Bernini's Biographies: Critical Essays

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Bernini’s Biographies

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BERNINI’S BIOGRAPHIES 

C R I T I C A L E S S AY S EDITED BY MAARTEN DELBEKE, EVONNE LEVY, AND STEVEN F. OSTROW

THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS UNIVERSITY PARK, PENNSYLVANIA

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Disclaimer: Some images in the original version of this book are not available for inclusion in the eBook. Publication of this book has been aided by a grant from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation.

library of congress cataloging-in-publication data Bernini’s biographies : critical essays / edited by Maarten Delbeke, Evonne Levy, and Steven F. Ostrow. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn-13: 987-0-271-02901-4 (cloth : alk. paper) isbn-10: 0-271-02901-3 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Bernini, Gian Lorenzo, 1598 –1680. 2. Artists—Italy—Biography—History and criticism. 3. Baldinucci, Filippo, 1625–1696. Vita del cavaliere Gio. Lorenzo Bernino. 4. Bernini, Domenico, 1657–1723. Vita del cavalier Gio. Lorenzo Bernino. I. Delbeke, Maarten. II. Levy, Evonne Anita. III. Ostrow, Steven F. N6923.B5B48 2007 709.2 — dc22 [B] 2006018106

Copyright © 2006 The Pennsylvania State University All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Published by The Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park, PA 16802-1003 The Pennsylvania State University Press is a member of the Association of American University Presses. It is the policy of The Pennsylvania State University Press to use acid-free paper. This book is printed on Natures Natural, containing 50% post-consumer waste, and meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Material, ANSI Z39.48 –1992.

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for our parents Annemie and Geert Delbeke-Schreel Anita von Bachellé Levy and Walter Kahn Levy, in memoriam Lenore and Harold Ostrow

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Contents

 list of illustrations preface

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note on the editions

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prolegomena to the interdisciplinary study of bernini’s biographies 1 Maarten Delbeke, Evonne Levy, and Steven F. Ostrow

1 At the Margins of the Historiography of Art: The Vite of Bernini Between Autobiography and Apologia

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Tomaso Montanari

2

Bernini’s Voice: From Chantelou’s Journal to the Vite

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Steven F. Ostrow

3

Plotting Bernini: A Triumph over Time

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John D. Lyons

4

Chapter 2 of Domenico Bernini’s Vita of His Father: Mimeses 159 Evonne Levy

5

“Always Like Himself”: Character and Genius in Bernini’s Biographies 181 Robert Williams

6 Bernini Portraits, Stolen and Nonstolen, in Chantelou’s Journal and the Bernini Vite 201 Rudolf Preimesberger

7

Gianlorenzo on the Grill: The Birth of the Artist in His “Primo Parto di Divozione” 223 Heiko Damm

8

Gianlorenzo Bernini’s Bel Composto: The Unification of Life and Work in Biography and Historiography 251 Maarten Delbeke

9

From Mascardi to Pallavicino: The Biographies of Bernini and Seventeenth-Century Roman Culture 275 Eraldo Bellini

10

Costanza Bonarelli: Biography Versus Archive Sarah McPhee

bibliography

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list of contributors index

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403

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L i s t o f I l l u s t r at i o n s

 1. Filippo Baldinucci, Vita del cavaliere Gio. Lorenzo Bernino scultore, architetto, e pittore, scritta da Filippo Baldinucci fiorentino (Florence: Vincenzio Vangelisti, 1682), title page (photo: Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal) 2. Domenico Bernini, Vita del cavalier Gio. Lorenzo Bernino, descritta da Domenico Bernino suo figlio (Rome: Rocco Bernabò, 1713), title page (photo: Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal) 3. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Gabriele Fonseca, ca. 1664– 68, marble. San Lorenzo in Lucina, Rome (photo: Scala/Art Resource, NY) 4. Sebastién Leclerc, “Allegoria dell’arte di Gian Lorenzo Bernini, “engraved frontispiece from Pierre Cureau de la Chambre, Préface pour servir à l’histoire de la vie et des ouvrages du Cavalier Bernini (Paris, 1685) (photo: Bibliotheca Hertziana, Max-Planck-Institut für Kunstgeschichte, Rome) 5. Arnold van Westerhout after Giovanni Battista Gaulli, Gianlorenzo Bernini, 1682, engraved frontispiece published by Filippo Baldinucci and Domenico Bernini (photo: Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal) 6. A. Clouwet after Giovanni Battista Gaulli, Sforza Pallavicino, from Effigies insignia nomina cognomina patriae et dies promotionis ac obitus summorum pontificum et S.R.E. cardinalium defunctorum. Ab anno MDC(L)VIII (Rome: de Rubeis, 1690), engraving (photo: Biblioteca Casanatense, Rome) 7. Filippo Baldinucci, Vita del cavaliere Gio. Lorenzo Bernino scultore, architetto, e pittore, scritta da Filippo Baldinucci fiorentino (Florence: Vincenzio Vangelisti, 1682), “Crossing of Saint Peter’s” (photo: Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal) 8. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Gregory XV, 1621, marble. Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto (photo: Art Gallery of Ontario) 9. “Ingegno” in Cesare Ripa, Iconologia (Padua: P. P. Tozzi, 1618), 269 (Photo: Courtesy of the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto) 10. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Truth, ca. 1652, marble. Galleria Borghese, Rome (photo: Scala/Art Resource, NY) 11. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Design for a Mirror for Queen Christina of Sweden, ca. 1662, pen and brown wash over chalk on paper. Windsor Castle, Windsor (photo: The Royal Collection © 2005, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II) 12. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Equestrian Statue of Emperor Constantine, 1654 – 70, marble. Saint Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City (photo: Scala/Art Resource, NY) 13. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Scala Regia, 1663– 66. Vatican Palace, Vatican City (photo: Scala/Art Resource, NY) 14. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Alexander VII, 1657, marble. Private collection. Siena and Rome (Photo: Courtesy the owner) 15. Filippo Baldinucci, Vita del cavaliere Gio. Lorenzo Bernino scultore, architetto, e pittore, scritta da Filippo Baldinucci fiorentino (Florence: Vincenzio Vangelisti, 1682), 18 (photo: Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal) 16. Filippo Baldinucci, Vita del cavaliere Gio. Lorenzo Bernino scultore, architetto, e pittore, scritta da Filippo Baldinucci fiorentino (Florence: Vincenzio Vangelisti, 1682), 71 (photo: Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal)

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list of illustr ations

17. Domenico Bernini, Vita del cavalier Gio. Lorenzo Bernino, descritta da Domenico Bernino suo figlio (Rome: Rocco Bernabò,1713), 74 (photo: Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal) 18. Domenico Bernini, Vita del cavalier Gio. Lorenzo Bernino, descritta da Domenico Bernino suo figlio (Rome: Rocco Bernabò, 1713), 134 (photo: Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal) 19. Gianlorenzo Bernini, David, 1623–24, marble. Galleria Borghese, Rome (photo: Scala/Art Resource, NY) 20. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Scipione Borghese (first version), 1632, marble. Galleria Borghese, Rome (photo: Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione, Rome) 21. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Scipione Borghese (second version), 1632, marble. Galleria Borghese, Rome (photo: Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione, Rome) 22. Michelangelo Buonarroti, Risen Christ (Christ the Redeemer), 1514–16, marble, detail of the vein in the face. San Vicenzo Martire, Bassano Romano (photo: Archivio Fotografico Vasari, Rome) 23. Jean-Charles-François Chéron, Medal in Honor of Gianlorenzo Bernini (reverse), 1674, bronze (photo: V&A Images, Victoria and Albert Museum, London) 24. Jean Marot, after Gianlorenzo Bernini, Third Project for the Louvre (east façade elevation), 1665, engraving. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Rogers Fund, 1952 25. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Louis XIV, 1665, marble. Chateaux de Versailles et de Trianon, Versailles (photo: Réunion des Musées Nationaux/Art Resource, NY) 26. Jacopo Zucchi, Treasures of the Sea, ca. 1585, oil on copper. Villa Borghese, Rome (photo: Scala/Art Resource, NY) 27. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Pedro de Foix Montoya, ca. 1622, marble. Monastery of Santa Maria di Monserrato, Rome (photo: Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione, Rome) 28. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence, ca. 1616 –17, marble. Uffizi, Florence [Formerly collection of Contini Bonacossi] (photo: Scala/Art Resource, NY) 29. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Santa Bibiana, 1624–26, marble. Santa Bibiana, Rome (photo: Archivio Fotografico Vasari, Rome) 30. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Damned Soul, ca. 1619 –20, marble. Palazzo di Spagna, Rome (photo: Archivio Fotografico Vasari, Rome) 31. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Blessed Soul, ca. 1619 –20, marble. Palazzo di Spagna, Rome (photo: Archivio Fotografico Vasari, Rome) 32. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Baldacchino, 1624 – 33, bronze. Saint Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City (photo: Scala/Art Resource, NY) 33. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Agostino Mascardi, ca. 1630, black and red chalk with white heightening on paper. École des Beaux-Arts, Paris 34. Anonymous, Virginio Cesarini, 1624, marble. Sala dei Capitani, Palazzo dei Conservatori, Rome (photo: Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione, Rome) 35. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Apollo and Daphne, 1622 –25, marble. Galleria Borghese, Rome (photo: Scala/Art Resource, NY)



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list of illustr ations

36. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Tomb of Urban VIII, 1627– 47, mixed media. Saint Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City (photo: Scala/Art Resource, NY) 37. Israel Silvestre, View of Saint Peter’s (showing the south tower and scaffolding in place for the construction of the north tower), ca. 1641– 42, engraving. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, 1917 38. François Spierre after Gianlorenzo Bernini, Sangue di Christo, ca. 1670, engraving (photo: Istituto Nazionale per la Grafica, Rome) 39. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Costanza Bonarelli, ca. 1636 – 38, marble, front view. Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence (photo: Scala/Art Resource, NY) 40. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Self-Portrait, ca. 1635, oil on canvas. Galleria Borghese, Rome (photo: Scala/Art Resource, NY) 41. Gianlorenzo Bernini, Costanza Bonarelli, ca. 1636 – 38, marble, back view. Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence (photo: Sarah McPhee)



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P r e fac e

 This book of essays was first dreamed up by the three editors on a frigid December evening in Toronto in 2000. Evonne Levy had asked Maarten Delbeke and Steven F. Ostrow to speak in a small symposium about the Bernini biographies, the culmination of a graduate seminar at the University of Toronto on Bernini, with a particular focus on the texts. Excited by the new prospects opened up by a critical reading of these vite, we began to imagine a larger event—ultimately a book—and from the beginning we had in mind an interdisciplinary approach to Bernini’s lives. This led to our organizing an international conference entitled “Bernini’s Biographies,” which was held in May 2002 in Rome at the Nederlands Instituut, the Academia Belgica, and the American Academy. In selecting our speakers, we sought out individuals who would provide a variety of perspectives on our subject and who, we hoped, would endeavor with us to engage the biographies unfettered by traditional interpretations. We approached art historians who had worked or were currently working directly on Bernini and his vite; art historians who were not involved in Bernini studies, but whose expertise in other areas (such as early modern historiography and art theory) could help illuminate the Bernini texts in new ways; and non – art historians, specifically scholars working in the early modern fields of history and literature, who could cast a fresh eye on the biographies. Thus, several of the papers were effectively commissioned, requested from scholars with specific types of interpretive skills and knowledge of other texts, who generously applied themselves to the Bernini biographies. This book is an outgrowth of that conference, although it is not the conference’s proceedings. Of the ten papers presented at the conference, nine are included here, all of which have been considerably amplified and, in some cases, entirely reconceived. Anthony Grafton’s paper on Bernini’s Four Rivers Fountain and historical writing offered a key perspective on our subject. We regret that it could not be included here. To the nine essays we have added one paper— originally presented as an intervento at one of the conference’s workshops—in an expanded and much more fully developed form. It is our hope that our readers will come away from these essays with a deeper understanding of the richness and complexity of the texts, an appreciation for the ways a fresh examination of the biographies can impact Bernini stud-

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ies more generally, and a sensitivity to the larger issues raised by an interdisciplinary approach to the subject of artists’ biographies. The critical approach to the biographies that informs this volume was first taken up by Cesare D’Onofrio. Two other scholars must also be singled out in this context, for their work opened up the study of these texts in fundamental ways. The first is Catherine Soussloff who, in her doctoral dissertation and, especially, in two subsequent articles, focused attention on the biographies’ rhetorical conventions, topoi, and constructedness. The second is Tomaso Montanari, a contributor to this volume, who in a series of groundbreaking articles and essays (in anticipation of his forthcoming critical edition of the two texts, as well as of the Bernini letters) provided the first truly historical account of the biographies’ genesis. The work of all three of these authors is discussed in our Prolegomena. Here we wish only to acknowledge our debt to these individuals, and to signal the foundational contributions they have made. To engage the biographies necessitates a review of the crucial role they have played in the vast body of scholarship that has been devoted to Bernini since Stanislao Fraschetti’s monograph of 1900, the first such study of the artist’s life and work. And what such a review reveals is that few Berninisti have endeavored to read the Bernini biographies systematically as texts— governed by literary conventions, rhetorical figures and strategies, and conditioned by specific agendas. Instead, most Bernini scholars have used these texts as more or less factual accounts of Bernini’s life, works, and views on art—a way of reading the biographies that has deeply influenced the current understanding of the artist and his work. To reopen the debate on the biographies, as this volume endeavors to do, thus necessarily implies a critical stance toward the fundamental scholarship that stimulated our interest in Bernini in the first place. Our intention is to encourage the reading of the biographies in new and unprejudiced ways, so as to enrich our understanding of Bernini and the works he created. Far from being the final statement on the biographies, this volume is a first foray into reading the Bernini vite from a variety of perspectives, one that will provoke new insights into and new ways of engaging Bernini and his art. Even within this volume very different views of the biographies are already present. For example, the reader will note that the editors have taken the position that the two biographies—although deeply interrelated—are distinct texts, with their own themes and authorial stances. Montanari, in contrast, disagrees, seeing the texts as existing in a relationship of reciprocal



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dependency. Both views have their merits and may even be able to coexist. The reader will also notice that certain passages of the vite have attracted the attention of many of our authors, who offer very different, but ultimately complementary readings of the very same passages. If this volume succeeds in initiating a debate on the biographies along new lines, and intensifying readings of the vite, we will have accomplished our primary goal. At various stages of this project the editors have incurred a number of debts, which we would like to acknowledge here. First we wish to thank Susan Elliot and Jim Beatty, Marc Gotlieb, and the students in Evonne Levy’s graduate seminar on Bernini, who greatly facilitated and inspired our original gathering in Toronto in 2000. The conference in Rome, in the spring of 2002, could not have happened without the support of numerous institutions and individuals. Funding was generously provided by the Fund for Scientific Research —Flanders (Belgium) (F.W.O.), the Department of Architecture and Urban Planning, Ghent University, and the Belgian Historical Institute in Rome. We are also grateful to the University of Toronto at Mississauga and the University of Minnesota for assistance in the preparation of the final manuscript and the purchase of photographs, and to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, which provided travel funds for a number of the participants in the conference, as well as subsequent additional funding as we shepherded this volume to completion. For graciously hosting our conference in Rome, we thank Lester K. Little, former director of the American Academy in Rome, and Ingrid Rowland, former Mellon Professor at the Academy; Jacqueline Hamesse, former director of the Academia Belgica, Rome; and Herman Geertman, director of the Nederlands Instituut te Rome, and Bert Treffers, resident art historian at the Instituut, all of whom gave much of their time and energy. Thanks also go to Kristina Herrmann-Fiore, who kindly arranged for a private visit for the conferees to the Galleria Borghese; and to Frank Fehrenbach and Daniela del Pesco, who contributed significantly to the conference’s workshop discussions. This volume owes much to the research assistance of Caroline Dionne and Elsa Lam of the Canadian Center for Architecture (Montreal), and the staff of the library at the Getty Research Institute (Los Angeles). We wish also to thank Tod Marder for his enthusiastic support of this project and his thoughtful comments on an earlier version of the Prolegomena to this book, and Paul Barolsky who, through his work on Vasari and in other ways, was an inspiration to us. We are grateful to Gloria Kury, our editor at the Pennsylvania



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State University Press, who from the moment we first approached her, offered unequivocal encouragement and support. We are especially grateful to Carolina Mangone for her fine work preparing the manuscript and index for production. Finally, we express our deepest gratitude to all of the contributors to this volume. We thank them for their open-mindedness, perseverance, patience, and—most importantly—for bringing their varied expertise to their spirited interventions on Bernini’s biographies. It is our conviction that Bernini’s biographers had control over the typography of their texts and Chantelou, Baldinucci, and Domenico Bernini each made deliberate use of italics and capital letters in the Journal and the two vite. For this reason, throughout this volume, we have departed from modern conventions and have retained the typography of the original texts. Readers will note that passages from the Bernini biographies and Chantelou’s journal quoted by the authors in their original language appear in the form in which they appear in the first editions of the Bernini biographies and, for Chantelou, as in the Stanic´ edition (which follows the conventions for spelling and the use of italics in the original manuscript). To English translations of all three texts quotation marks have been added to italicized passages to make clear to our readers the appearance of quoted speech.



