Editing Gian Lorenzo Bernini (section)

==Works of art, architecture, and mixed genre==

===Sculpture===
Although he proved during his long lifetime to be a ''uomo universale'', truly accomplished in so many areas of artistic production like Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci before him, Bernini was first and foremost a sculptor. He was trained from his earliest youth in that profession by his sculptor father, Pietro. The most recent and most comprehensive catalogue raisonné of his works of sculpture compiled by Maria Grazia Bernardini (''Bernini: Catalogo delle sculture''; Turin: Allemandi, 2022, 2 vols.) comprises 143 entries (not including those of debated attribution): they span Bernini's entire productive life, the first securely attributed work dating to 1610-1612 (the marble portrait bust of Bishop Giovanni Battista Santoni, for his tomb monument in Rome's Santa Prassede) and the last to 1679 (the marble ''Salvator Mundi'' bust, Basilica of San Sebastian fuori le Mura, Rome).

These many works range in size from small garden pieces of his earliest years (e.g., the ''Boy with a Dragon'', 1617, Getty Museum, Los Angeles) to colossal works such as the ''Saint Longinus'' (1629–38, St. Peter's Basilica, Rome). The majority are in marble, with other works being in bronze (most notably his various papal portrait busts and the monumental statues adorning his ''Baldacchino'' (1624–33) and ''Cathedra Petri'' (1656–66) in St. Peter's Basilica. In virtually all cases, Bernini first produced numerous clay models as preparation for the final product; these models are now treasured as works of art in themselves, though, regrettably, only a minuscule percentage have survived from what must have been a great multitude.

The single largest sub-group of his sculptural production is represented by his portrait busts (either free-standing or incorporated into larger funerary monuments), mostly of his papal patrons or other ecclesiastical personages, as well as those few secular potentates who could afford the extraordinary expense of commissioning a portrait from Bernini (e.g., ''King Louis XIV'', 1665, Palace of Versailles). Other large groups are represented by his religious works – statues of Biblical figures, angels, saints of the church, the crucified Christ, etc. – and his mythological figures either free-standing (such as his earliest masterpieces in the Galleria Borghese, Rome) or serving as ornaments in his complex fountain designs (such as the Fountain of the Four Rivers, 1647–51, Piazza Navona, Rome).

Bernini's vast sculptural output can also be categorized according to the degree to which Bernini himself contributed to both the design and execution of the final product: to wit, some works are entirely of his own design and execution; others, of his design and partial but still substantial execution; while others of his design but with little or no actual execution by Bernini (such as the ''Madonna and Child,'' Carmelite Church of Saint Joseph, Paris). A further category contains those works commissioned from Bernini and fully credited to his workshop, but represent neither his direct design nor execution, only his signature stylistic inspiration (such as several of the angels on the Ponte Sant’ Angelo refurbished by Bernini, and all of the saints atop the two arms of the portico of Saint Peter's Square). In general, the more prestigious the commission, and the earlier the commission in his career, the greater is Bernini's role in both design and execution, though notable exceptions exist to both of these general rules.

===Architecture===
Although his formal professional training was as sculptor and his entrance into the field of architecture not of his own volition but that of Pope Urban VIII, Bernini had by the end of his life reached what has proven to be his enduring status as one of the most influential architects of seventeenth-century Europe. He was certainly one of the most prolific over the many decades of his long, active life. Despite the fact that he rarely left the city of Rome and that all of his works of architecture were confined to the limits of the papal capital or to nearby towns, Bernini's influence was indeed European-wide: this is thanks both to the many engravings that disseminated his ideas across the continent and to the many non-Italian students of architecture who made long pilgrimages to Rome from all corners of Europe to study and be inspired by the ancient and modern masters, Bernini among them.

Bernini's architectural works include sacred and secular buildings and sometimes their urban settings and interiors.<ref>The most recent and comprehensive study of Bernini's architecture in English is Tod A. Marder, ''Bernini and the Art of Architecture,'' Abbeville Press, New York and London, 1998.</ref> He made adjustments to existing buildings and designed new constructions. Among his most well-known works are [[St. Peter's Square]] (1656–67), the [[piazza]] and colonnades in front of [[St. Peter's Basilica]] and the interior decoration of the basilica. Among his secular works are a number of Roman palaces: following the death of [[Carlo Maderno]], he took over the supervision of the building works at the [[Palazzo Barberini]] from 1630 on which he worked with [[Francesco Borromini]]; the Palazzo Ludovisi (now [[Palazzo Montecitorio]], started 1650); and the Palazzo Chigi (now [[Palazzo Chigi-Odescalchi]], started 1664).

