,000 scudi) and his friends
into exultant criticisms. The poet, FulvioTesti, had called
him "a man to make people go mad': A lovable egocentric, a
character "all fire" who, in his private life, loved to be
"Patron of theWorld'; an intolerant lover capable of arming
hired assassins against the bewitching Costanza Bonarelli
suspected of unfaithfulness. |
Successor to Maderno as the
architect of St. Paul's and, on the death of his father,
Architect of the Acqua Vergine, his ascent suffered a
brusque halt after the inquiry on the presumed irregularitv
in the erection of the Vatican Campaniles (1645-6) which
caused his temporary dismissal.
Reinstated by Innocent X, he was to reach the peak of his
career with the ascension of AlexanderVII and the Chigi's,
forced to allow a brief absence of the artist (April-
October, 1665) to placate the urgent requests of Louis XIV.
Even exciting admiration atVersailles, the fame of the
artist - preceded by the superb Portrait of Cardinal
Richelieu - would cause a climate of diffidence in academic
spheres that would wreck all his expectations, including the
grand project for the Louvre.
In Roma, apart from the strong satires that had compared his
Constantineto a monkey on a camel, other successes awaited
him and the kindly protection of personages such as father
Oliva and Christina of Sweden, who, the by now old Bernini
gave the Bust of Salvatore to. Among the many children he
had by Caterina Tezio, Paolo Valentino would become a
sculptor and Domenico, the author of the famous biography of
his father, published in Roma in 1713.
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