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Note on the Editions

 Baldinucci’s Life of Bernini is available in a variety of editions but has not been reprinted as a facsimile. All citations of Baldinucci’s Life of Bernini refer to the first edition of 1682, to the most accessible Italian edition, published in 1948, and to the 1966 English translation and its 2006 reprint edition. Domenico Bernini’s Life of Bernini is now widely available in a facsimile edition of 1999. All page citations refer to the original pagination. References to Chantelou’s Journal are both to Stanic´’s French edition and to the Blunt edition, from which the English translations are taken, unless otherwise noted. Following is a list of abbreviations for frequently cited editions. Chantelou/Stanic´ Chantelou, Paul Fréart de. Journal de voyage du Cavalier Bernini en France. Ed. Milovan Stanic´. Paris: Macula/L’Insulaire, 2001. Chantelou/Blunt Chantelou, Paul Fréart de. Diary of the Cavalier Bernini’s Visit to France. Ed. and intro. Anthony Blunt. Annot. George C. Bauer. Trans. Margery Corbett. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985. DB Bernini, Domenico. Vita del cavaliere Gio. Lorenzo Bernino, descritta da Domenico Bernino suo figlio. Rome: Rocco Bernabò, 1713. Facsimile edition. Todi-Perugia: Ediart, 1999. DB-1976 Bernini, Domenico. The Life of the Cavalier Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Excerpts in Bernini in Perspective, ed. George C. Bauer, 24 – 41. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1976. FB Baldinucci, Filippo. Vita del cavaliere Gio. Lorenzo Bernino scultore, architetto, e pittore, scritta da Filippo Baldinucci fiorentino. Florence: Vincenzio Vangelisti, 1682.

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FB-1948 Baldinucci, Filippo. Vita di Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Ed. and intro. Sergio Samek Ludovici. Milan: Milione, 1948. FB-1966/2006 Baldinucci, Filippo. The Life of Bernini. Trans. Catherine Enggass. Foreword Robert Enggass. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1966. Rev. ed. Intro. Maarten Delbeke, Evonne Levy, and Steven F. Ostrow. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006.



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 prolegomena to the interdisciplinary study of bernini’s biographies Maarten Delbeke, Evonne Levy, and Steven F. Ostrow

In the two biographies of Gianlorenzo Bernini, one written by the Florentine Filippo Baldinucci (Vita del cavaliere Gio. Lorenzo Bernino scultore, architetto, e pittore, scritta da Filippo Baldinucci fiorentino, Florence, 1682; fig. 1) and the other by Bernini’s son Domenico (Vita del cavalier Gio. Lorenzo Bernino, descritta da Domenico Bernino suo figlio, Rome, 1713; fig. 2), scholars have a precious resource: two book-length biographies of a central protagonist of the Roman Baroque, among the longest texts dedicated to a single artist of the early modern period. This volume is the first sustained effort to read the Bernini biographies first and foremost as texts. From the very start of the modern Bernini historiography, the biographies have played a central role in the attribution, dating, and interpretation of the artist’s work. In the inaugural monograph on Bernini published in 1900, Stanislao Fraschetti set the stage for later scholars by both criticizing the encomiastic aspects of the biographies and drawing upon them, at times completely collapsing his voice into Domenico’s or Baldinucci’s without any sign to the reader.1 Catherine Soussloff—who first insisted on the constructedness of Bernini’s biographies—pointed out over a decade ago that the biographies continue to unconsciously guide the art-historical view of Bernini.2 This is most obviously in evidence in the papacy-by-papacy structure established by the vite, which art historians often follow. Charles Avery, for example, has Baldinucci “take up the narrative” or “take up the story.”3 This author clues us in to his adoption of the biographical narrative, but in much scholarship these stories have become so absorbed that the slippage is unconscious. Even when the truth value of specific biographical anecdotes is questioned, scholars often still adhere to an idealized view of Bernini derived

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fig. 1 Filippo Baldinucci, Vita del cavaliere Gio. Lorenzo Bernino scultore, architetto, e pittore, scritta da Filippo Baldinucci fiorentino (Florence: Vincenzio Vangelisti, 1682), title page.

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fig. 2 Domenico Bernini, Vita del cavalier Gio. Lorenzo Bernino, descritta da Domenico Bernino suo figlio (Rome: Rocco Bernabò, 1713), title page.

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from the texts. For example, Howard Hibbard rightly questions the veracity of Domenico’s account of young Bernini burning his leg to imitate Saint Lawrence in preparation for a marble statue of the saint, yet he also claims that “Whether or not this [account by Domenico Bernini] is true, it would have been typical of Bernini.”4 What is “typical” of Bernini, though, if not a view imparted by the biographers? Others have extended the idea that the biographies hold a hermeneutical key to Bernini, seeing them not as repositories of factual data but as authoritative (rather than authorized) interpretations of Bernini’s life and work. Indeed, the early modern biographer’s duty to view life and work as a unity has informed one of the most characteristic components of the modern art historian’s Bernini. Tod Marder writes: “For Bernini, art and life were reciprocal phenomena, constantly intertwined and cross-referenced.”5 Commenting on Bernini’s late works, Rudolf Wittkower says: “This unity of art and life, work and personality, rational convictions and devout selfsurrender finds expression in the exalted vitality of his performance.”6 Irving Lavin links life and work most closely in understanding Bernini’s approach to his death as, like the rest of his life, a work of art. Baldinucci’s assertion that “Bernini’s death truly seemed like his life” leads Lavin to want “to demonstrate Baldinucci’s perception was indeed correct.”7 The task of the early modern biographer was to discern in a messily lived life an a priori truth. The revelation of truth is a prominent theme in both Bernini biographies, discussed by Eraldo Bellini, John Lyons, and Evonne Levy in this volume. It is, however, a rhetorical point, for it is the goal of all ethical men to find truth and that of all historians to write it down. The task of the modern art historian is not to prove the truth or error of the biographer’s interpretation. Rather, with these literary creations— the first sustained interpretations of Bernini’s life —we can only agree or disagree, in accordance with how closely our own interpretive agendas resemble theirs. But first we must acknowledge and understand the nature and goals of the biographies themselves. One aim of this volume is to present the Bernini vite as textual artifacts following literary conventions, and drawing from or in dialogue with a diverse body of texts, not solely artists’ biographies. Another aim is to pry apart the biographies, often considered relatively inconsequential variants of each other, to accord them their individual identities. In so doing, sideby-side comparisons are crucial (and many of the authors in this volume offer such readings). But rather than pointing to the error of one and the truth of the other, such comparisons point to the production by Domenico



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(son and Church historian) and Baldinucci (amateur artist and connoisseur) of distinct readings of Bernini’s life and work. The biographies contain much verifiable information about Bernini and many accounts that, though not verifiable, are versions of something that happened. By according the texts their identities as such, one can find meaning in the departures from fact and avoid the problematic dismissal of the biographies when they do not corroborate archival sources. A textual approach has not been consistently applied to Bernini’s biographies, so we have yet to be faced with the full implications of such a view. As the essays in this volume begin to demonstrate, the interdisciplinary study of the biographies also has important consequences for the interpretation of Bernini’s work. In this prolegomena we wish to set the stage for the critical essays that follow with an examination of the historiography of the Bernini sources in particular and artistic biography more broadly. The effort here is to bring into focus how the views of today’s art historian of artistic biography have evolved, and how Bernini’s biographies in particular have shaped various views of the artist. This is followed by an account of the complex genesis of the two texts, and introductions of the three authors who contributed to them. Finally, we introduce some distinctly textual issues: the biographies as they correspond to early modern literary genres, an overview of the similarities and differences in their themes, and an introduction to the study of their intertexts.

artistic biography in art history One of the prevailing attitudes toward artistic biography today can be traced back to the grandfather of art history. In his Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums, first published in 1764, Johann Joachim von Winckelmann claimed to have created an art history that had as little to do with the “history of artists” as with antiquarianism. As Édouard Pommier has shown in a contribution to the first conference on artistic biography, Les “vies” d’artistes (1993), Winckelmann heaped nothing but scorn on Giorgio Vasari and his followers, whose obsession with biographical anecdote prevented them from seizing what manifested itself in the objects themselves, that is “art.”8 But when Julius von Schlosser compiled his monumental collection of art-historical sources, Die Kunstliteratur (written in the 1910s, first published in 1924), he dedicated the fifth book to Vasari’s Vite, and in his repertory biographies constitute an important category of texts.9 While



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Schlosser’s admiration for Vasari’s opus was limited, he recognized its importance as a foundational moment in the historiography of art, and as a key text to understand the history of his own discipline through a study of its sources.10 Schlosser’s view was deeply indebted to the emphasis placed by his contemporary, Hans Tietze, on the philological and historical study of written sources for the establishment of art history as a legitimate historical discipline.11 Among what he called “indirect intentional literary sources,” Tietze accorded biography the highest rank, “since art history initially started from an interest in the artist, and consequently an exceptionally important body of biographical material became available.”12 Tietze was keenly aware of the deep influence of anecdote on biographical writing, which he attributed to biography’s oral origins.13 Schlosser’s subsequent qualification of art-historical sources as “written, secondary, indirect,” in brief, “historical,” as opposed to “impersonal testimony,”14 urged him to propose a thorough “criticism of the sources.” This work, Schlosser noted, was already being undertaken for Vasari by Wolfgang Kallab, but not yet for the Baroque.15 In his 1934 edition of Giovanni Battista Passeri’s Vite de’ pittori scultori ed architetti dall’anno 1641 sino all’anno 1673 (not published until 1772), Jakob Hess took his cue from these remarks to bemoan the neglect by art historians of the written sources, first among them artists’ biographies. Biography not only offered essential information on the attribution of artworks, he argued, but also a means “to understand the political and mental agenda of a time and a place.”16 For all of these art historians of the Vienna school, the historical value of artistic biography resided in its status as a cultural artifact, partly determined by its literary nature.17 Biographies were also considered sources of ideas on art that could be laid bare by a patient philological analysis, combined with a close study of the works of art and other available historical sources. Schlosser and Hess, fully aware of the literary nature of life writing, examined contemporary historiographic practices,18 eager to prove that these texts had true art-historical value if they are read “taking into consideration [the author] in his totality.”19 That this early generation still took for granted biography’s historical embeddedness may help to explain why Schlosser’s pupils Ernst Kris and Otto Kurz approached the conventions of artistic biography from a “sociological” rather than a more self-evident literary perspective.20 In Legend, Myth and Magic in the Image of the Artist (first published in German in 1934) Kris and Kurz aimed to understand “how the artist was judged by



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contemporaries and posterity.” At the core of this judgment stands “the legend about the artist,” the origins of which the authors traced to artistic biography.21 In linking the work of art with the name of its creator, biography was the vehicle for the creation of the famous artist, a new social category that could account for what Kris and Kurz call “the riddle of the artist” (the “mystery surrounding him and the magic emanating from him”).22 Kris and Kurz’s historiographical and sociological research agendas intersected on the biographical kernel that defines the enigmatic, highly individualized artist and that, paradoxically, remains remarkably stable throughout the entire history of art: the artist’s anecdote. They ventured to “extract” these anecdotes and to detect “a typical image of the artist” through their recurrence. As a consequence, their book offered a breathtaking collection of scarcely varying anecdotes culled from Pliny through the major sixteenth- and seventeenth-century vite. For this research project, Kris and Kurz stated, the historical truth of “statements contained in an anecdote” became “irrelevant.”23 In spite of the high esteem in which Kris and Kurz’s effort was held between the 1930s and the late 1970s, it was Schlosser’s heritage that led to a progressive definition of a canon of texts on art that were considered more narrowly as documentary sources. Artistic biography became disconnected from the literary culture,24 which was still self-evident to early twentiethcentury scholars. Biographies came to be read more narrowly as documents, rather than as author-driven accounts that reflected upon a wide-range of art-historical issues.25 The documentary view introduced the issue of the truth value of the biographies and encouraged the dismissal by many of the anecdotes brought to our attention by Kris and Kurz as “mere convention.” Not surprisingly, after the Viennese efforts, the first impulse for the serious study of biography came from the Vasarian camp, above all from Paola Barocchi,26 and culminated in Patricia Rubin’s Giorgio Vasari. Art and History (1995).27 Rubin demonstrates how views of Vasari’s Lives as a compendium to be mined for art-historical data, or as “a series of picturesque, picaresque” tales devoid of any historical value, not only are equally unproductive, but run counter to Vasari’s (quite explicitly stated) aims and methods. If the Lives are read as an artifact shaped by an ambitious fusion of different genres and agendas closely linked to contemporary debates and events, Vasari’s text acquires a historical value that goes well beyond the factual information that it may or may not contain. This insight makes Rubin’s approach new and extremely valuable, even if it is typical in its concentration on Vasari’s intentions as a historian.28 Since then Paul Barolsky,