[[File:Baldachin petersdom.jpg|thumb|left|''St. Peter's baldachin'', 1624–1633]]

His first architectural projects were the creation of the new façade and refurbishment of the interior of the church of [[Santa Bibiana]] (1624–26) and the ''[[St. Peter's Baldachin]]'' (1624–33), the bronze columned canopy over the high altar of St. Peter's basilica. In 1629, and before the baldachin was complete, [[Urban VIII]] put him in charge of all the ongoing architectural works in the basilica, bestowing upon him the official rank of "Architect of St. Peter's." However, Bernini fell out of favour during the papacy of Innocent X Pamphili because of that pope's already-mentioned animosity towards the Barberini (and hence towards their clients including Bernini) and the above-described failure of the bell towers designed and built by Bernini for St. Peter's Basilica. Never wholly without patronage during the Pamphili years and never losing his status as "Architect of St. Peter's," after Innocent's death in 1655 Bernini regained a major role in the decoration of the basilica with the [[Pope Alexander VII]] [[Chigi family|Chigi]], leading to his design of the piazza and [[colonnade]] in front of St. Peter's. Further significant works by Bernini at the Vatican include the ''[[Scala Regia (Vatican)|Scala Regia]]'' (1663–66), the monumental grand stairway entrance to the Vatican Palace, and the ''[[Chair of Saint Peter|Cathedra Petri]]'', the Chair of Saint Peter, in the apse of St. Peter's, in addition to the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament in the nave.

[[File:Sicht vom petersdom roma.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|View of the piazza and colonnade in front of St. Peter's]]

Bernini did not build many churches ''ex novo'', from the ground up; rather, his efforts were concentrated on pre-existing structures, such as the restored church of Santa Bibiana and in particular St. Peter's. He fulfilled three commissions for new churches in Rome and nearby small towns. Best known is the small but richly ornamented oval church of [[Sant'Andrea al Quirinale]], done (beginning in 1658) for the Jesuit novitiate, representing one of the rare works of his hand with which Bernini's son, Domenico, reports that his father was truly and very pleased.<ref>See Domenico Bernini, ''The Life of Gian Lorenzo Bernini'', trans. and ed. [[Franco Mormando]], University Park: Penn State University Press, 2011, pp. 178–179.</ref> Bernini also designed churches in [[Castelgandolfo]] ([[San Tommaso da Villanova]], 1658–1661) and [[Ariccia]] ([[Santa Maria Assunta (Ariccia)|Santa Maria Assunta]], 1662–1664), and was responsible for the re-modelling of the [[Sanctuary of Santa Maria di Galloro, Ariccia]], endowing it with a majestic new façade.

When Bernini was invited to Paris in 1665 to prepare works for [[Louis XIV]], he presented designs for the [[east façade of the Louvre Palace]], but his projects were ultimately turned down in favour of the more sober and classic proposals of a committee consisting of three Frenchmen: [[Louis Le Vau]], [[Charles Le Brun]], and the doctor and amateur architect [[Claude Perrault]],<ref>[[Anthony Blunt]], ''Architecture in France 1500–1700'', Pelican History of Art, 1953, p. 190.</ref> signalling the waning influence of Italian artistic hegemony in France. Bernini's projects were essentially rooted in the Italian Baroque urbanist tradition of relating public buildings to their settings, often leading to innovative architectural expression in urban spaces like ''piazze'' or squares. However, by this time, the French absolutist monarchy now preferred the classicizing monumental severity of the Louvre's facade, no doubt with the added political bonus that it had been designed by Frenchmen. The final version did, however, include Bernini's feature of a flat roof behind a [[Palladian architecture|Palladian]] balustrade.

===Fountains===
[[File:Lazio Roma Navona2 tango7174.jpg|thumb|''[[Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi]]'']]

True to the decorative dynamism of Baroque which loved the aesthetic pleasure and emotional delight afforded by the sight and sound of water in motion, among Bernini's most gifted and applauded creations were his Roman fountains, which were both utilitarian public works and personal monuments to their patrons, papal or otherwise. His first fountain, the '[[Fontana della Barcaccia|Barcaccia]]' (commissioned in 1627, finished 1629) at the foot of the Spanish Steps, cleverly surmounted a challenge that Bernini was to face in several other fountain commissions, the low water pressure in many parts of Rome (Roman fountains were all driven by gravity alone), creating a low-lying flat boat that was able to take greatest advantage of the small amount of water available. Another example is the long-ago dismantled "Woman Drying Her Hair" fountain that Bernini created for the no-longer-extant Villa Barberini ai Bastioni on the edge of the [[Janiculum]] Hill overlooking St. Peter's Basilica.<ref>For these two fountains and Bernini's other fountains, see F. Mormando, ''Domenico Bernini: The Life of Gian Lorenzo Bernini'' (Penn State Univ. Press, 2011), pp. 136–139 with accompanying extensive notes; for the Fountain of the Four Rivers, see pp.161–165 and notes.</ref>

