Editing Gian Lorenzo Bernini (section)

=== Papal artist: the pontificate of Urban VIII ===
[[File:Interiorvaticano8.jpg|thumb|''Baldacchino'' in [[St. Peter's Basilica]]]]
In 1621 Pope Paul V Borghese was succeeded on the throne of St. Peter by another admiring friend of Bernini's, Cardinal Alessandro Ludovisi, who became [[Pope Gregory XV]]: although his reign was very short (he died in 1623), Pope Gregory commissioned portraits of himself (both in marble and bronze) by Bernini. The pontiff also bestowed upon Bernini the honorific rank of 'Cavaliere,' the title with which for the rest of his life the artist was habitually referred. In 1623 came the ascent to the papal throne of his aforementioned friend and former tutor, Cardinal Maffeo Barberini, as [[Pope Urban VIII]], and henceforth (until Urban's death in 1644) Bernini enjoyed near monopolistic patronage from the Barberini pope and family. The new Pope Urban is reported to have remarked, "It is a great fortune for you, O Cavaliere, to see Cardinal Maffeo Barberini made pope, but our fortune is even greater to have Cavalier Bernini alive in our pontificate."<ref>[[Franco Mormando]], ed. and trans., Domenico Bernini, ''Life of Gian Lorenzo Bernini,'' University Park, Penn State Univ. Press, 2011, p. 111.</ref> Although he did not fare as well during the reign (1644–55) of [[Innocent X]], under Innocent's successor, [[Alexander VII]] (reigned 1655–67), Bernini once again gained pre-eminent artistic domination and continued in the successive pontificate to be held in high regard by [[Clement IX]] during his short reign (1667–69).

Under Urban VIII's patronage, Bernini's horizons rapidly and widely broadened: he was not just producing sculpture for private residences, but playing the most significant artistic (and engineering) role on the city stage, as sculptor, architect, and urban planner.{{sfn|Hibbard|1965|p=68}} His official appointments also testify to this—"curator of the papal art collection, director of the papal foundry at [[Castel Sant'Angelo]], commissioner of the fountains of [[Piazza Navona]]".{{sfn|Mormando|2011|p=72}} Such positions gave Bernini the opportunity to demonstrate his versatile skills throughout the city. To great protest from older, experienced master architects, he, with virtually no architectural training to his name, was appointed "Architect of St Peter's" in 1629, upon the death of [[Carlo Maderno]]. From then on, Bernini's work and artistic vision would be placed at the symbolic heart of Rome.

Bernini's artistic pre-eminence under Urban VIII (and later under Alexander VII) meant he was able to secure the most important commissions in the Rome of his day, namely, the various massive embellishment projects of the newly finished [[St. Peter's Basilica]], completed under Pope Paul V with the addition of Maderno's nave and facade and finally re-consecrated by Pope Urban VIII on 18 November 1626, after 100 years of planning and building. Within the basilica he was responsible for the [[St. Peter's Baldachin|Baldacchino]], the decoration of the four piers under the cupola, the Cathedra Petri or [[Chair of St. Peter]] in the apse, the [[Tomb of Countess Matilda of Tuscany]], the chapel of the Blessed Sacrament in the right nave, and the decoration (floor, walls and arches) of the new nave. The Baldacchino immediately became the visual centrepiece of the basilica. Designed as a massive spiraling gilded bronze canopy over the tomb of St Peter, Bernini's four-columned creation reached nearly {{convert|30|m|ft|abbr=on}} from the ground and cost around 200,000 [[Roman scudi]] (about 8 million US dollars in the currency of the early 21st century).<ref>For the conversion of 17th-century Roman scudi into 21st-century U.S. dollars, see F. Mormando, ''Bernini: His Life and His Rome'' (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011), p. xix.</ref> "Quite simply", writes one art historian, "nothing like it had ever been seen before".{{sfn|Mormando|2011|p=84}} Soon after the completion of the Baldacchino, Bernini undertook the whole-scale embellishment of the four massive piers at the crossing of the basilica (i.e., the structures supporting the cupola) including, most notably, four colossal, theatrically dramatic statues. Among the latter is the majestic ''[[Saint Longinus (Bernini)|St. Longinus]]'' executed by Bernini himself (the other three are by other contemporary sculptors [[François Duquesnoy]], [[Francesco Mochi]], and Bernini's disciple, [[Andrea Bolgi]]).