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building on Kris and Kurz, has issued an imaginative cycle of books that propose the profoundly “fictional, and hence poetical” character of Vasari’s Vite.29 With his emphasis on the fictional, Barolsky represents one nearly isolated extreme in the reading of artistic biography today. Outside Vasari studies, the truth value of artistic biography —viewed since Kris and Kurz as a compilation of anecdotes — dominated discussion. It is important to recognize, however, that this practice or attitude rests upon a shift in the reception of Kris and Kurz’s book. The publication of English, French, and Italian translations, in 1979 – 81, of the 1934 Legend, Myth and Magic in the Image of the Artist secured the work a critical success that stood quite far from its authors’ initial agenda.30 With its wealth of material on the genesis and spread of anecdotes, Kris and Kurz demonstrated beyond doubt the conventional character of artistic biography. As such, the book confronted late twentieth-century art historians, by now used to considering biography as a historical source, with the question that had occupied their founding fathers: how do biographies relate to historical truth? Now, however, the question was framed differently, a shift that has become obscured. Within their sociological framework Kris and Kurz could claim that the historical truth of anecdotes was irrelevant. But the art historians who rediscovered Legend, Myth and Magic in the Image of the Artist had to reconcile their own emerging interest in the myth of the artist with the deeply engrained documentary use of biographical texts. Because they understood myth as undermining a widely-accepted notion of historical truth many chose to approach biography’s relation to truth by determining the truth value of anecdotes and topoi. Carl Goldstein’s discussion of The Image of the Artist is representative of this reception of Kris and Kurz’s book.31 To explain the function and preserve the truth value of anecdotes and biographical topoi, Goldstein argued that biography is informed by the principles of epideictic or panegyric oratory. The topos is accorded the status of rhetorical “evidence” that “heightens” an account, “to inflame [a] reader to imitation.” This evidence should not be understood as historical truth, but rather as a set of signs that, through their universal nature, connected the lives of individuals to a higher providential order. Correspondence between these pre-established topoi and the actual person “would have been . . . purely coincidental.”32 Goldstein astutely accepted biography’s literary nature, yet was reluctant to recognize the historicity of literary means, especially the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century theory of biography that was still implicitly recognized in the early twentieth century. According to that theory, biography (a branch



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of history writing) is distinguished from the epideictic, which belongs to oratory.33 So while biography is always already of a “rhetorical nature,” its aim and truth value will be judged according to the standards of historiography. Conversely, epideictic oratory can be biographical if it concerns a person, yet an oration will never become a biography; there is a clear distinction between rhetorical means—which invade all genres of writing—and the rhetorical genres, such as epideictic and panegyric. Goldstein collapses this distinction to account for the supra-historical persistence of the topos: in his view, rhetorical embellishment and biographical strategies together constitute an independent, literary argument with an extremely loose relation to historical truth. His sensitivity to the literary nature of life writing leads Goldstein to accord biography historical value only in so far as it reveals the contours of a generic image of the artist. As a consequence, biography becomes distanced from the specific artist and his works. Exactly this distance is at stake when the “problem of the topos” plays itself out in the artist’s monograph, where the archival record is often closely compared to biography. For example, whereas Elizabeth Pilliod is inclined to view Vasari as “unreliable, and sometimes dishonest,”34 Richard Spear opened his revisionist study of Guido Reni with a long apology for the trustworthiness of Reni’s biographer, Carlo Cesare Malvasia. He argued, along the lines of Goldstein, that Malvasia “uses [classic topoi] to enrich and magnify Reni’s life.” Yet, unlike Goldstein, he saw these anecdotes as “markedly different in substance from . . . biographical events” in that they “tend to be obvious, at times explicitly referential.”35 Thus, while Spear acknowledges that the choice and specific use of certain anecdotes can be meaningful, his basic operating assumption rests on a dichotomy between historical fact and literary fiction.36 In short, the important reassessment of the art-historical value of artistic biography spurred by Kris and Kurz was subtended by a more or less explicit opposition between the historical material contained in the biography and the literary mantle thrown around it. This reassessment, however, progressively opened the way to acknowledge that anecdotes operated within a background of texts that would bring the selection, variation, and appropriation of biographical and critical topoi into meaningful relief.37 This view eventually would allow scholars to reach beyond the dichotomy between fact and fiction, to reach “out to other fields, in embracing an idea of cultural history and interpretation.”38 As pointed out, such a contextual approach had allowed for a reappraisal of Vasari’s history writing. Paul Barolsky’s work on Vasari most vividly aims at understanding how the construction



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of the image of an artist influenced the reception of their work, their historiographical fortune, and, more generally, views of the ideas on art and artistry presumably espoused by these artists.39 A similar, more broadly oriented reading of artistic biography eventually found its way into seventeenth-century studies, for instance with Giovanna Perini’s work on Carlo Cesare Malvasia.40 It also opened up different ways of examining art and its theory through biography. As Philip Sohm shows, biographies allow as much for an archaeology of historical notions of style as for the recovery of data on oeuvres and artists.41 The heritage of Kris and Kurz has been most explicitly acknowledged in the conference on Les “vies” d’artistes and the work of Catherine Soussloff. Different as these endeavors are, they share the assumption that the image of the artist is constructed within a wide range of practices with biography at its heart. In the case of the conference, this lead to the decision to withdraw from an approach exclusively focused on the texts, to analyze, rather, how the emancipated, self-conscious artist emerged in a wide range of artifacts.42 Soussloff’s The Absolute Artist (1997) aimed to “locate the artist in the discourse of history.”43 She simultaneously analyzed the genre of artistic biography from its origins to modernity, and its formative influence on an arthistorical discipline that produced a naturalized concept of the artist to account for the place of art in society. As such, the book uses biography to detect a constructed, idealized perception of the Western artist and his art.

bernini biographies in art history The ambition of Viennese art historians to establish an apparatus of arthistorical sources also made an early mark on Bernini studies. Fraschetti’s monograph stimulated Alois Riegl to devote a seminar in 1902 to a translation of and commentary on Baldinucci’s biography, published in 1912.44 The text is a discussion of Bernini’s work guided by Baldinucci’s biography—Riegl’s Hauptquelle (primary source)—amended or corrected by Fraschetti’s research where necessary. In keeping with his aim to unearth the essence of Bernini’s “style,” Riegl attributed little art-historical value to Fraschetti’s work, since it failed to “explain the character and nature of the Italian baroque style.” Moreover, Riegl contrasted Fraschetti’s dilettante adoption of “modern” archival research to Baldinucci’s “true arthistorical method.”45



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Riegl, like Schlosser, was sensitive to the conventional character of biography and appreciative of biography’s value for its view of the particular forms assumed by art at a given moment.46 This attitude led a contemporary reviewer, Georg Sobotka, to cast Riegl’s work on the Vita as true art history, and to contrast it to both Walther Weibel’s Jesuitismus und Barockskulptur (1909), which was termed “literary,” and Marcel Reymond’s Le Bernin (1912), an overview of Bernini’s work indebted to Fraschetti, which he dismissed as “artistic.”47 The same reviewer also pointed to three essential problems in early Bernini studies that arise from the use of Baldinucci’s biography: in Fraschetti and Reymond, Bernini seems to appear as an absolutely new and unique artist, without forebears or influences; the stylistic evolution of Bernini’s busts plainly contradicted the chronology proposed by Baldinucci; and, more generally, that “the true derivation of Bernini’s style” could not be understood until a far more complete view of Roman Baroque art emerged. As early as 1913, then, two key problems in twentieth-century Bernini studies that were tied to the question of how to read the biographies were identified: the assessment of Bernini’s position with regard to his artistic and intellectual context when these are construed through the prism of the biographies, and the reliability of biography for dating and attribution. In subsequent literature, this clear view of the issues was obscured. While the Austrian criticism of the sources proved fruitful for Vasari studies, after Riegl Bernini’s biographies received virtually no critical attention until the 1960s. Rudolf Wittkower, who did the most to establish modern Bernini studies, continued one strand of Riegl’s research, seeking Bernini’s place in a history of forms rather than in a biographical will to expression. Wittkower’s entry point through the drawings (in his publication with Heinrich Brauer), and then later, a dated catalogue of works, one might argue, led him away from biography. Except for sporadic characterizations of Bernini’s religious and intellectual background, Wittkower steered fairly clear of the biographies (which, as Montanari discusses in his essay in this volume, offer little in the way of description of Bernini’s works).48 The first extended consideration of both biographies as texts was Cesare D’Onofrio’s 1966 article on the “priority” of Domenico’s biography over Baldinucci’s.49 Given the earlier publication date of Baldinucci’s Life in relation to that of Domenico, almost all modern scholars prior to D’Onofrio assumed that the latter was, at the very least, deeply dependent on the former, at the most an example of outright plagiarism. D’Onofrio’s



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radical assessment of Domenico’s priority was understood as a judgment on the truth value of his text. As a result, Baldinucci’s biography lost its authenticity, historical accuracy, and coherence. Thus, the critical condemnation that had befallen Domenico was simply reversed. The lack of historiographical perspective that underpins this reversal clearly emerged when George Bauer, one of the few to take Domenico’s priority seriously, described Domenico’s biography as “so lively and fresh that we cannot help but be convinced that it is indeed the artist speaking or that it permits a genuine insight into his character.”50 This appraisal eerily echoes the admonishment of the seventeenth-century theoretician Agostino Mascardi, who urges the historian to achieve verisimilitude through lively and energetic writing, so as to enhance his credibility with the reader.51 Domenico, so it seems, more than achieved this goal. Also in 1966 D’Onofrio published a dialogue between Bernini and the courtier Lelio Guidiccioni, written by the latter in 1633.52 As shown in Bellini’s essay in this volume, in this short set piece certain biographical themes, such as the imitatio Buonarroti or Bernini’s quest for innovation are played out at the court of Urban VIII. The dialogue demonstrates that these themes were formulated and defined long before the biographies were drafted, and not necessarily by Bernini or his biographers themselves. The piece thus provided an important biographical intertext.53 The establishment of Bernini as the new Michelangelo under Urban VIII, a central theme of the biographies (discussed in numerous essays in this volume), was also emphasized in D’Onofrio’s Roma vista da Roma.54 This rich book also tackled other key “myths” propagated by the biographies, such as Bernini’s precocity and Gianlorenzo’s attempt to write his father, Pietro, and collaborators out of history. While D’Onofrio’s work was not neglected, the implications of his biographical demystification sparked a discussion mainly focused on issues of dating and attribution, a discussion that left the biographies’ status as documentary sources surprisingly untouched.55 The deeper consequences of D’Onofrio’s work were broached twenty years later by Catherine Soussloff in her unpublished dissertation on Bernini’s biographies, and in subsequent articles on the biographical genre. Two contributions dealt with themes central to Bernini’s biographical and critical fortune, Bernini’s identification with Michelangelo and his old-age religiosity.56 Soussloff effectively reintroduced the biographies to Bernini studies. As will be discussed below, since then a richer and more nuanced view of the genesis and relation of the two texts has emerged. However, the following question remains unanswered: Why have Bernini



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studies followed the biographies so closely and yet have not produced a critical view of the biographical foundation? While D’Onofrio unearthed material that is essential for the critical approach to the biographies proposed in this volume, he was mainly driven to unmask the truth behind them. The uncovering of Domenico’s “priority” supported D’Onofrio’s exposure and dismantling of Bernini’s truthobscuring “automythography” because it seemed to demonstrate Bernini’s direct involvement in the redaction of the biographies. In other words, D’Onofrio failed to fully appreciate that the biographies were important historical sources despite their factual inaccuracy, conventional nature and Bernini-driven agenda. Moreover, he did not look further into the complex relationship between Domenico’s and Baldinucci’s texts, clinging to a view of one text as merely derivative of the other. This blinded him to some extent to the agendas and interests operating in each of the biographies. As such, from a critical point of view, little progress was made. That Domenico’s biography was less available than Baldinucci’s also slowed the impact of D’Onofrio’s work and the critical study of the biographies in general. Domenico’s text exists only in the original 1713 edition, which went through a number of facsimile editions since the early 1980s, and just a few excerpts had been translated.57 On the other hand, Baldinucci’s text went through several Italian editions and ended up in his multivolume Notizie dei professori del disegno da Cimabue in qua.58 Modern translations began with Riegl’s (incomplete) German text and excerpts had been available in English since Holt’s compendium of sources of 1947.59 A complete English translation, which presented Baldinucci’s text as “an extraordinarily accurate and objective account,” appeared in 1966.60 However, the limited impact of D’Onofrio’s work on Bernini studies, and especially the simultaneous dominance and lack of critical evaluation of the vite, is neither explained by his critical bias nor by the limited availability of Domenico’s biography. On the basis of the texts themselves, it can be argued that their length (Baldinucci’s is 111 pages, Domenico’s is 180 pages) and degree of detail allow researchers to conjure up a seemingly complete historical picture of Bernini and his times. Since this is a view that tends to repel others, it begins to explain why there has been resistance to reassess the biographies. For such a reassessment runs the risk of putting into question some of the key assumptions on which many studies are at least partly based. For example, the complete midlife conversion that Bernini’s biographies portray him as having undergone is one of the most pervasive biographical



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constructs, the basis for an unshakable scholarly view of Bernini’s religiosity. Through a reading of the related passages in the biographies, Walther Weibel first connected Bernini, the Jesuits, and the Counter-Reformation with a bold thesis.61 He claimed, based on Baldinucci’s notices of Bernini’s religious conversion and practices, that his sculpture, consciously or not, had to have been a product of the Geist of the Counter-Reformation, or Jesuitism, a dominant concept of Baroque spirituality. The biographies played an especially potent role in the shaping of Bernini’s perceived religious universe by advancing specific actors to praise Bernini’s devotional fervor, his specific and constant practices and figures of devotion, and his intelligence about spiritual matters. The historiography has attributed much importance to Bernini’s friendship with the Jesuit Gian Paolo Oliva, general of the order from 1661 until his death in 1681 because the biographers claim that Oliva said discussing religious matters with the artist was like attending a doctoral defense. This has become among the most frequently quoted biographical passages in Bernini studies.62 The vision of Bernini discussing with a Jesuit, and pushing theology to its limits, was hard to resist, since it linked his work to “Jesuit thought,” a most credible substitute for the art theory Bernini seemed to lack. It also legitimized a complex and multi-layered reading of Bernini’s oeuvre propelled by dashing theological speculation. Moreover, the vision of the Jesuit listening to Bernini permitted responsibility for iconographical invention to be given decisively to the artist, and not the patron. The cluster of ideas evoked by this striking biographical passage helps to explain why it has taken almost a century before another Jesuit, Sforza Pallavicino, became recognized as the friend and ally that Oliva probably never was.63 What is more, the recognition of this particular friendship poses a challenge to the view of a close and frictionless alliance between Bernini and the theological elite of his era. As Soussloff pointed out, the fusion of Bernini’s religiosity with his work has been reflected in a number of issues.64 Domenico’s and Baldinucci’s suggestion of Bernini’s increased religiosity provided a biographical pattern that matched some of the most gripping representations of religious experience, such as the bust of Gabriele Fonseca (Fonseca Chapel, San Lorenzo in Lucina; fig. 3) and the reclining statue of Ludovica Albertoni (Altieri Chapel, San Francesco a Ripa).65 Two influential essays by Irving Lavin reinforced the idea, already present in Weibel, that the late works are a corpus tied together by Bernini’s individual quest for salvation.66 Soussloff was first in showing that the biographical depiction of Bernini’s religious



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Image not available

fig. 3 Gianlorenzo Bernini, Gabriele Fonseca, ca. 1664 – 68, marble. San Lorenzo in Lucina, Rome.