His other fountains include the ''[[Triton Fountain|Fountain of the Triton]]'', or ''Fontana del Tritone'' in [[Piazza Barberini]] (celebrated in [[Ottorino Respighi]]'s ''[[Fountains of Rome (symphonic poem)|Fountains of Rome]]''), and the nearby Barberini Fountain of the Bees, the ''[[Fontana delle Api]]''.<ref>This fountain was dismantled in the nineteenth century and reassembled (incorrectly) in the twentieth in the [[Via Veneto]]. A second ''Fontana delle Api'' in the Vatican has sometimes been attributed to Bernini of which Blunt has written, "Borromini is documented as having carved the fountain in 1626, but it is not certain whether he made the design for it, and it has also been attributed—not very plausibly—to Bernini" (Blunt, ''Borromini'', Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979, 17).</ref> The Fountain of the Four Rivers, or ''[[Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi]]'', in the [[Piazza Navona]] is an exhilarating masterpiece of spectacle and political allegory in which Bernini again brilliantly overcame the problem of the piazza's low water pressure creating the illusion of an abundance of water that in reality did not exist. An oft-repeated, but false, anecdote tells that one of the Bernini's river gods defers his gaze in disapproval of the façade of [[Sant'Agnese in Agone]] (designed by the talented, but less politically successful, rival [[Francesco Borromini]]), impossible because the fountain was built several years before the façade of the church was completed. Bernini also provided the design for the statue of the Moor in ''[[La Fontana del Moro]]'' in Piazza Navona (1653).

===Tomb monuments and other works===
Another major category of Bernini's activity was that of the tomb monument, a genre on which his distinctive new style exercised a decisive and long-enduring influence; included in this category are his tombs for Popes Urban VIII and Alexander VII (both in St. Peter's Basilica), Cardinal Domenico Pimentel (Santa Maria sopra Minerva, Rome, design only), and [[Tomb of Countess Matilda of Tuscany|Matilda of Canossa]] (St. Peter's Basilica). Related to the tomb monument is the funerary memorial, of which Bernini executed several (including that, most notably, of [[Memorial to Maria Raggi|Maria Raggi]] (Santa Maria sopra Minerva, Rome) also of greatly innovative style and long enduring influence.<ref>For his tomb monuments and funerary memorials, see the relative pages in Mormando, ''Domenico Bernini's 'Life of Gian Lorenzo Bernini,'' University Park, 2011; see also Mormando's 'A Bernini workshop drawing for a tomb monument,' ''The Burlington Magazine'', n. 1376, vol. 159, November 2017: 886–92.</ref>

