Rome, 17th century. The popes, involved in the midst of the Counter-Reformation, need more than ever to make their power clear. Art is a weapon of the first order. The city is left upside down and practically rebuilt. New palaces, churches, squares, fountains…
There is not only bustle in the papal court. Every great family with aspirations to the throne of Peter (Barberini, Colonna, Borghese, Chigi, Farnese or Orsini) joins that race. The best artists come to Rome –Caravaggio, Velázquez or Rubens–, but there one name shines above the others: that of Gianlorenzo Bernini (1598-1680).
Painter, architect and, above all, sculptor, for 50 years he was at the service of the papacy, practically invented the Baroque and exercised what some consider a true “artistic dictatorship.”
Pope Urban VIII said that “Bernini was born for Rome, and Rome for him.” There is no capital in the world that owes so much to a single artist. The eternal city is a true museum of his work. His mark is everywhere: the colonnade of St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican, the Sant’Angelo Bridge, countless churches, many other fountains…
Son of Pietro Bernini, a sculptor who had made a name for himself in Rome, Gianlorenzo is considered one of the most precocious talents in history. At the age of eight, his work already caught the attention of Cardinal Maffeo Barberini, for whom his father worked. The religious man became his cultural mentor and the young man began to execute some statues for the family.
Around 1620 the great opportunity arrived: Bernini was requested by Cardinal Scipione Borghese, nephew of Pope Paul V and the most prestigious collector of the time.
For the cardinal’s lavish mansion, Villa Borghese, the young sculptor created a series of life-size human figures that were to change the course of art history: Aeneas and Anchises, Pluto and Proserpina and, above all, Apollo and Daphne. In them the canons of a new language that would later receive the name Baroque were set in stone.
Michelangelo’s anatomical perfection mixed with the naturalism and theatricality that Bernini had observed in Caravaggio’s paintings. Sculpture accepted the challenge of capturing bodies in movement and freezing them forever.
Apollo and Daphne (1622-25) was, among his first works, the one that made him famous. “All Rome went to see it as if it were a miracle,” wrote one chronicler. Bernini had achieved a piece that should be admired even in its most hidden surfaces.
Apollo pursues Daphne, a nymph who had sworn to always remain a virgin. According to Ovid’s Metamorphoses, she implored her father, Peneus, the king of rivers, for help. And that’s how, just when Apollo caught up with her, the nymph began to transform into a tree.
The sculptor did not skimp on details. The skin turns into bark in some parts. The feet, in roots. His arms, in branches. The audience fell in love with this theatrical spectacle achieved thanks to the interaction of two moving figures and a brilliant trick: inside the villa, the statue was placed in such a way that the first thing you saw was Apollo’s back. As the spectator advanced, Daphne’s metamorphosis appeared before his eyes.
Drama, a lot of drama. That is what the Catholic art of the Counter-Reformation needed. Passions, torments, ecstasy on the surface. Bernini was the right man, at the right time and in the right city. He entered the papal court during the brief pontificate of Gregory XV, but it was with Urban VIII – the same Cardinal Barberini he had known in his childhood – that his great moment began.
The Pope encouraged him to become the total artist. Bernini painted, conceived decorations for ceremonies, designed objects, sculpted, and designed buildings. His work capacity was infinite, but there were so many projects that came to him that on numerous occasions he limited himself to acting as designer and thinking head: the chisel was wielded by others.
His style spread throughout Europe. Successive pontiffs adopted him as their court artist almost as if it were an imposition of office.
Bernini was untouchable. All the personalities of the moment wanted an effigy sculpted by him. Some paid him exorbitant amounts, others moved mountains. Charles I of England even sent him his face painted by Van Dyck from three points of view so that he could work without leaving Rome.
The popes and the great Roman families were very reluctant to do without their services. Only on one occasion, during a few months in 1665, did the sculptor spend time at another court. It was in Paris, where Louis XIV had great projects for the Italian genius: an equestrian statue, the remodeling of the Louvre and a bust.
There was no understanding – Bernini was used to working with complete freedom – and only the last piece came to fruition. Of course: the Sun King himself had to pose 18 times, until Bernini was satisfied.
Bernini achieved a fame in his lifetime that few artists in history have achieved. And yet he fell from grace. Little more than a century after his death, his works were considered the height of kitsch and bad taste: too attached to the theater that his century required.
Aesthetic reasons, however, are not enough to explain the ostracism of an artist with a footprint of such gigantic proportions. Bernini’s life, in reality, did not offer raw material for legend: it was too conventional.
Only one incident blotted his resume. In 1636 he had an affair with Costanza Bonarelli, the wife of one of his assistants. Bernini found out that he was also frolicking with his brother, Luigi, and flew into a rage: he ordered a servant to cut off the lady’s face.
Bernini was sentenced to pay a heavy fine, and thanks to the intervention of Urban VIII the matter was forgotten. The pope, however, recommended his artist to find a good woman and get married. Bernini listened to him. He married Caterina Tezio three years later, had eleven children and remained the affable man and good Christian he had always been.
Bernini has the honor of being for Italy the last of its universal geniuses, but he is light years away from the temperaments and current fame of Michelangelo or Leonardo.
This text is part of an article published in number 443 of the magazine Historia y Vida. Do you have something to contribute? Write to us at redaccionhyv@historiayvida.com.