evolution (his complete midlife conversion and late-life devotion) is one of the most conventional characteristics of both texts.67 As demonstrated in Heiko Damm’s essay, the biographies endeavor to represent Bernini’s creativity as a result, if not as an expression, of the exceptional devotional fervor of the artist. Religiosity and creativity become closely linked to the point of merging, the exceptionality of one of Bernini’s qualities being conferred on the other: an extremely creative man must be deeply religious, and this religiosity drives creativity to new heights, infusing the work with new meanings.68 Anthony Blunt, for example, used Bernini’s alleged more-than-average familiarity with mysticism to explain why only in his work illusionism, that central characteristic of Baroque art, became a fundamentally new form of expression, rather than play.69 In other words, regardless of whether or not Bernini’s style changes profoundly throughout his life or whether his work actually embodies a new kind of religious experience, the framing of Bernini’s evolution as an artist



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within his own evolution as a believer perpetuates a key point of Domenico’s and Baldinucci’s texts.70 The biographical fusion of art and religion has also profoundly impacted the way that scholars study Bernini’s role in his religious commissions. Because Bernini’s religiosity turns his art into something eminently personal, the importance of patrons, assistants, models, and historical context is played down. Moreover, because the biographies by their very nature suggest that Bernini was central to all that happened around him, Bernini has often been proposed as the pivotal figure in processes and events where he may have been rather auxiliary or even peripheral. Jennifer Montagu used Bernini’s self-deprecating remark about the decreasing of his prowess with old age, recorded in both biographies, as a pun to challenge his authorship of many of the works listed in Baldinucci’s catalogue.71 Even if Montagu’s approach bespeaks an attitude that considers the biographies more or less reliable sources for art-historical facts,72 her attention to Bernini’s workshop offered an important recontextualization of Bernini’s artistic practice.73 Taking into account the considerable energy invested in deriving a theoretical model for Bernini’s art from his personal religiosity, it may come as a surprise that, with few exceptions, the biographies have never been considered as repositories of artistic theory. When “the problem of Bernini’s theories of art” was addressed by Eleanor Barton, the diary of Bernini’s trip to Paris in 1665, recorded by Paul Fréart de Chantelou, provided the only source.74 Similarly, Ludwig Schudt ignored the vite, discerning Bernini’s art-theoretical notions of inspiration, idea, proportion, and so on exclusively from Chantelou’s descriptions of his subject.75 With the exception of Lavin’s discussion of the bel composto in Bernini and the Unity of the Visual Arts, scholars have mainly used the biographies to derive a proto-theory of portraiture and to explain the affinity of Bernini’s work to theater.76 However, Baldinucci’s chapter on Bernini’s artistic personality and theory corresponds to a not entirely coherent series of passages that are interwoven with Bernini’s life in Domenico’s text. In an essay in this volume Delbeke shows that literature on the theory of the composto neglects both the deep embedding of this notion within the biographies, and the many other theoretical positions (not always explicitly expressed as artistic theory) taken up by the biographies. In this selective account of the Bernini historiography as shaped by the biographies, we have highlighted several governing issues: the fusion of life and work, Bernini as absolute author, and religiosity as a frame for both. The



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biographies have shaped an already very complex scholarly view of Bernini. The essays in this volume suggest equally complex alternative views that can emerge once the biographical agendas are revealed as such, and alternative views from within the biographical corpus are able to be seen.

history and genesis of the vite To consider Domenico’s biography, as Schlosser did, as being “much inferior to that of . . . Baldinucci,” or, at the other extreme, to claim, as D’Onofrio did, that “the Bernini of Baldinucci is a false and out of focus Bernini,” is to privilege subjective judgment over careful textual analysis and inquiry into the circumstances of their creation.77 Because the critical study of Bernini’s biographies will depend on a careful study of the genesis of the two texts, in this section we outline the current state of thinking about that story. Until D’Onofrio’s article on the priority of Domenico, prevailing opinion of the relationship between the two texts was based largely on what Francesco Saverio Baldinucci (Filippo’s son) and Filippo Baldinucci himself wrote about its history78—namely, that the biographical project began in 1681, soon after Bernini’s death, when Queen Christina of Sweden summoned Baldinucci to her Roman palace and asked him to write a biography of the artist, not only to record for posterity Bernini’s greatness, but also to defend the artist against those who were accusing him of having undermined the structural integrity of the dome of Saint Peter’s. Within the space of a few months, Filippo compiled the biography on the basis of his own observations of Bernini’s works as well as on information provided by the artist’s family and associates, publishing the Vita in 1682 with its dedication to the Swedish monarch. This same view held that Domenico undertook his biography much later, publishing his gesture of filial piety in 1713.79 The prevailing understanding of the relationship between the two biographies and their history was first questioned by Erwin Panofsky in 1919. On the basis of a comparison between similar passages in the two texts, Panofsky suggested (in two brief footnotes) that although Domenico’s publication postdated Baldinucci’s, it was the latter who was dependent upon the former’s biographical work.80 This claim, either ignored or rejected in the subsequent literature, was considerably developed by D’Onofrio.81 Relying on close textual analysis supported by a range of other evidence, he argued for the priority of Domenico’s text and Baldinucci’s reliance upon it. In D’Onofrio’s reconstruction of the genesis of the biographies, Domenico



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first penned a life on the initiative of the still living Gianlorenzo. Independently, around 1679, Baldinucci began writing his own brief biography of the artist, perhaps for inclusion in his Notizie. In 1681, following Bernini’s death, Queen Christina intervened, asking Baldinucci to enlarge his project, making use of material provided by the artist’s children. That hypothetical material, D’Onofrio proposed, included a complete vita written by Domenico, which Baldinucci adapted and published as his own. In a later publication, D’Onofrio slightly altered his account, suggesting that Domenico was assisted by his elder brother Pier Filippo Bernini.82 Tomaso Montanari began to investigate the history and genesis of the biographies anew in the 1990s.83 Thanks to his painstaking research, supported by a wealth of new documentary evidence, we now have a much broader and more complex understanding of the origins of the biographies. As reconstructed by Montanari (and detailed further in his essay in this volume), the biographical project began much earlier than previously thought, at a time of crisis for Bernini in the early 1670s. In Montanari’s view (and in this respect his view, though far less negative, is not incompatible with D’Onofrio’s), Bernini himself initiated the biographical campaign to restore his image. The campaign, moreover, was two-fold, with a French biography to be written by Pierre Cureau de La Chambre, an academician and cleric attached to the French court (and, since 1665, Bernini’s friend and correspondent), and an Italian biography to be overseen by the artist’s eldest son, Monsignor Pier Filippo Bernini. The earliest evidence of the French vita is an avviso dated 9 December 1673, which notes that “The Life of Cavalier Bernini . . . is being written by a certain abbot [La Chambre], his dear friend, which will then be published.”84 However, it was not until February 1681, three months after Bernini’s death, that La Chambre’s rather modest “Éloge de M. le cavalier Bernini” (more an extended obituary than a biography) appeared in the Journal des sçavans. The same author’s “Préface pour servir à l’histoire de la vie et des ouvrages du Cavalier Bernini” was only published in 1685 (fig. 4), accompanied by a slightly expanded and corrected “Éloge.”85 Montanari dates the beginning of an Italian biographical campaign, led by Pier Filippo, to 1674. In January of that year, in a letter written to Carlo Cartari (1614 –1697), the archivist and librarian of the Altieri family, Bernini’s eldest son indicated that the catalogue he was compiling of his father’s works had reached seventy. In October Cartari wrote a letter (preserved among the Bernini papers in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris) to Pier Filippo with additions to the catalogue and a list of “authors



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fig. 4 Sebastién Leclerc, “Allegoria dell’arte di Gian Lorenzo Bernini,” engraved frontispiece from Pierre Cureau de la Chambre, Préface pour servir à l’histoire de la vie et des ouvrages du Cavalier Bernini (Paris, 1685).

who have made mention of Signor Cavalier Bernini.”86 In Montanari’s view, during this period Pier Filippo, assisted by Domenico, organized the “cantiere biografico” and penned a hypothetical first version of a Bernini biography. This “archetype,” Montanari believes, would have been an elaborated version of the three-page birth-to-old-age narrative, conserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale, which is the only manuscript related to the narrative core of the Bernini biographies that survives.87 It should be noted that both D’Onofrio’s and Montanari’s analyses of the genesis of the texts suppose that additional, more elaborate manuscripts much closer to the published texts were produced and are lost. By the end of 1674, according to Montanari, two components of what would become Baldinucci’s biography of Bernini — a chronology of his life and a catalogue of his works —had been drafted by the artist’s sons. It is Montanari’s view that as Pier Filippo continued to add to the catalogue of his father’s works (that survives in three manuscript versions),88 the Bernini family, having hoped in vain that the biography would be published with the support of the pope, decided to seek a patron for their project in the person of Queen Christina of Sweden. Because Baldinucci’s son and Baldinucci himself wrote about Christina’s generative role in the biography’s production, it has been assumed by some that she paid for the publication.89 Authors often



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dedicated works in hope for a reward, but Montanari’s archival research has turned up no payments or gifts to Baldinucci from Christina. All that is certain is that she lent her name in a highly conspicuous way, as the recipient of the volume’s dedication. As is discussed below, Christina’s presence is inscribed quite differently in Baldinucci’s text than in Domenico’s, which is dedicated to Cardinal Lodovico Pico della Mirandola. It is likely that Baldinucci was first approached about serving as the official author of the Bernini biography in 1678.90 On 28 November 1680 Bernini died, with neither a French nor an Italian biography yet published. Among the letters of condolence written to Pier Filippo is one from Baldinucci, dated 10 December 1680, which offers proof of his having been at work on the biography. Significantly, the letter also requests a description of “his admirable death” and his funeral, requisite parts of a biography.91 During the next two months Baldinucci was still waiting to receive additional materials from Pier Filippo, as is made clear in a second letter to Bernini’s son dated 25 February 1681.92 At approximately the same time, he received a letter (which Montanari believes to have been from Cardinal Decio Azzolino, Christina’s virtual prime minister),93 inviting him to Rome. By April 1681 Baldinucci arrived in Rome where he entered his son in the Jesuit novitiate. More importantly, he met with Christina and studied the works of Bernini. It was at this time, Montanari suggests, that the “official version” of the biography’s genesis was crafted.94 In June 1681 Baldinucci wrote to Pier Filippo from Florence,95 stating that he was still waiting to receive “la bella scrittura insieme coll’altre cose annesse del signor Mattia de’ Rossi”—that is, de’ Rossi’s relazione on the cupola of Saint Peter’s, a text Baldinucci reproduced, almost verbatim, as the final part of his book. During autumn the text was completed, and by early February 1682 it had been printed. The only thing missing was the portrait frontispiece, which still had not arrived from Rome. In April Arnold van Westerhout’s engraving after a portrait by Baciccio was complete (fig. 5) and a copy of Baldinucci’s biography received by Christina.96 Montanari’s study of the genesis of the texts ends with the 1682 publication. We know far less about the history and genesis of Domenico’s biography and the moment at which he took over for the acknowledged leader of the “biographical campaign,” Pier Filippo. What is certain is that Domenico’s original manuscript was written considerably earlier than 1713. In the fourth volume of his Historia di tutte le Heresie, published in 1709 with an imprimatur of 1708, Domenico, in the context of a discussion of Saint Peter’s, included a marginal note that reads: “See chapter 15 of the Life of



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fig. 5 Arnold van Westerhout after Giovanni Battista Gaulli, Gianlorenzo Bernini, 1682, engraved frontispiece published by Filippo Baldinucci and Domenico Bernini.

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Cavalier Gio. Lorenzo Bernino written by his son Domenico Bernino, author of this history.”97 And in the publisher’s letter to readers, which precedes the Bernini Vita, Rocco Bernabò stated that among Domenico’s manuscripts he “fortunately happened upon the Vita del Cavalier Gio: Lorenzo Bernino, his father, also written by him in his earlier age, that is, even before he began the great work in four volumes on heresies.” With the desire to ennoble his presses by publishing the biography, Bernabò continued, Domenico “corrected and augmented it in some parts, and kindly . . . conceded it to me.”98 Finally, turning back to his Historia di tutte le Heresie, in volume I, which appeared in 1705, Domenico informs the reader that he had been working on the text for twenty years.99 From this we could infer that the composition of his father’s biography took place before 1685. D’Onofrio, however, argued that Domenico’s manuscript was written even earlier, and formed the basis of Baldinucci’s text. It remains in fact unclear when Domenico first penned a fully developed life of his father, and to what extent that text resembled the book published in 1713. We have no doubt that Domenico was fully aware of and responded to Baldinucci’s book when revising his manuscript, even though he distances himself from it by mentioning it only once, as will be discussed further below. The early production by Bernini’s sons of a complete vita—made available to Baldinucci, and that later served as the basis for Domenico’s book— is hypothetical. What we do have is evidence of intense activity by a growing cast— of writers, subjects, patrons—a few surviving manuscripts, and a set of hypotheses about the actual evolution of the texts. This state of the question urges us to investigate the complex matters of authorship and precedence as grounds for interpretation rather than as an independent inquiry, which, presuming it could be resolved, would sew up the biographical problem. One way to enhance our understanding of the texts, given this still incomplete picture of their history, is by paying more attention to the training, professional activities, and written oeuvres of the individual authors themselves. Postscript to the History and Genesis of the VITE

The recent publication by Marcello Beltramme of an entry in the diary of Carlo Cartari, dated 3 January 1674, recording a conversation between Cartari and Pier Filippo Bernini,100 supports Montanari’s reconstruction of the biographical workshop as beginning its activity in 1674 and under the leadership



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of Pier Filippo. While the document speaks of Pier Filippo’s intentions to write such a text, it does not prove that he eventually did so, or, if he did, in what form. However, it does confirm the early assembly of a catalogue of works (already known through Cartari letters), and it tells us that there was a plan for an extensive corpus of engravings after these works (which we did not know of before and which was never executed). The entry also suggests that the Bernini family itself was going to pay for the extravagant publication, which may help to explain why payments for the book have not been found in the account books of the dedicatee, Christina of Sweden. As far as we know, Baldinucci’s account books have not been scrutinized for payment from the Bernini family for the project. Finally, from our perspective, and here we disagree with Montanari, the Cartari diary entry does not provide support for either an apologetic or an autobiographical reading of the vite.

the authors of bernini’s biographies A key element in the textual recuperation of artistic biography is the thorough reappraisal of the historical and cultural position of the biographers. This is an aspect of research that has begun for other early modern biographies but is quite uneven in the case of the Bernini biographers.101 Here we introduce three “authors” of the two texts, Pier Filippo and Domenico Bernini, and Baldinucci. Although the official author of neither of the published biographies, Pier Filippo Bernini was responsible, as Montanari has argued, for overseeing the biographical campaign of his father, compiling the catalogue of his works, penning the first draft of a narrative of his life, providing Baldinucci with the material necessary for his published life, and supervising the production of the engraved portrait of Bernini, which would serve as the frontispiece to both vite. Although what little is known about him is seen through the biographical agenda for his father, we offer here the fullest account of his life and literary activities to date. Pier (or Pietro) Filippo Bernini was born 23 January 1640, the first child of Bernini and Caterina Tezio.102 As a child he received, according to Baldinucci, a yearly pension of five hundred scudi from Cardinal Antonio Barberini, as a “sign of affection toward his father.”103 With the hope of cultivating in him an interest in letters and an ecclesiastical career, Gianlorenzo placed him under the care of Sforza Pallavicino (1607–1667), the