Among his smaller commissions, although not mentioned by either of his earliest biographers, Baldinucci or Domenico Bernini, the [[Elephant and Obelisk]] is a sculpture located near the [[Pantheon, Rome|Pantheon]], in the [[Piazza della Minerva]], in front of the Dominican church of [[Santa Maria sopra Minerva]]. [[Pope Alexander VII]] decided that he wanted a small ancient Egyptian [[obelisk]] (that was discovered beneath the piazza) to be erected on the same site, and in 1665 he commissioned Bernini to create a sculpture to support the obelisk. The sculpture of an elephant bearing the obelisk on its back was executed by one of Bernini's students, [[Ercole Ferrata]], upon a design by his master, and finished in 1667. An inscription on the base relates the Egyptian goddess [[Isis]] and the Roman goddess [[Minerva]] to the Virgin Mary, who supposedly supplanted those pagan goddesses and to whom the church is dedicated.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Heckscher|first=W.|title=Bernini's Elephant and Obelisk|journal=Art Bulletin|volume=XXIX|issue=3|year= 1947|page=155|doi=10.1080/00043079.1947.11407785}}</ref> Bernini's elephants are highly realistic as Bernini had twice the opportunity to see a live elephant: [[Don Diego (elephant)|Don Diego]] in 1630 and [[Hansken]] in 1655.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.elephanthansken.com/berninis-beeld-van-een-olifant-in-het-rijksmuseum/ |first=M. Roscam |last=Abbing |title=Bernini's beeld van een olifant in het Rijksmuseum |language=nl |trans-title=Bernini's Sculpture of an Elephant at the Rijksmuseum |access-date=12 September 2023}}</ref> A popular anecdote concerns the elephant's smile. To find out why it is smiling, legend has it, the viewer must examine the rear end of the animal and notice that its muscles are tensed and its tail is shifted to the left as if it were defecating. The animal's rear is pointed directly at one of the headquarters of the [[Dominican Order]], housing the offices of its Inquisitors as well as the office of Father Giuseppe Paglia, a Dominican friar who was one of the main antagonists of Bernini, as a final salute and last word.<ref>This anecdote regarding the Elephant and Obelisk monument (more formally, it is a monument to Divine Wisdom and a tribute to Pope Alexander VII) is one of the many undocumented popular legends circulating about Bernini. The elephant, in fact, is not smiling, and even less so, in the act of defecating. As for Bernini, although he may have had professional reasons to resent Paglia, the conservative, pious and utterly orthodox artist personally had no grudges against the Dominican Order or the Inquisition: neither he nor his family nor his friends were ever given trouble by the Dominicans. Moreover, Giuseppe Paglia was director of the overall project to reconstruct the piazza in front of Santa Maria Minerva, appointed by Pope Alexander VII himself and, as such, had supervisory authority over Bernini and the design of his Elephant and Obelisk monument. The final design of that monument, in fact, owes much to Paglia's direct intervention. Hence, it is unlikely that Paglia (or Pope Alexander) would have allowed this supposed insult to him or his Dominican order. Finally, if Bernini did intend to deliver this visual insult, he failed totally, for there is no contemporary documentation indicating that visitors to the piazza during the artist's lifetime ever noticed the supposed insult: see Franco Mormando, ed. and trans., ''Domenico Bernini's Life of Gian Lorenzo Bernini'' (University Park: Penn State University Press, 2011), p. 369, n. 33. Instead, the origins of this anecdote can be traced to the very end of the 17th century, when the satirist [[Lodovico Sergardi]] circulated a two-line epigram in which the elephant tells the Dominicans that the position of his rear end is meant to announce "where I hold you in my esteem" (see Ingrid Rowland, 'The Friendship of Alexander VII and Athanasius Kircher, 1637-1667' in ''Early Modern Rome: Proceedings of a Conference Held on 13–15 May 2010 in Rome,'' ed. Portia Prebys [Ferrara: Edisai, 2011], pp. 669–78, here p. 670; see also p. 671 where Rowland absolves Bernini of any satiric intent: 'The Dominicans, who followed the evolution of Bernini's design for this monument with meticulous care from beginning to end, must have realized that the only reasonable placement for this remarkable creation was the placement that we see today.')</ref>

[[File:Gianlorenzo Bernini by Giovanni Battista Gaulli (National Galleries of Scotland).jpg|thumb|left|Gian Lorenzo Bernini in 1665, painted by [[Giovanni Battista Gaulli]]]]

Among his minor commissions for non-Roman patrons or venues, in 1677 Bernini worked along with [[Ercole Ferrata]] to create a fountain for the [[Lisbon]] palace of the Portuguese nobleman, [[Luís de Meneses, 3rd Count of Ericeira]]: copying his earlier fountains, Bernini supplied the design of the fountain sculpted by Ferrata, featuring Neptune with four tritons around a basin. The fountain has survived and since 1945 has been outside the precincts of the gardens of the [[Palace of Queluz]], several miles outside of Lisbon.<ref>Angela Delaforce et al., 'A Fountain by Gianlorenzo Bernini and Ercole Ferrata in Portugal,' ''Burlington,'' vol. 140, issue 1149, pp. 804–811.</ref>

