Editing Gian Lorenzo Bernini (section)

===Partnership with Scipione Borghese===

{{multiple image | total_width = 400 |  image1 = Aeneas, Anchises, and Ascanius by Bernini.jpg | caption1 = ''[[Aeneas, Anchises, and Ascanius]]'' (1619) | image2 = The Rape of Proserpina (Rome).jpg | caption2 = ''[[The Rape of Proserpina (Bernini)|Rape of Proserpina]]'' (1621–22) |  image3 = Apollo and Daphne (Bernini) (cropped).jpg | caption3 = ''[[Apollo and Daphne (Bernini)|Apollo and Daphne]]'' (1622–25) | image4 = Bernini's David 02.jpg | caption4 = ''[[David (Bernini)|David]]'' (1623–24) }}

Under the patronage of the extravagantly wealthy and most powerful Cardinal Scipione Borghese, the young Bernini rapidly rose to prominence as a sculptor.<ref>The most up-to-date and most comprehensive catalogue raisonné of all of Bernini's sculptures is Maria Grazia Bernardini's monumental ''Catalogo delle sculture'', with an extensive bibliography (Turin: Allemandi Edizioni, 2022). It supersedes Rudolph Wittkower's catalogue, ''Bernini: The Sculptor of the Roman Baroque'', first published in 1955, but re-published in revised form even after the author's death (in 1971), the last edition being the 4th, London: Phaidon, 1997.</ref> Among his early works for the cardinal, as an assistant in his father's workshop, would have been small contributions to decorative pieces for the garden of the [[Villa Borghese gardens|Villa Borghese]], such as perhaps ''The Allegory of Autumn'' (formerly in the Hester Diamond collection in New York). Another small garden ornament work (in the Galleria Borghese since Bernini's lifetime), ''[[The Goat Amalthea with the Infant Jupiter and a Faun]]'', was from 1926 until 2022 generally considered by scholars to be the earliest work executed entirely by the young Bernini himself, despite the fact that it is never mentioned in any of the contemporary sources, except for a late reference (1675) as a Bernini work by Joachim von Sandrart, a German visitor to Rome, an attribution that was given no credence until the twentieth century. Indeed, the official 2022 ''Catalogo generale'' (vol. 1, ''Sculture moderne'', cat. 41) of the Galleria Borghese, edited by Anna Coliva (former director of the gallery) formally removes the attribution to Bernini completely, on the basis of both stylistic, technical, and historical (documentary) grounds.

Instead, among Bernini's earliest and securely documented work is his collaboration on his father's commission of February 1618 from Cardinal Maffeo Barberini to create four marble ''putti'' for the Barberini family chapel in the church of {{lang|it|[[Sant'Andrea della Valle]]|italic=no}}, the contract stipulating that his son Gian Lorenzo would assist in the execution of the statues.<ref>F. Mormando, ''Domenico Bernini's Life of Gian Lorenzo Bernini'' (University Park: Penn State University Press, 2011), p. 282, n. 23. Scholars, however, are still in debate as to which of the four 'putti' came from the hand of Gian Lorenzo.</ref> Also dating to 1618 is a letter by Maffeo Barberini in Rome to his brother Carlo in Florence, which mentions that he (Maffeo) was thinking of asking the young Gian Lorenzo to finish one of the statues left incomplete by Michelangelo, then in possession of Michelangelo's grandnephew which Maffeo was hoping to purchase, a remarkable attestation of the great skill that the young Bernini was already believed to possess.<ref>I. Lavin, 'Five New Youthful Sculptures by Gianlorenzo Bernini and a Revised Chronology of His Early Works,' ''Art Bulletin'' 50 (1968): 223–48, here 236–237. There is no scholarly consensus as to which unfinished Michelangelo statue the Maffeo letter was referring, but evidence all points strongly in the direction of the ''Palestrina Pietà'' (now in the Accademia, Florence): see Irving Lavin (†) and Marilyn Aronberg Lavin, "The ''Palestrina Pietà:'' Gatherings on the History of 'a Statue Begun by Michelangelo,'" ''Artibus et Historiae,'' no. 82, XLI, 2020: 249–65.</ref>

Although the Michelangelo statue-completion commission came to nought, the young Bernini was shortly thereafter (in 1619) commissioned to repair and complete a famous work of antiquity, the ''[[Sleeping Hermaphroditus]]'' owned by Cardinal Scipione Borghese ({{lang|it|[[Galleria Borghese]]|italic=no}}, Rome) and later ({{circa|1622}}) restored the so-called ''[[Ludovisi Ares]]'' ({{lang|it|[[Museo Nazionale Romano]]|italic=no}}, Rome).<ref>Maurizio Fagiolo dell'Arco and Marcello Fagiolo, ''Bernini. Una introduzione al gran teatro barocco'' (Rome: Bulzoni, 1967), cat. entries #11 (Hermaphrodite) and #25 (Ares). Contrary to what the Fagiolo dell'Arco brothers claim in their cat. #31, there is no documentation at all proving or even suggesting that Bernini was responsible for the restoration of the so-called ''[[Barberini Faun]]'' (now in the [[Glyptothek]] of Munich), as Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny have demonstrated in their ''Taste and the Antique'' (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981), cat. 33, pp. 202–05.</ref>