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Jesuit letterato and future cardinal.104 With Pallavicino’s guidance, Pier Filippo was introduced to the literary culture of Rome and revealed precocious talents as a writer. According to Montanari’s reconstruction, in 1651, at the age of eleven, he wrote a poem in praise of his father’s Fountain of the Four Rivers, and at twelve, a madrigal on the Saint Teresa.105 By 1655 Pier Filippo frequented the Accademia degli Intrecciati, a literary academy, where he developed ties to Agostino Favoriti, Emilio Sibonio, and Stefano Pignatelli, the latter of whom, especially, nurtured his literary career.106 At an unknown date Pier Filippo was ordained, beginning an ecclesiastical career that his father hoped would lead to his becoming a cardinal.107 Although he never received the purple, Domenico tracks his brother’s advancement in the Church as a result of Gianlorenzo’s successes. In January of 1663, Alexander VII made Pier Filippo a canon of Santa Maria Maggiore (in recognition of his father’s Cathedra Petri)108 and in 1665 named him a Referendario della Segnatura. Around 1669 Clement IX appointed him to the Tribunale and the Congregazione della Sacra Consulta, “as a token of affection toward the Cavaliere;” as a reward for Bernini’s Ludovica Albertoni, in 1674 Clement X named Pier Filippo Secretary of the Congregazione dell’Acque; and Alexander VIII made him an Assessore del Sant’Uffizio.109 In 1669 Clement IX appointed Pier Filippo to a committee assembled to advise him on Bernini’s tribune project for Santa Maria Maggiore, a controversial project that was not realized.110 In addition to these activities, Pier Filippo pursued his literary interests. Beginning around 1662, he became a sort of secretary and spokesman for his father, in which capacity he wrote a memoriale on the Colonnade of Saint Peter’s for Alexander VII.111 During Bernini’s trip to Paris, in 1665, he served as an intermediary between his father and Pallavicino, relating news from Mattia de’ Rossi, Carlo Roberti (the papal nuncio to France), and his younger brother, Paolo. Bernini also received words of praise about his son from Cardinal Chigi; and in a letter to Carlo Roberti, Pallavicino lauded Pier Filippo as “a prelate of great piety, intelligence, industry, and courtesy.”112 From about 1676 until the time of Bernini’s death, Pier Filippo exchanged numerous letters with Azzolino, which attest to the special bonds between the cardinal and the Bernini family.113 Whereas Domenico informs us about the various ecclesiastical offices his elder brother held, only Baldinucci comments on Pier Filippo’s literary activities: “Having a very affable nature and a great talent for heroic poetry, he marvelously knew to join them with the study of literature” so that today he is known as “the worthy heir to the most sublime talents of such a



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father.”114 Very little, though, is known about his literary work. Outside of his poems in the Bernini vite, only one known published text bears his name—a short religious pamphlet.115 There is more evidence of Pier Filippo’s engagement with the world of music and theater, for which he served as host, producer, and author of libretti in the early days of Roman opera. He provided the libretto for the operatic comedy entitled La donna ancora è fedele, staged in 1676 in the presence of Queen Christina.116 One year later, the young Sicilian musician Alessandro Scarlatti composed the music to accompany one of Pier Filippo’s pastoral comedies, which was to be staged at the Bernini family palace early the next year. Although never performed owing to Innocent XI’s ban on theatrical events during Carnival, the manuscript survives.117 Perhaps in conjunction with this collaboration, Scarlatti and his young wife, Antonia Anzalone, resided in the Bernini family palace in 1678, and in 1679 Pier Filippo stood as godfather to their first child.118 In 1679 Pier Filippo supported the staging of Scarlatti’s first public opera in Rome, Gli equivoci nel sembiante. Avvisi inform us that the opera was staged at the private theater of Giovanni Battista Contini, the architect and protégé of Gianlorenzo; that the theater was “prepared by Monsignors Cesi and Bernini;” and that it was put on “with the assistance of the Bernini brothers.”119 In 1680 Pier Filippo appears to have written the libretto for Scarlatti’s second opera, L’onestà negli amori, first performed for (and dedicated to) Christina, who named Scarlatti her maestro di cappella in 1679.120 Pier Filippo also wrote the libretto for an oratorio, Sant’ Alessio, with music by Bernardo Pasquini and, despite Innocent XI’s prohibitions, frequented theatrical performances.121 In his last will and testament, Gianlorenzo entrusted Pier Filippo with arranging for his burial in Santa Maria Maggiore and designated him, along with his brothers, Paolo, Francesco, and Domenico, his universal heir. He continued to live in his father’s house on the via delle Mercede, where, in 1681, he oversaw renovations. Pier Filippo died as decano canonico (senior canon) of Santa Maria Maggiore in May 1698, at the age of fifty-eight.122 To date, no scholarly attention has been directed to either Pier Filippo’s literary or theatrical work. The authors of this introduction have been able to read just a few published excerpts of his very rare works, so directions for inquiry can only be suggested here. One line, penned anonymously by “Un’amico dell’autore” in the letter to the reader of Pier Filippo’s L’onestà negli amori offers an enticing connection to the Bernini biographies. The “amico” (perhaps a disguise for Pier Filippo, who had to attend theaters in secret) praises Scarlatti, who “in the spring of his life has begun where



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many of his profession would hope to finish.” Similarly, we read in Domenico’s biography, emanating from the mouth of Annibale Carracci, that Bernini “in his youth had arrived in art where others could only boast of reaching in their old age.”123 If Pier Filippo was, in fact, the author of the anonymous letter to the reader, this parallellism suggests several possible interpretations: that Pier Filippo had a hand in Domenico’s vita; that Pier Filippo’s letter served as an intertext for his brother; or that a common source in a well-known saying (perhaps of Gianlorenzo) informed both passages. Examples like this suggest the potential fruitfulness of the study of Pier Filippo’s writings. In contrast to the little we know about the life and works of Pier Filippo Bernini, there is a wealth of contemporary sources about Filippo Baldinucci. But because some of these constitute a biographical construction yet to be decoded, here we offer a schematic outline of Baldinucci’s life and work and the interpretive issues they pose.124 Born in Florence 3 June 1625 into a mercantile family, Baldinucci was educated by the Jesuits. As a youth he showed great interest in music and the visual arts, frequenting artists’ studios, where he learned to draw and model in clay. He became an accomplished draftsman and a member of the Florentine Accademia del Disegno, where in 1648 he earned the title “accademico.” As a young man Baldinucci intended to become a capuchin, but upon the request of his dying father agreed to continue the family business (accounting and managing business affairs) and its name, by wedding Caterina degli Scolari, a member of an influential Florentine family in 1658. Despite the demands of the family business, Baldinucci cultivated relationships with artists and the cultural elite in Florence, continued to draw, amassed a sizeable collection of drawings and paintings, and along the way acquired a reputation as a connoisseur. In 1664 he entered into the service of Prince Leopoldo de’ Medici, who sent him to the Gonzaga court to help negotiate legal matters. Upon his return to Florence, Baldinucci was named by Leopoldo a member of the consultà, an advisory committee that evaluated prospective purchases of art, and soon after he became involved in his patron’s massive parallel projects of assembling an encyclopedic collection of drawings, arranged according to periods and schools, and a collection of artists’ self-portraits. From about 1673 Baldinucci assumed the leading role in these projects, advising Leopoldo (named cardinal in 1667) on his purchases and evaluating their attributions. In 1673 he drew up and published a master list of Leopoldo’s drawings — intended for circulation among the cardinal’s



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agents.125 As an outgrowth of these efforts, in 1675 Baldinucci conceived an “Albero genealogico delle maniere,” a genealogical tree that charted the history of art, from Cimabue onward. To accomplish this task, he drew up and circulated to leading critics and connoisseurs in Italy a questionnaire seeking basic chronological data about artists active after 1642.126 After Leopoldo’s death in 1675, Baldinucci continued to organize and document his collection of drawings under Cosimo III. The project that now consumed most of his efforts, however, was the Notizie dei professori del disegno, an outgrowth of his genealogical tree. Organized by centuries and decades, the Notizie would retrace Vasari’s history of art from Cimabue and extend it to living artists. It had an ambition similar to Vasari’s to demonstrate the continual progression of the visual arts and the preeminence of the Tuscan school.127 Each of the Notizie would be relatively short, providing basic biographical information, a list of works, a characterization of style, and something about the character of the artist.128 As published, the Notizie spans six volumes, three of which appeared during Baldinucci’s lifetime, the others being completed posthumously by his son Francesco Saverio. The first volume, issued in 1681, is relatively short, with just sixty-eight pages of text. Covering the years 1260 to 1300, volume one includes a twenty-two page apologia of the primacy and superiority of Tuscan art—a reiteration of Vasari’s teleology and a barely disguised attack on Malvasia’s Felsina Pittrice (1678), in which Bologna plays the central role in the history of art.129 With the Notizie, Baldinucci hoped to consolidate his position at the Medici court and to establish himself as the new Vasari.130 Similar motives lay behind a complementary work he published in 1681, the Vocabolario toscano dell’arte del disegno, the first-ever dictionary of art terms.131 Baldinucci states in his “L’Autore a chi legge” that the Vocabolario was intended to define how artists used terms and to define his own usage in the Notizie. It also demonstrated Tuscan linguistic supremacy, earning him admittance, a year later, to the Accademia della Crusca—to whom he dedicated the volume. Baldinucci entered the academy under the name of “Il Lustrato” (“The Polished One”).132 In 1681 Baldinucci also published his Lettera a Vincenzo Capponi, a sixteen-page pamphlet concerning connoisseurship, which defended his ability—as an amateur—to judge works of art.133 In 1682, while the Bernini Vita was in press, Baldinucci wrote a short piece, the Lettera a Lorenzo Gualtieri, which addressed the question of whether Raphael or Andrea del Sarto was the greatest painter of the sixteenth century.134 This was followed, in 1684, by La Veglia: Dialogo di Sincero



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Veri, a twenty-three page pamphlet, issued anonymously, written in the form of a dialogue between Amico (a friend of the author) and Publico (the public), introduced by Sincero Veri (Baldinucci’s surrogate). A witty tract, La Veglia was Baldinucci’s response to criticism of his claims in the Notizie’s “apologia” for Tuscan preeminence in the arts. In the dialogue he specifically defended his work as grounded in documentary evidence and a rigorous historical and historiographical method.135 During the last decade of his life Baldinucci continued to labor on the Notizie and to write other works as well. In the 1680s, he published the first specialized history of the art of engraving (1686)136 and the third installment of the Notizie (actually volume IV); in 1692 appeared his Lezione nell’Accademia della Crusca intorno alli pittori greci e latini, a discussion of the relative merits of ancient and modern painting.137 Although this tract was written after the Bernini Vita, Baldinucci’s position on the ancients versus moderns is also present in the Bernini text, and so the two merit careful comparison. There has been debate within the context of the discussion of the genesis of the texts about why Baldinucci was chosen to author Bernini’s biography. It is generally assumed that it was essential to bring in an outside author so as to conceal the fact that the biographical campaign was being led by Bernini’s son(s). This was D’Onofrio’s operating assumption but other, less sneaky motives are equally if not more imaginable. Building on Soussloff’s work, Montanari proposed that as a Florentine, Baldinucci was the only writer who could credibly cast Bernini within the Florentine tradition as the Michelangelo of his century.138 Indeed, the controversy aroused over the renewal of the thesis of Florentine supremacy, a few years later, points to the constitutive association with Baldinucci of the bias the Bernini clan is thought to have wanted to capture for Bernini. Beyond the political dimension of Baldinucci’s authorship (why he was chosen, his network of political connections), it will be revealing about the text itself to ask what Baldinucci’s other publications and his professional trajectory explain about the Bernini Vita. For example, Baldinucci brought an elegant Tuscan style, complete familiarity with the terminology, history, and practice of art, and with the prominent publications in the genre of artistic biography.139 The Bernini biography is only beginning to be read (see Montanari in this volume) against, for example, the Vocabolario and the Notizie. The relations are not self-explanatory. Was Baldinucci chosen for his historical method? His research involved the use of primary documents and published sources. And, yet, the entire apologia on the cupola of Saint Peter’s (for which, see the section on genres



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below) was written by Mattia de’ Rossi and, perhaps more importantly, Baldinucci was criticized for his Tuscan bias and his historical method in his “apologia,” published just one year before the Bernini Vita. Can we thus say that his referring his readers to the “authentic writings conserved in the archives of the Fabbrica”140 (see below) is a mark of rigor or lack of it? To begin to answer these questions we must understand what exactly were the standards of the genre and where, within this culture, his text stood. As much as Baldinucci’s other published texts will yield for an understanding of his Bernini Vita, it is important to ask what other ideas may have shaped the text and how we might evaluate them. Primary in the case of Baldinucci’s life and career is the matter of his humors and spirituality, extensively laid out in his own spiritual diary, preserved letters, and the biography of him written by his son.141 According to these sources, Baldinucci was extremely devout: he practiced the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius and had associations with the Oratorians. In 1669 he began his spiritual diary, which depicts what Goldberg has called his “spiritual disorder,” a life filled with visions, demons, and supernatural occurrences.142 For thirty years he sought religious counsel from a visionary nun in the convent of Santa Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi, and he relied on the Jesuit Emilio Savignani for spiritual and professional guidance.143 Despite all of his ambitions and his apparent successes Baldinucci struggled with a crisis of confidence and depressive tendencies. “He lost heart and fell into an extraordinary melancholy,” his son wrote, “which brought on a chronic hydropsy in March 1696. This kept him ill and an invalid until the first of January [1697], when in cruel agony and tormented by retention of urine, he passed to another life.”144 Samek Ludovici suggested that Baldinucci’s religious convictions explain his tendency to moralize the lives of artists, emphasizing their piety or other spiritual characteristics.145 Are we thus to read his portrayal of Bernini’s spirituality as the author’s projection of his own spiritual state onto his subject or as a conventional formulation? How does Baldinucci’s language of spirituality and religious practice compare to that of Domenico, the Church historian? If Baldinucci’s Bernini is less spiritualized than Domenico’s (as we believe it to be), it is legitimate to ask what, exactly, Baldinucci’s own biography explains about the Bernini text? In evaluating Baldinucci’s Bernini, a careful reading of Baldinucci’s spiritual diary and his son’s biography, with their own motivations, biases, and conventions, will be important. Domenico Stefano Bernini, born 3 August 1657, was the youngest of Bernini’s eleven children.146 About his youth we have a single anecdote,