===Paintings, drawings, and work for the theater===
Bernini would have studied painting as a normal part of his artistic training begun in early adolescence under the guidance of his father, Pietro, in addition to some further training in the studio of the Florentine painter, [[Cigoli]]. His earliest activity as a painter was probably no more than a sporadic diversion practised mainly in his youth, until the mid-1620s, that is, the beginning of the pontificate of Pope Urban VIII (reigned 1623–1644) who ordered Bernini to study painting in greater earnest because the pontiff wanted him to decorate the Benediction Loggia of St. Peter's. The latter commission was never executed most likely because the required large-scale narrative compositions were simply beyond Bernini's ability as a painter. According to his early biographers, Baldinucci and Domenico Bernini, Bernini completed at least 150 canvases, mostly in the decades of the 1620s and 30s, but currently, there are no more than 35–40 surviving paintings that can be confidently attributed to his hand.<ref>The most recent and thorough studies of Bernini's paintings (both containing catalogues raisonnés of all his known canvases, whether extant or lost) are Francesco Petrucci, ''Bernini pittore,'' Rome: Bozzi, 2006; and Tomaso Montanari, ''Bernini pittore'', Cinisello Balsamo: Silvana, 2007.</ref> The extant, securely attributed works are mostly portraits, seen close up and set against an empty background, employing a confident, indeed brilliant, painterly brushstroke (similar to that of his Spanish contemporary Velasquez), free from any trace of pedantry, and a very limited palette of mostly warm, subdued colours with deep chiaroscuro. His work was immediately sought after by major collectors. Most noteworthy among these extant works are several, vividly penetrating self-portraits (all dating to the mid-1620s – early 1630s), especially that in the [[Uffizi]] Gallery, Florence, purchased during Bernini's lifetime by Cardinal [[Leopoldo de' Medici]]. Bernini's ''Apostles Andrew and Thomas'' in London's [[National Gallery]] is the sole canvas by the artist whose attribution, approximate date of execution ({{circa|1625}}) and provenance (the Barberini Collection, Rome) are securely known.<ref>For a concise summary statement about Bernini's training and production as a painter, see Franco Mormando, ed. and trans., ''Domenico Bernini: The Life of Gian Lorenzo Bernini'' (University Park: Penn State U Press, 2011), pp. 294–296, nn. 4–12; see also p. 128, n. 2 for Mormando's conjecture about the reason for the non-execution of the Benediction Loggia commission (which Domenico Bernini apologetically attributes to a serious illness on his father's part).</ref>

As for Bernini's drawings, about 350 still exist; but this represents a minuscule percentage of the drawings he would have created in his lifetime; these include rapid sketches relating to major sculptural or architectural commissions, presentation drawings given as gifts to his patrons and aristocratic friends, and exquisite, fully finished portraits, such as those of [[Agostino Mascardi]] ([[Ecole des Beaux-Arts]], Paris) and [[Scipione Borghese]] and Sisinio Poli (both in New York's [[Morgan Library]]).<ref>Unfortunately there is currently no complete catalogue raisonné of all of the known Bernini drawings. The most thorough edition of his drawings still remains Heinrich Brauer and Rudolf Wittkower, ''Die Ziechnungen des Gianlorenzo Bernini,'' Berlin: Verlag Heinrich Keller, 1931, reprinted New York: Collectors Edition, 1970. Also very useful is Ann Sutherland Harris, ''Selected Drawings of Gian Lorenzo Bernini,'' New York: Dover, 1977; see also her article, 'Three Proposals for Gian Lorenzo Bernini' in ''Master Drawings,'' vol. 41, no.2 (Summer 2003), pp. 119–127. More recent is the catalogue of the exhibition of Bernini drawings in [[Leipzig]]'s [[Museum der bildenden Künste]] (which boasts one of the largest collections of Bernini drawings in the world): Hans-Werner Schmidt et al., ''Bernini: Erfinder des barocken Rom,'' Bielefeld: Kerber Art, 2014. For the drawings by Bernini and his workshop in the [[Vatican Museums|Vatican collection]], see the comprehensive, detailed, illustrated catalog: Manuela Gobbi, and [[Barbara Jatta]], eds., ''I disegni di Bernini e della sua scuola nella Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. Drawings by Bernini and His School at the Vatican Apostolic Library.'' Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 2015.</ref>

Another area of artistic endeavour to which Bernini devoted much of his spare time between major commissions and which earned him further popular acclaim was that of the theatre. For many years (especially during the reign of Pope Urban VIII, 1623–44), Bernini created a long series of theatrical productions in which he simultaneously served as scriptwriter, stage director, actor, scenographer, and special-effects technician. These plays were mostly Carnival comedies (held often in his own home) which drew large audiences and much attention and in which the artist satirized contemporary Roman life (especially court life) with his pungent witticisms. At the same time, they also dazzled spectators with daring displays of special effects such as the flooding of the Tiber river or a controlled but very real fiery blaze, as reported by his son Domenico's biography. However, although there is much disparate, scattered documentation showing that all of this theatrical work was not simply a limited or passing diversion for Bernini, the only extant remains of these endeavours are the partial script of one play and a drawing of a sunset (or sunrise) relating to the creation of a special effect on stage.<ref>For Bernini and the theatre, see Franco Mormando ed. and trans., ''Domenico Bernini: The Life of Gian Lorenzo Bernini'' (University Park: Penn State U Press, 2011), Chap. 7, pp. 132-35 with accompanying notes. The most recent and punctiliously exhaustive account of Bernini's theatrical work, analyzed especially within the larger context of the theatre world of his age, is Elena Tamburini, ''Gian Lorenzo Bernini e il teatro dell'arte'' (Florence: Le Lettere, 2012).</ref>