In the basilica Bernini also began work on the tomb for Urban VIII, completed only after Urban's death in 1644, one in a long, distinguished series of tombs and funerary monuments for which Bernini is famous and a traditional genre upon which his influence left an enduring mark, often copied by subsequent artists. Indeed, Bernini's final and most original tomb monument, the [[Tomb of Pope Alexander VII]], in St. Peter's Basilica, represents, according to [[Erwin Panofsky]], the very pinnacle of European funerary art, whose creative inventiveness subsequent artists could not hope to surpass.<ref>Erwin Panofsky, ''Tomb Sculpture: Four Lectures on Its Changing Aspect From Ancient Egypt to Bernini,'' New York: Abrams, 1992, p. 96.</ref>

[[File:Richelieu le Bernin M.R.2165 mp3h9006.jpg|thumb|left|''Bust of Armand, Cardinal de Richelieu'' (1640–1641)]]

Despite this busy engagement with large works of public architecture, Bernini was still able to devote himself to his sculpture, especially portraits in marble, but also large statues such as the life-size ''[[Saint Bibiana (Bernini)|Saint Bibiana]]'' (1624, Church of [[Santa Bibiana]], Rome). Bernini's portraits show his ever-increasing ability to capture the utterly distinctive personal characteristics of his sitters, as well as his ability to achieve in cold white marble almost painterly-like effects that render with convincing realism the various surfaces involved: human flesh, hair, fabric of varying type, metal, etc. These portraits included a number of busts of Urban VIII himself, the family [[Bust of Francesco Barberini (Bernini)|bust of Francesco Barberini]] and most notably, the [[Two Busts of Scipione Borghese]]—the second of which had been rapidly created by Bernini once a flaw had been found in the marble of the first.{{sfn|Wittkower|1955|p=88}} The transitory nature of the expression on Scipione's face is often noted by art historians, as iconic of the Baroque concern for representing fleeting movement in static artworks. To Rudolf Wittkower the "beholder feels that in the twinkle of an eye not only might the expression and attitude change but also the folds of the casually arranged mantle".{{sfn|Wittkower|1955|p=88}}

Other marble portraits in this period include that of [[Bust of Costanza Bonarelli|Costanza Bonarelli]] unusual in its more personal, intimate nature. (At the time of the sculpting of the portrait, Bernini was having an affair with [[Costanza Piccolomini Bonarelli|Costanza]], wife of one of his assistants, sculptor, Matteo.) Indeed, it would appear to be the first marble portrait of a non-aristocratic woman by a major artist in European history.<ref>During her lifetime, Costanza was called most often by her maiden name, Piccolomini (she belonged to a minor branch of the papal family that had produced Pope Pius II). Sarah McPhee's archival research has definitively corrected the long-standing mistake regarding her married name: it was Bonucelli, not Bonarelli. For about her and this affair, see below, "Personal Life."</ref>

Beginning in the late 1630s, now known in Europe as one of the most accomplished portraitists in marble, Bernini also began to receive royal commissions from outside Rome, for subjects such as [[Cardinal Richelieu]] of France, [[Francesco I d'Este]] the powerful [[Duchy of Modena and Reggio|Duke of Modena]], [[Charles I of England]] and his wife, Queen [[Henrietta Maria of France|Henrietta Maria]]. The [[Bust of King Charles I (Bernini)|bust of Charles I]] was produced in Rome from a triple portrait (oil on canvas) executed by [[Van Dyck]], that survives today in the British Royal Collection. The bust of Charles was lost in the [[Whitehall Palace]] fire of 1698 (though its design is known through contemporary copies and drawings) and that of Henrietta Maria was not undertaken due to the outbreak of the [[English Civil War]].<ref>Cust, 2007, p. 94. [https://web.archive.org/web/20131120043243/http://www.royalcollection.org.uk/eGallery/object.asp?object=404420&row=2062&detail=about Triple Portrait of Charles I].</ref>