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which appears in his biography of his father. Domenico recounts the anecdote of Alexander VII’s visit to the Bernini family palace when he was six. After viewing his father’s works and praising the Cavaliere, the pope encountered Domenico and his brother Francesco. Turning to Domenico, Alexander asked him, “Which of you is the most wicked?” to which the young boy timidly replied that his older brother was. Delighted by Domenico’s youthful spirit, the pope then placed around his neck a gold chain worth five hundred scudi, saying, “To you, because you are the best one, comes the prize.” This chain, Domenico tells us, “is presently kept in the Casa Bernini as a memory of the event and a testimonial to the magnificence of the pope.”147 The story, preceded by the often-cited account of Christina’s visit to Bernini’s house and followed by another of Alexander’s visiting the artist, conforms to a topos of artistic biography—the recognition of an artist’s virtue by a great patron.148 But the story is there to mirror in Domenico the account of very young Gianlorenzo’s first papal encounter with Paul V, where he, too, showed his mastery and was rewarded with a handful of gold. Domenico, who elsewhere in the Vita portrays the universally held opinion that his clever older brother Pier Filippo was the heir to the father, by way of this anecdote casts himself as like his prodigious father.149 Just prior to his fourteenth birthday, in July of 1671, Domenico, having decided to enter the Jesuit order, left his possessions to his father.150 In opting to become a religious, Domenico was following in the footsteps of many of his family members, among them his recently deceased uncle Domenico— who had been a benefiziato di San Pietro—after whom he was presumably named,151 and Pier Filippo. In his mother’s last will and testament, dated 30 September 1672, we read that “Domenico has become a Jesuit, [and is] today called P[adre] Domenico.”152 Unlike his brother, however, he did not remain in the Church for long. In the Vita of his father he says that, after having been called to the prelacy, “by a secret arrangement of Heaven, he fell in love with an honest and well-bred Roman young woman,” whom he married and with whom he had three children, one male and two female.153 Erroneous claims that Domenico was a canon of Santa Maria Maggiore may be a product of his having been confounded with Pier Filippo. It remains unclear as to when, exactly, Domenico reentered lay society. In 1677 he composed a poem in praise of his father’s Equestrian Statue of Louis XIV; in 1681 he and his brother Pier Filippo wrote a letter to the French court regarding this same work; and he may have been one of the brothers who assisted with the Scarlatti opera in 1679.154 These activities may suggest that he had left the novitiate by 1677. At the time of his father’s



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death in 1680 he was not living in his household and was not yet married, though Bernini’s will suggests this was a future possibility.155 After his father’s death he was, in all probability, financially secure, for he received a sizable inheritance.156 Domenico established himself as an ecclesiastical historian with the publication in 1685 of his first work: Memorie historiche di ciò che hanno operato li Sommi Pontefici nelle guerre contro i Turchi dal primo passaggio di questi in Europa fino all’anno 1684.157 Dedicated to Innocent XI, this volume supported the pope’s ongoing political agenda, the war against the Turks, and his contribution of considerable papal funds toward the defeat of Turkish forces in Vienna in 1683.158 Interestingly, Pier Filippo wrote a short pamphlet on the invasion of Vienna in 1683, issued by the same publisher.159 Ten years later, in 1695, Domenico published a related work devoted exclusively to Innocent’s efforts against the Turks—Memorie historiche di ciò che ha operato contro i Turchi il Sommo Pontefice Innocenzo XI. A decade later Domenico published his four-volume Historia di tutte le Heresie (1705–9), which presents an undeniably biased and apologetic history of the Church’s struggle against heresy, organized according to popes, from Saint Peter through Innocent XII. Reissued in 1711 and in several subsequent editions, the work was dedicated to Clement XI, who was engaged in his own struggle against Jansenism.160 It was, as we have seen, in 1713 that the Vita del cavalier Gio. Lorenzo Bernino, descritta da Domenico Bernino suo figlio was published by Rocco Bernabò, after Domenico “corrected and augmented” the manuscript. The Stamperia Bernabò, which also published Domenico’s Historia, was an active Roman publisher, which in the seventeenth century published works by Sforza Pallavicino and Virginio Cesarini, a Roman poet and nobleman closely linked to both the Barberini and Galileo. By the turn of the eighteenth century the publishing house seems to have specialized in ecclesiastical history and doctrine. In terms of subject matter, Bernabò’s publication of a biography of an artist appears somewhat exceptional. But it is consistent with what appears to have been his interest in subjects closely tied to the Chigi pontificate.161 It is unclear whether Domenico or Bernabò selected the Vita’s dedicatee, Cardinal Lodovico Pico della Mirandola; however, that he was a member of a distinguished and wealthy family, and recently had been raised to the cardinalate by Clement XI, made him an appropriate choice.162 In 1714 Rocco Bernabò published Domenico’s Vita del Cardinal D. Giuseppe Maria Tomasi de’ chierici regolari. A Theatine created cardinal in 1712,



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Tomasi was a member of the Arcadian Academy, renowned for his erudite scholarship, piety, and humility. Within five months of his death in 1713, Clement XI initiated Tomasi’s beatification process and commissioned the Vita. Domenico later elaborated the 1714 work, more than doubling it in length in a version published in 1722. After having written his first truly hagiographic text, Domenico turned his attention to a more strictly ecclesiastical subject. Il tribunale della S. Rota Romana (1717) is a study of the history, constitutions, and laws of the canonic and civil court of the Vatican. Also dedicated to Clement XI, it is a work based on a wealth of documentation, and illustrated with six fullpage plates depicting court ceremonies and paraphernalia. By 1720 Domenico was serving as a book censor (revisore).163 Domenico’s last work, another long hagiographic text, Vita del venerabile Giuseppe da Copertino de’ minori conventuali, was published in 1722. This volume he dedicated to Innocent XIII, a devotee of the future saint, who had served as bishop of Osimo, where Giuseppe da Copertino was buried. As was the case with several of his other publications, this work appeared in several subsequent editions, and served as the basis for Copertino’s biography in the Bollandists’ Acta sanctorum.164 Domenico Bernini died 3 November 1723, at the age of sixty-six, and was buried in his family’s tomb in Santa Maria Maggiore.165 His publications suggest that he enjoyed a career as a historian of the Church, cultivating favor with the ruling popes by writing about subjects that supported their policies. An assessment of Domenico’s career as a historian has yet to be written.166 With respect to the biography of his father, we can only conjecture as to why, more than thirty years after Baldinucci’s Vita appeared, he decided to publish his work. Domenico did not bring to the biography Baldinucci’s specialized art-historical knowledge. But he did possess the skills of the historian and hagiographer, whose work must be based on the sworn testimony of witnesses. In addition, and in contrast to Baldinucci, he brought to the writing of his father’s biography a firsthand knowledge of the artist and his works, and memories of his life, friends, and words.

bernini’s biographies and literary genres One way of approaching the similarities and differences between the Bernini vite is through a consideration of the various literary genres on which these biographical texts draw. The aim of this part of the introduction



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is to consider the extent to which the two vite are informed by or participate in different subgenres of life writing (artistic biography, hagiography, and autobiography), as well as the apologia.167 Before considering the genres that inflect the texts in more minor ways (hagiography and autobiography), it is helpful to recall that in the early modern period, as in antiquity, biography was a subgenre of history. That this was the view of seventeenth-century writers is demonstrated by Agostino Mascardi (1590 –1640), who in his influential Dell’arte historica (1636) includes “lives” among the subgenres of history, and by Francis Bacon (1561–1626), who wrote in his De augmentis scientiarum (1623) that “Perfect history is of three kinds according to the object which it propounds for representation. For it either represents a portion of time, or a person worthy of mention, or an action or exploit of the nobler sort. The first we call Chronicles or Annals; the second, Lives; the third, Narrations or Relations.”168 Fundamental to biography, Bacon notes, is its rhetorical dimension, its “lively and faithful representation,” and its function as exemplum (i.e., its moral or didactic purpose).169 Although Baldinucci and Domenico came to the Bernini vita with different backgrounds and experiences, both saw their work as that of historians. Domenico states that his goal is to record the “truth [about Bernini’s life], which is the only merit in history, and what history alone is,” and further on he refers to his text as a “racconto dell’Historia.”170 Baldinucci also refers to his Vita, several times, as a “history.”171 Both writers structure their texts chronologically (according to Bernini’s patron popes), and quote letters and cite sources, hallmarks of what Martino Capucci calls the “principle of documentation,” which signaled a major shift in biographical writing in the early modern period.172 Domenico’s richer apparatus—akin to that in his purely historical works—includes a table of contents and side notes. Both authors’ inclusion of indices, in line with historical texts of the period, “facilitated the literary voyage as the compass had done for the maritime,” to use Sforza Pallavicino’s beautiful praise of the invention of the index.173 While the two texts fall under the rubric of history, that their subject is an artist places them within the specific genre of artist’s lives. This genre, which traces its origins to Pliny the Elder’s Natural History, and grew out of, inter alia, the models of Plutarch’s Lives, humanist collections of lives (such as those by Petrarch and Boccaccio), and hagiography reached its typical early modern form with Giorgio Vasari’s Le vite de più eccellenti pittori, scultori, et architettori, first published in 1550, and then revised, expanded, and republished in 1568.174



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The structure Vasari developed in the most extended individual lives (e.g., Raphael and Michelangelo) tailored longstanding conventions of life writing to the specifics of an artist.175 This basic structure established the model for the majority of subsequent artist’s biographies, taken up to varying degrees in the seventeenth-century vite by Baglione, Bellori, Malvasia, and Baldinucci.176 As much as the Bernini vite parallel the typical Vasarian life, they stand apart as two examples in the rare genre of the independent life of one artist. Stand-alone vite were generally reserved for some of the most important figures, but the form was used for much less prominent figures with motivated biographers.177 Bernini’s biographers had little fear that Bernini’s vite would be grouped with the latter, viewing his, instead, as that of an exceptional artist whose life stood alongside those non-artists worthy of their own biographies. This idea transpires in Domenico’s biography when his father’s greatness is weighed against the importance of orators, captains, and doctors,178 people whose virtue was commonly celebrated in collections of elogii.179 As the five biographies published immediately or shortly after the death of the Neapolitan poet Giambattista Marino (1569 –1625) attest, these eulogies could develop into substantial texts that warranted publication either as independent booklets or, as was typical in the genre of author biographies, as appendices to editions of their literary works.180 Moving beyond where the Bernini vite are situated in relation to their specific biographical genre, what other literary genres inform the method and forms of these two texts? In a number of recent discussions of Bernini, scholars have referred to Baldinucci’s and Domenico’s biographies as “hagiographic.”181 Mostly the term alleges biographical idealization, as in the presentation of Bernini as a child prodigy —he who, at the age of eight, carved a head that was “the marvel of everyone.”182 By calling the vite hagiographic, scholars seem to voice a negative judgment, implying that the biographies exalt Bernini as a superhuman figure, and, as such, lack credibility. Concerning the hagiographic aspect of the Bernini vite, it is important to recognize that hagiography and other forms of life writing share common foundations.183 The sacred biography claims the same classical sources as the artist’s life and both genres employed similar schemata, rhetorical conventions, and anecdotes. As in virtually all other forms of life writing, one of the primary goals of hagiography was to praise the virtues of its subject, to present the subject as an exemplum. Numerous scholars have noted that saints’ lives were an important model for Vasari’s vite.184 Does this mean that artists are to be thought of as saints, or, does the language of



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saintliness produce what we might call a hagiographic effect for the artists represented in these texts? Such an effect has to do with borrowing a language as a means of conferring status on artists (rather than claiming that they are saints). The imbrication of biography and hagiography signals an aspect of profound societal change, the beginning of an era that began to characterize artists as “divine.”185 A second and related point is that biographies of famous people and hagiographies are motivated differently. Hagiography had a very specific, juridical motivation because it played an acknowledged role in building the case for the legal definition of someone as a saint. In addition, unlike the artist’s life, the saint’s was also meant to demonstrate the truths of Catholic dogma. Fame, and a place in history, the generic motivations of biography, are quite different than that of sanctification. It can be said, however, that hagiography and biography share the function of propagating the “cult” of their subjects. It is precisely in this period that artists developed cultlike followings, with tombs in the Pantheon (for Raphael and Annibale Carracci) and biographers, such as Baldinucci, promoting their local or institutional heroes. The perpetuation of fame and a lasting artistic legacy had implications for new types of institutional and political power since art was being used to create familial, regional, civic, and— quite obviously with the Sun King—national identities. Art and artists began to stand for crown (as well as Church) in ways that saints carried forward the work of God and the Church. This institutional dimension, writ large, is another aspect of the hagiographic effect, perhaps most visible in Domenico’s structuring of his Vita by papacy, portraying Bernini as a support and subject of successive popes. The third point is that hagiography was not a series of exaggerations, as is often implied in the use of the term, but was in fact the avant-garde of history writing in the seventeenth century. With the increasingly rigorous standards for sanctity effecting rigorous standards for research and reporting, hagiography, as codified by the Bollandists, led the field of history writing.186 If we acknowledge these similarities and differences in motivation between the two forms, and recognize the broad structural parallels between vite of saints and of non-saints, we can move beyond the question of truth versus fiction. Given the shared goals of these different sorts of life writing, can it be said that Bernini’s biographers represent their subject in hagiographic terms, and if so what is gained by such a representation? In both biographies Bernini is portrayed as the maker of “miraculous” works of art that astonished viewers. Bernini’s fame, like that of miracle-working saints, spread quickly, and just as the faithful flocked to see holy persons



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with their own eyes, so, his biographers write, the people of Rome “watched [Bernini] and pointed him out to others” and, while en route to Paris, “in every place Bernini had to pass through, the word of his presence spread, so that cities were depopulated by the townspeople’s desire to come out and see him.”187 Like saints who became inflamed by religious rapture and consumed by divine love during prayer, Bernini “felt so inflamed and so enamored” when carving marble that he “seemed to be in ecstasy.”188 These are good examples of the hagiographic effect: first, the language of the miraculous is used to suggest that works of art are powerful, able to arouse wonder. Second, in portraying creation as an ecstatic enterprise, the language of sanctity makes the point, embedded in artistic theory of the time, that making art was of a higher order, a type of knowledge that brought one closer to God. These two points have to do with the new status of art, to which life writing contributed by implying a kind of sanctity in artists. Both Bernini biographers call attention to Bernini’s virtues—his modesty, humility, constancy, prudence, and charity. They portray him as a man of piety, goodness, elevated spirit, and piercing insight in matters of theology. These terms gain some weight as a concerted depiction when contrasted to the portrayal of Bernini by Giovanni Battista Passeri as a far less virtuous man.189 In the context of artistic biography a virtuous Bernini was far from unique. Vasari’s Giotto, for example, was a “divine gift” to the world, who lived an exceptionally devout life. His Masaccio “was goodness itself,” and Raphael was a “mortal God” who lived a life of “saintly conduct.” Michelangelo was “inspired by heaven,” and continuously worked “miracles;” he was, in short, “divine.”190 And Bernardo De Dominici, in his Vite de’ pittori, scultori ed architetti napoletani (1742 – 45), claimed about one artist that “it is necessary to think of writing the life of a saint rather than a life of a painter.”191 There are two points to be made here. First, that we should take care to distinguish between the heroic virtue of saints and the virtues that every Christian, artist or not, was expected to possess. It would be difficult to say that Bernini’s virtue could be termed heroic, as was expected of the Church’s saints.192 But more to the point, the use of the language of miracles and virtue is an example of the borrowing of an acknowledged language of sanctity to lend support to the idea that the artist was “divine” in his own terms. Domenico’s Vita places greater emphasis on Bernini’s devotion, and on his virtues as a man, rather than as an artist. As Heiko Damm discusses in his essay, it is only in Domenico’s biography that we find an extended account of Bernini’s Saint Lawrence, for which he engaged in a creative