Also dating to this early period are the so-called ''[[Damned Soul (Bernini)|Damned Soul]]'' and ''[[Blessed Soul (Bernini)|Blessed Soul]]'' of {{circa|1619}}, two small marble busts which may have been influenced by a set of prints by [[Pieter de Jode I]] or [[Karel van Mallery]], but which were in fact unambiguously catalogued in the inventory of their first documented owner, Fernando de Botinete y Acevedo, as depicting a nymph and a satyr, a commonly paired duo in ancient sculpture (they were not commissioned by nor ever belonged to either Scipione Borghese or, as most scholarship erroneously claims, the Spanish cleric, Pedro Foix Montoya).<ref>For the Jode / Mallery prints, see Leuschner, 2016, 135–46. For newly discovered archival documentation about the provenance and original identity of the subjects of the two busts, see Garcia Cueto, 2015, 37–53.</ref> By the time he was twenty-two, Bernini was considered talented enough to have been given a commission for a papal portrait, the ''[[Bust of Pope Paul V (Bernini)|Bust of Pope Paul V]]'', now in the [[J. Paul Getty Museum]].

Bernini's reputation, however, was definitively established by four masterpieces, executed between 1619 and 1625, all now displayed in the Galleria Borghese in Rome. To the art historian Rudolf Wittkower these four works—''[[Aeneas, Anchises, and Ascanius]]'' (1619), ''[[The Rape of Proserpina (Bernini)|The Rape of Proserpina]]'' (1621–22), ''[[Apollo and Daphne (Bernini)|Apollo and Daphne]]'' (1622–1625), and ''[[David (Bernini)|David]]'' (1623–24)—"inaugurated a new era in the history of European sculpture."{{sfn|Wittkower|1955|p=14}} It is a view repeated by other scholars, such as Howard Hibbard who proclaimed that, in all of the seventeenth century, "there were no sculptors or architects comparable to Bernini."{{sfn|Hibbard|1965|p=21}} Adapting the classical grandeur of [[Renaissance]] sculpture and the dynamic energy of the Mannerist period, Bernini forged a new, distinctly Baroque conception for religious and historical sculpture, powerfully imbued with dramatic realism, stirring emotion and dynamic, theatrical compositions. Bernini's early sculpture groups and portraits manifest "a command of the human form in motion and a technical sophistication rivalled only by the greatest sculptors of classical antiquity."<ref>Timothy Clifford and Michael Clarke, Foreword, ''Effigies and Ecstasies: Roman Baroque Sculpture and Design in the Age of Bernini'', Edinburgh: National Gallery of Scotland, 1998, p. 7</ref> Moreover, Bernini possessed the ability to depict highly dramatic narratives with characters showing intense psychological states, but also to organize large-scale sculptural works that convey a magnificent grandeur.{{sfn|Wittkower|1955|p=13}}

Unlike sculptures done by his predecessors, these focus on specific points of narrative tension in the stories they are trying to tell: [[Aeneas]] and his family fleeing the burning [[Troy]]; the instant that [[Pluto (mythology)|Pluto]] finally grasps the hunted [[Persephone]]; the precise moment that [[Apollo]] sees his beloved [[Daphne]] begin her transformation into a tree. They are transitory but dramatic powerful moments in each story. Bernini's ''David'' is another stirring example of this. Michelangelo's motionless, idealized ''[[David (Michelangelo)|David]]'' shows the subject holding a rock in one hand and a sling in the other, contemplating the battle; similarly immobile versions by other Renaissance artists, including [[David (Donatello, bronze)|Donatello]]'s, show the subject in his triumph after the battle with [[Goliath]]. Bernini illustrates [[David]] during his active combat with the giant, as he twists his body to catapult toward Goliath. To emphasize these moments and to ensure that they were appreciated by the viewer, Bernini designed the sculptures with a specific viewpoint in mind, though he sculpted them fully in the round. Their original placements within the [[Villa Borghese]] were against walls so that the viewers' first view was the dramatic moment of the narrative.<ref>{{harvnb|Wittkower|1955|p=15}}; {{harvnb|Hibbard|1965|pp=53–54}}</ref>

The result of such an approach is to invest the sculptures with greater psychological energy. The viewer finds it easier to gauge the state of mind of the characters and therefore understands the larger story at work: Daphne's wide open mouth in fear and astonishment, David biting his lip in determined concentration, or Proserpina desperately struggling to free herself. This is shown by how Bernini portrays her braids coming undone which reveals her emotional distress.<ref>{{Cite book |first=Jonathan |last=Dewald |url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/773533350 |title=Europe 1450 to 1789 : encyclopedia of the early modern world |date=2004 |publisher=Charles Scribner's Sons |isbn=0-684-31201-8 |oclc=773533350}}</ref> In addition to portraying psychological realism, they show a greater concern for representing physical details. The tousled hair of Pluto, the pliant flesh of [[The Rape of Proserpina|Proserpina]], or the forest of leaves beginning to envelop Daphne all demonstrate Bernini's exactitude and delight for representing complex real world textures in marble form.<ref>{{harvnb|Wittkower|1955|pp=14–15}}; {{harvnb|Hibbard|1965|pp=48–61}}</ref>