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process cast in the language of Christian suffering. And although divine providence plays a role in the lives of all men, not just saints, Domenico’s Bernini is more marked by God’s plan.193 Neither Baldinucci nor Domenico explicitly makes the claim made previously by Vasari for Michelangelo and Raphael that Bernini was divine (or even that he was saintly). However, his divinity is inscribed in the text through the persistent likening of Bernini to the “divine” Michelangelo (discussed below and in the essay by Levy). Baldinucci’s Bernini in particular is a new Michelangelo, whose legacy is his “miraculous” body of work. Did Bernini’s biographers see him as saintly, or did they use the language of virtue and devotion to make him Michelangelesque? That the answer to this question is utterly unclear to us suggests just how successfully art had gained a sort of cultural capital and artists a position of veneration by the end of the seventeenth century. Just as the Bernini biographies have been called, in the past, hagiographies, they contain such a strong trace of their subject that they have seemed to point to Bernini as their author—that they are, in essence, autobiographies. Neither of the two biographies of Bernini can in fact be considered an autobiography because the subject and author are not the same person.194 Regardless of what form it takes —whether epistolae, a confession, diary, memoir, poetic verse, or a historical narrative—autobiography is a projection and presentation of one’s self, a “mirror in which the individual reflects his own image.”195 But as Mayer and Woolf (and others), have argued, the distinction between biography and autobiography can often be blurred. An individual can, for example, feed his biographer his view of himself, shaping the biography according to his own image. The result is what Philippe Lejeune has called “collaborative autobiography.” Or, to cite another nuance of the genre, an autobiography can be written in the third person, thus obscuring the fact that the author/narrator is the same person as the subject of the text.196 The view of autobiography as a hybrid form or collaborative biography, or as authorized biography opens up questions about Bernini’s vite. Given the dating of the biographical projects to Bernini’s lifetime, internal evidence, and the familiarity of Domenico with his subject, we can be certain that Bernini was in some way involved in the fashioning of his vita (that is, his life as recorded for posterity). At the very least, he recounted stories, shared memories, voiced his favorite sayings, helping to craft, in short, his image of himself. This is not to claim that Bernini “dictated” his life story, consciously or, as D’Onofrio proposed, unconsciously to his sons (or to Baldinucci).197



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But it does open the question, asked by Montanari and Ostrow in this volume, as to how to describe Bernini’s role in the vite, whether they can be said to possess an autobiographical character. In his essay, Montanari argues in favor of an explicitly autobiographical motivation and form in the vite. By contrast, Ostrow questions the extent to which the lives should be seen as autobiographical. The last genre which marks Bernini’s vite explicitly is the apologia. Strictly speaking, the apologia is not a subgenre of life writing, but comprises the explanation, justification, or defense of a cause or an individual’s actions or convictions.198 Plato’s Apologia Sokratous, a re-presentation of Socrates’ own defense at his trial; Bernard of Clairvaux’s Apologia for the Second Crusade, a defense of the crusade and of his role in supporting it; and Tommaso Campanella’s Apologia pro Galileo (1622), which offered proof that Galileo’s views were not heretical, exemplify the range and continuity of the genre. As a defense of an individual, dwelling frequently upon actions and character, the apologia is intimately tied to biography and autobiography. Two examples of what we may call the apologetic biography are Tommaso Mazza’s Vita di Claudiano poeta, con l’apologia per il di lui cristianesimo (1668) which conflates a biography of the late-antique Latin poet Claudian with a defense of his Christian beliefs, and Alessandro Guarini’s Il Cesare, overo l’apologia di Cesare, primo imperatore di Roma (1632), a biography of Julius Caesar and a defense of his governance and character. It is worth noting that in the early modern period, apologetic texts were predominantly self-defenses. Whether written in defense of oneself or of another, the apologia often involves legalistic discursive models. It directly addresses accusations against the subject, marshalling evidence in support of his defense, which is submitted to the court of public opinion (the readers). That evidence can take several forms, including the opinions of authorities, which refute the accusations, and the words of character witnesses, who attest to the virtues of the accused.199 This brings us directly to the biographies of Bernini and to their varying apologetic elements, which are discussed further by Montanari in this volume. In addition to the running apologetic element in his text, Baldinucci’s Vita is also an explicitly apologetic work. Following upon the narration of the life and death of Bernini, a final section, running about one-fifth the length of the entire Vita is called “apologia.” In it Baldinucci provides an extended defense against the “foolishly held” report that the cracks in the dome of Saint Peter’s were caused by Bernini’s work in the crossing. The



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point-by-point refutation of all the charges, supported by nine engraved plans and elevations (see fig. 7), unequivocally prove, Baldinucci claims, the accusations to be false. Bernini is thus exonerated, his reputation restored. Baldinucci concludes his apologia with the moralizing statement that it is “vain and malicious to pass judgment without the testimony of a learned eye.”200 Domenico’s Vita lacks the legal apologia that appears in Baldinucci, but is no less apologetic. Like Baldinucci, he refers to Bernini’s detractors in condescending terms and repeatedly quotes the words of Rome’s luminaries as proof of Bernini’s sublime virtue. Concerning the crack in the dome of Saint Peter’s and the accusations against Bernini, Domenico offers a considerably shorter defense, at the conclusion of which he notes that “if the curious reader would like to be made even more certain of the baselessness of this voice, read Filippo Baldinucci at the end of the Vita of the same Cavalier Bernino, in which he addressed this material at length” (the only explicit mention of Baldinucci in the text).201 The rumors and accusations that circulated in the 1670s, which necessitated Baldinucci’s extended argument, had diminished by 1713, having been further put to rest by Carlo Fontana’s Templum Vaticanum (1694).202 But in contrast to Baldinucci, Domenico provides a more extensive defense of Bernini’s so-called failures at the court of Louis XIV.203 While Baldinucci’s apology of Bernini is more extended around specific accusations, Domenico’s is focused on the defense of Bernini as a man. Gianlorenzo was not, as some “envious” and “malicious” people claimed, an ingrate, but a genuinely grateful man. He was never proud, but always modest. He was, as Domenico presents him, a loving husband and father, who was himself deeply loved by the many popes he worked for and, especially, by King Louis XIV and Queen Christina. Hard-working, generous, steadfast, ingenious, he was, in short, a “rare man.”204 It is this great man, and the cultural world that supported him, that Domenico portrays, often by means of defense, in his biography. It is a view, or might we call it a son’s retrospective fantasy, to which art historians continue to cling.205

themes of bernini’s biographies In the discussion of the genesis and literary genres, the complex textual relationship of the biographies has been broached. In this section the similarities and differences between the books in theme, point of view, in short, the agendas of the authors, are considered.



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First, the physical books express relationships between the two texts. The ambition of Baldinucci’s publication is announced by its size. Even accounting for the individual buyer’s cut of the paper for binding, Baldinucci’s is larger, a luxurious quarto, in contrast to Domenico’s small quarto, similar to Baglione’s Le Vite de’ pittori, scultori et architetti and Condivi’s Vita di Michelagnolo Buonarroti.206 The similarities between the two are perhaps more striking. It has not been remarked that the titles of the two works are virtually the same, except for Domenico’s significant omission of “pittore, scultore, et architetto,” which identify Bernini’s profession(s) and claim to universality in the arts. Domenico reused the portrait of Bernini (the family owned the plate) engraved by Arnould van Westerhout in 1681 for Baldinucci’s publication.207 The repetition of title and engraving (fig. 5) are significant. They suggest that Domenico (even though he only specifically acknowledges Baldinucci’s Vita once208) saw his text as in some way the same book, bettered, but supplanting Baldinucci’s. The format chosen for the engraving also signals to the reader something about the contents of both books. A portrait in an oval frame on top of a simply rendered notched base was established by Claude Mellan in aristocratic portraiture in 1640.209 But it is precisely the format employed in the De’ Rossi print concern’s ongoing series of cardinal portraits (and some popes), a new wave of production of which (see fig. 6) apparently held up the issue of Baldinucci’s biography because Rome’s engravers were employed on that project.210 There were many similar portrait formats in use, specifically for writers and artists. But Bernini’s lacks only a coat of arms to look exactly like that of a cardinal. Through this visual analogy he was placed quite close to, just below, the pope, an association that is born out in the broad conception of both texts. It is also a distinct elevation in rank from an earlier series of portraits of intellectuals in Urban VIII’s entourage by Ottavio Leone in which Bernini’s early portrait was included.211 Before discussing their substantial differences, the fundamental similarities between the two works merit description. As John Lyons writes, in the two there are “some differences in emphasis but in some respects they are, strikingly, even amazingly similar.” Treating only the birth-to-death narrative, he observes that “the principal, or even sole, type of event in both vite” is the “recognition of the artist.” Too little significance has been accorded to the extent to which both texts organize Bernini’s life by papacy, portraying him in terms of his physical and temporal proximity to power: three popes who called him the first day of their pontificates, two who visited him in his home, a king who sat in the artist’s presence for an hour, the pope whose bedroom



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fig. 6 A. Clouwet after Giovanni Battista Gaulli, Sforza Pallavicino, from Effigies insignia nomina cognomina patriae et dies promotionis ac obitus summorum pontificum et S.R.E. cardinalium defunctorum. Ab anno MDC(L)VIII (Rome: de Rubeis, 1690), engraving.

curtains he closed himself, and so on. We are told more about how fast and familiar Bernini was with people in power than any details of his domestic life. These are not intimate portrayals. But they are portrayals of intimacy with power, and so, laced throughout, is Bernini’s “dimestichezza” (intimacy) with his patrons, of their tender “love”—amore being a complex rhetoric for closeness and esteem, position and privilege. As Domenico baldly put it, “the Cavaliere remained in debt to the pope . . . for an indescribable propensity toward him, that he regarded as affection, but in reality was for Urban his esteem of his virtue.”212 Money was also a duly recounted expression of “love” and “esteem.” Clement IX sent gold medallions to the family as “signs” of his “paternal love and royal generosity.”213 Both biographers prove equally excellent accountants of Bernini’s esteem as measured in scudi.214



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Within this general narrative of “esteem,” “love” and “virtue,” there are significant differences in texture and structure between the two books. Domenico invokes Bernini’s presence and voice far more, with dozens of attributed quotes, in contrast to Baldinucci’s more restrained use of them (as discussed by Ostrow in his essay). Domenico’s language is more complex, with a more developed cast of characters, and a far more tightly constructed narrative, with transitions between one chapter and the next, and a strong sense of drive to the “historia.” Unlike Baldinucci, whose vita and apologia— illustrated with nine engravings of Saint Peter’s (fig. 7)—run uninterrupted to the catalogue, Domenico divides his by chapters (with summary chapter headings), and sidenotes in the margins, which read like a précis of Bernini’s relationship to his papal patrons and their recognition of him. A side-by-side comparison of the two accounts of Gregory XV’s papacy reveals much about their differences. Baldinucci’s brief remarks include Bernini’s immediate access to the new pope, the commissioning of three busts (fig. 8), the consequent reward of the Cavalierato di Cristo, and the explanation that the pope’s short reign prevented him from doing more.215 To this Domenico adds the following. First, he prepares for Gregory’s election as pope in chapter 4 by establishing Bernini’s relationship to Ludovisi as cardinal at the end of chapter 3.216 (In Domenico, the end of one chapter typically signals the beginning of the next.) Second, he is more specific about the immediacy of Bernini’s contact with the pope (“He requested and was immediately admitted to kiss the pope’s feet”), the familiarity (“with the tenderness of such affection”), and the privilege of the relationship (“he remained at length with him with the usual affability, unaltered by his new greatness”).217 The commissions and the Cavalierato di Cristo are, in Domenico, awarded on account of past esteem. Whereas Baldinucci apologetically explained that there were not more works by Bernini for Gregory because Ludovisi died so soon, Domenico set Bernini for the entire course of the pope’s painful last illness “by the very bed of the pope” and described him coming out of the room “all tearful and in sorrow,” as if he had been there for the last breath.218 The emphasis on intimacy, on prior notions of esteem (rather than reward for work done, labor), is typical of Domenico’s view, especially pronounced in the (no doubt misleadingly) intimate portrayal of Bernini’s relationship with Louis XIV in chapter 18 of his text. Both biographies put enormous emphasis on Bernini’s timeless ingegno as the core of his genius, as Williams, Lyons, and Delbeke argue in their essays. The word occurs around thirty times in Domenico, around a dozen in Baldinucci. This theme was supported by various aspects of the biography: the



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fig. 7 Filippo Baldinucci, Vita del cavaliere Gio. Lorenzo Bernino scultore, architetto, e pittore, scritta da Filippo Baldinucci fiorentino (Florence: Vincenzio Vangelisti, 1682), “Crossing of Saint Peter’s.”

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fig. 8 Gianlorenzo Bernini, Gregory XV, 1621, marble. Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto.

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attestations of popes, princes, Christina, and Louis XIV. Like Giambattista Marino, even Bernini’s body revealed his ingegno. Ardent in fiery spirit and tireless energy, eagle-like in appearance, with an intelligence that never tired even as an old man, Bernini was the embodiment of ingegno, as described in Ripa’s Iconologia (fig. 9).219 Typically, Domenico developed the physiognomic reading of Bernini’s ingegno more deeply, with Christina and Louis XIV recognizing it.220 While both writers agree on the centrality of Bernini’s ingegno, their books can be read as revolving around two distinct views of the relation between the writing of the life and truth. These themes are most obviously discernable in their discussion of Bernini’s statue of Truth (fig. 10). Originally the artist planned Truth to have been revealed by a figure of Time, but the latter was never completed. Baldinucci sets out to prove why Time was unnecessary. John Lyons argues that Baldinucci sees Bernini’s virtue as a constant. Indeed the metaphor used to describe Bernini’s steadfastness in the face of calumny is the pietra di paragone, the truthful stone that tests metals for their purity.221 Because of Bernini’s unchanging virtue, Bernini had no need to give life to his planned statue of Time, for time was of no consequence. In a verse composed about the planned group, Baldinucci says that Bernini would do better to spend his time chiseling heroes than Time, for “true Virtue / Despite the age stays ever whole.”222 If time is superfluous, Bernini’s Vita stands outside of history, and as such could appear at any time. There was a further beauty in the choice of Truth as Baldinucci’s theme. Whatever Christina’s precise role in the genesis of the project, Baldinucci dedicated the book to her, invoking the theme of Christina as Truth herself with the opening words, “I always believed it true, Sacred Majesty, no, very true.”223 He does not catalogue the most germane work of all to this theme: Bernini’s mirror design in the motif of Time revealing Truth, a “portrait” of Christina made for her, and certainly known to him (fig. 11).224 Though Truth may have resided at Casa Bernini, Time was at Christina’s palace, busy revealing another Truth: Queen Christina. Thirty years later it was time for Time to reveal Truth in Domenico’s biography. His embrace of time as revealer of Truth reads like a revision of Baldinucci’s theme.225 Domenico opens chapter 12 (whose theme is how Bernini’s constant virtù allowed him to handle fluctuations in fortune): “But it is time for Time to reveal Truth.”226 Domenico took Bernini’s testament, in which he left his statue of Truth as a memory of himself to his heirs, and indeed, with time, one of them did reveal Truth. To support his argument Domenico produces a letter (not in Baldinucci) that shows that



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fig. 9 “Ingegno” in Cesare Ripa, Iconologia (Padua: P. P. Tozzi, 1618), 269.

his father thought in these terms. Faced with a round of malicious opposition in France near the end of his life, Bernini wrote to a friend: “Time will uncover truth, as it has to my benefit on other occasions.”227 For Baldinucci, Bernini did not change over time, but for Domenico it was more to the point that his virtue remained constant with changes in fortune.228 Hence the statue of Truth is a pivotal moment in the changing fortunes of his father. By contrast, this work cannot be a turning point in Bernini’s life for Baldinucci. Accordingly, he situated this work as one produced in the pontificate of Innocent X, but not as a work produced because of the dark days of Borromini’s ascent. Why would Domenico want to supplant Baldinucci’s biography, which, after all, as the product of a writer on art, laid certain claims that he could not make? In several essays in this volume it is pointed out that Baldinucci



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fig. 10 Gianlorenzo Bernini, Truth, ca. 1652, marble. Galleria Borghese, Rome.

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fig. 11 Gianlorenzo Bernini, Design for a Mirror for Queen Christina of Sweden, ca.1662, pen and brown wash over chalk on paper. Windsor Castle, Windsor.

wrote the life of an artist while Domenico wrote of a grand’uomo. This phrase appears only once in Baldinucci,229 and Christina struggled over the reference to Bernini as a grand’huomo in the very letter she wrote to Baldinucci upon the publication of the book.230 As detailed by Montanari and Delbeke, by 1713 Domenico had no problem with the phrase: the phrase appears about a dozen times,231 and the Vita ends with the very words “UN GRAND’HUOMO.”232 With this emphasis on the man, Domenico’s omission of Bernini’s profession in the title begins to make sense.



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The two texts differ in their theme, but both are similar in method, specifically, in the apparent parallels between their method in writing the life, and their presentation of Bernini’s approach to his art. As Levy argues in her essay, their methods correspond to their distinct interpretations of Bernini’s own views on imitation: Baldinucci’s text explicitly highlights Bernini’s virtues — selective imitation (choosing the most beautiful parts)—just as he quotes Bernini for having taken the same approach in his art; Domenico’s Vita also focuses on his virtues but presents Bernini also with personal defects—just as he quotes his father as having said that if defects (of a site, of a stone) did not exist one would have to invent them in order to supersede them. These differences in theme and approach are reinforced by the subtly distinct ways in which the authors situate Bernini in history. While Bernini considered himself variably Florentine or Neapolitan, Baldinucci’s Bernini is Florentine (though born in Naples), whereas Domenico has no distinct regional bias, reporting his Neapolitan origins but effectively making him a Roman.233 In this respect Domenico’s revision parallels Condivi’s “rhetorical repatriation” of Michelangelo from Florence to Rome.234 Both authors agree that the times in which Bernini lived were not propitious to the arts.235 Baldinucci has Bernini maintaining the arts to the level achieved by Michelangelo. He conveys some equivocation about Bernini in his phrasing of Paul V’s prognostication as a hope: “We hope that this young man will become [debba diventare] the great Michelangelo of his time.” Domenico’s report is quite certain: “This boy will be [sarà] the Michelangelo of his time.”236 While both authors point to Bernini’s singularity, Domenico places more emphasis on it, having Sforza Pallavicino call Bernini “the phoenix of the ingenious ones,” a coded epithet used to describe the prodigious, unique, revolutionary ingegni adopted by powerful patrons to establish a new era. By using this phrase, Domenico placed his father in a line with other, similarly designated seicento luminaries, all of whom earned their unique and exalted place in history by virtue of their ingegno.237 Reading the biographies for their themes as a whole casts in a different light some of the long-held myths about Bernini. For example, Lyons rereads the stories of Bernini’s precociousness (as exemplified by his youthful encounter with Paul V where he displays mastery over all types of portrait heads) as paradigmatic, generating a theme that governs the whole structure of the biographies: Bernini, a timeless genius, is unaffected by time, because he is completely formed from the start. There is no development: “time neither adds to nor subtracts from his gift, nor must he struggle



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to prove himself.” When read as a pivotal story in laying out an entire life, the possible exaggeration, or fabrication in the account of the encounter with Paul V becomes more obvious and it is more difficult to take the specific details of his precociousness at face value. Reading the biographies thematically also disrupts what are still strong expectations of their chronological accuracy. For although both follow a chronological framework, much license was taken with time to develop themes. As Christina put it to Baldinucci, his book was “woven” and written with an “order” such as she would have expected from a writer of the “value” and “liveliness of ingegno” of Baldinucci.238 By order she meant not chronology, but a meaningful arrangement of parts. Baldinucci’s citation of Bernini’s statue of Constantine as a preamble to the arrival of Christina in Rome, which took place in 1655, furnishes a good example (fig. 12). As an image of the converted emperor who greeted foreign potentates upon their ascent to the papal audience, Constantine was an appropriate work with which to bracket the arrival of the converted queen. By contrast, Domenico dedicates an entire chapter to Christina’s entry to Rome, prefacing her arrival by ending the previous chapter with Bernini’s triumphal engineering of the Scala Regia, completed in 1666 (fig. 13). This is a different “chronology,” but more to the point, it is a different spin. Domenico characterizes the stair as regal in name as in appearance. Thereafter appears Christina who was regal in name (a former queen still called queen) and appearance (she maintained royal ceremony around her persona), and whose formal reception, including ascent at the Vatican Palace, is then described in detail. Bernini thus truly paved Christina’s way. Scholars have argued that Domenico’s is a more accurate dating of events.239 Yet, neither account is accurate: the Constantine, commissioned in 1654, worked from 1662 onward, was unveiled in 1670 –71. The Scala was built between 1663 and 1666.240 Neither, as the spatial form of the texts imply, preceded or greeted Christina in 1656. Rather, these accounts should be read as creative interpretations of the historical record, texts in which the authors make sense of Bernini’s life and works, creating meaningful intersections among the themes, interests and identities of his patrons and the events that involved them both.

intertexts and bernini’s biographies A full understanding of the two Bernini texts can only emerge when they are contextualized within a broad range of contemporary literary artifacts.



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The essays in this volume begin to point to a rich set of intertextual relations to other literary works, especially but not exclusively artistic biographies. The most intense intertext for Domenico is, obviously, Baldinucci’s Vita. For regardless of whether Domenico’s was a lightly or heavily edited version of an earlier manuscript in which he had a hand, we know that Domenico wrote (or revised) his manuscript knowing Baldinucci’s book. There are many moments in which the contiguity of his and Baldinucci’s vite slips through, when some of the same language appears in the same context in both texts. For example, about Louis XIV’s esteem for Bernini, Baldinucci writes: We were speaking of the great pleasure which his majesty took in this great man, and, in order to remove any suspicion of hyperbolic amplification, or exaggeration, I will make it appear evident with the very responses of father Oliva, and in a letter to Bernini written in that time.241 Domenico writes: The honors that we described above, and which were made equal to the esteem in which Cavaliere Bernini was held by all, so that they are absent from any suspicion of hyperbolic amplification, it will please me to make it evident with the same letters, given in response to the Marchese of Lionne and to the Cavaliere Bernini by the aforementioned father Oliva.242 Did Baldinucci, as D’Onofrio would have it, use a phrase from Domenico?243 Did Baldinucci borrow the language from a manuscript provided to him by the Bernini clan? Did Domenico later leave the passage as already written? Or did parts of Baldinucci’s phraseology end up in his? That this may have been the case is suggested by Domenico’s reference to himself here in the first-person singular (“it will please me”), for otherwise he only used the first-person plural or the third-person singular (even when describing the one event of his own childhood).244 Baldinucci here as in his other writings consistently used the first-person singular when interjecting as the narrator. In evaluating this and other such passages,245 the arguments advanced by Montanari about the genesis of the texts are only a first essential step. How we answer these questions will depend on our attitude toward the texts:



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fig. 12 Gianlorenzo Bernini, Equestrian Statue of Emperor Constantine, 1654 –70, marble. Saint Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City.

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fig. 13 Gianlorenzo Bernini, Scala Regia, 1663 – 66. Vatican Palace, Vatican City.

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either as derivative or, as we believe, as closely related but distinct and autonomous works. Domenico’s biography is emerging as the most richly connected to a wider range of texts, a reflection of his own formation and literary oeuvre. But both biographers read and wrote alongside the artistic biographies of their time. At this juncture it appears that the most important biographies for both Bernini authors were those dedicated to Michelangelo: Condivi’s life (itself in dialogue with Vasari’s 1550 vita) and Vasari’s lengthy response to it in 1568.246 Soussloff has outlined the context at the Barberini court for the staging of Bernini’s career as an imitatio Buonarroti, and has touched upon some of the important biographical themes that later linked Bernini to Michelangelo (above all their universality in the arts). She has argued further that Vasari is the silent interlocutor for the art-theoretical components of Baldinucci’s Vita.247 Even if the conventional nature of artistic biography is taken into account, when Bernini’s vite are read alongside Michelangelo’s, one can discern like chains of topoi in the texts. While the central drama of Vasari’s Michelangelo is the dome of Saint Peter’s (in Condivi it is the Julius tomb), Baldinucci’s apologia shows Bernini sustaining the cracked dome. Lorenzo de’ Medici is surrogate father to Michelangelo as Maffeo Barberini is for Bernini. And both suffered a nemesis (Bramante and Borromini) who interfered with the pope over Saint Peter’s. Regarding the affection the popes held for their artists, Julius III said that if he outlived Michelangelo he wanted to have him embalmed (“che lo vuol fare imbalsamare”) and kept near him (“appresso di sè”) so that his remains will be eternal like his works (“acciò le ossa sieno perpetue come son le opera”).248 Similarly, at a time when Bernini was close to death, Urban VIII sent a precious medicine. Domenico glossed the pope’s affection, saying that “if it had been possible, he would have wanted to embalm him, and render Bernini eternal [se gli fosse stato possibile, haverebbe voluto imbalsamare, e rendere eterno il Bernino].”249 Bernini (and his patrons) also improved on Michelangelo, just as Vasari’s Michelangelo marked an advance over the leader of the second age, Donatello.250 Contrast Condivi’s Julius II, impatient for the Sistine ceiling scaffolding to be removed—and Michelangelo’s refusal to satisfy him—to Innocent X, rewarded for his patience when Bernini unexpectedly sent the waters surging into the Four Rivers Fountain, marking its unexpected completion. Rather than standing up to the pope and provoking his anger, Bernini added ten years to his life. Eight to ten cardinals accompanied Paul III to Buonarroti’s house, whereas Alexander VII was accompanied by



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twelve cardinals, twenty prelates, and the most “riguardevole nobiltà” of Rome when he visited the Cavaliere.251 Michelangelo supped with Medici and pope, Bernini closed the curtains as the pope, at the moment of his greatest vulnerability, went to sleep. All of these examples are drawn from a comparison of Condivi’s to Domenico’s text but Baldinucci was aware of the Michelangelo vite too.252 Study of the five texts together is bound to reveal many of the nuanced differences between Baldinucci’s and Domenico’s. But above all, the close textual analysis of this group of texts, as well as other artistic biographies (terra incognita) will be key to unpacking many of the stories chosen to constitute Bernini’s life. Here we can only hint at some of the most obvious reference points among the non-artistic vite, an area that remains almost entirely uninvestigated.253 Obvious figures to turn to are members of the intellectual elite in Bernini’s various milieus. For example, in the seventeenth century, the poet Giambattista Marino was celebrated in five extensive and independently published biographies.254 Marino’s case offers some obvious parallels with Bernini’s: both are portrayed as the emblematic ingegno of their day and age255 and were the subject of multiple and not always congruous biographical campaigns, based on family testimony and construed to avert imminent attacks on their legacy.256 Future research will tell whether Marino’s biographical fortune actually offered a model for Bernini’s. There was an extensive production of biographies — mostly collections of vite —in seventeenth-century Rome, and virtually no work has been done on the relation of these texts to artistic biography.257 The intertexts are not, however, limited to the genre of biography but encompass a wider range of texts, especially poetry. The necessity of broadening the approach to such genres is pointed to by the biographies themselves. On the one hand the almost complete absence of ekphrastic descriptions (discussed by Montanari) distinguishes them from what was at the time of Baldinucci’s publication the most recently issued artistic biographies, the Vite of Bellori (1672).258 On the other hand, the inclusion of epigrammatic poetry or references to other works of literature points to another body of nonbiographical texts.259 Numerous such texts have been brought to bear on the art-theoretical interpretation of specific works and in the context of Bernini’s patrons and their intellectual milieu.260 But virtually no work has been done on their function in the construction of the biographies. Researchers will need to begin by accounting for the literary alliances of the various contributors to the texts. For example, we have already seen that Pier Filippo Bernini, the author of the first biographical nucleus, was



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trained by Sforza Pallavicino and frequented the Accademia degli Intrecciati, which celebrated Bernini’s work. Among its members was Agostino Favoriti (Alexander’s secretary of the Sacro Collegio), who engaged in a bitter literary feud with Salvator Rosa and contributed poetry to such publications as Febei’s De identitate cathedrae Petri (1666), a celebration of Bernini’s new shrine for this most holy of relics.261 Some of the Accademia’s works, and other published and many unpublished epigrams, poems, orations, and sermons have been pointed to by D’Onofrio, Fehl, Schütze, and Montanari.262 Recent publications on Alexander VII’s papacy have increasingly drawn attention to the close connection between Bernini and this much broader field of cultural—mainly literary—production and reflection.263 The recontextualization of the biographies within a broader literary culture will perhaps more accurately reflect seventeenth-century views of Bernini’s artistic identity. Such a shift in view may be most strikingly exemplified by changing ideas on Bernini’s relation to the greatest poet of the early seventeenth-century, Giambattista Marino. Seen through a distant optic, early twentieth-century historiography linked Bernini with Marino as embodiments of their age.264 More detailed recent research suggests that the artist was in fact embedded in the anti-marinist milieu that blossomed around pope Urban VIII and provided the court of Alexander VII with some of its brightest minds.265 From a historiographic perspective, the transition bespeaks a change of focus, away from an artist who, as an exceptional individual, determines and articulates the spirit of his day and age, toward an artist who interacts with patrons and other parties to express or at least fit into their own well-articulated ideas on the function and meaning of art. As this example shows, our views of Bernini will be at once broadened and complicated when different intertexts are taken into account. The intertexts offer a background against which specific assumptions held by Bernini’s biographers become more clearly legible. Moreover, different perspectives on Bernini emerge from the interaction between the biographies and some of the contemporary texts they consciously or subconsciously refer to, as well as from the biographical depiction of Bernini’s intellectual and cultural environment. Bellini’s essay demonstrates that the biographies are very selective in their depiction of the cultural elite that surrounded the papal thrones of Urban VIII and Alexander VII. Largely absent in Baldinucci,266 the letterati only emerge in Domenico under Alexander VII (himself a creature of Urban) to pay tribute to Bernini’s ingegno.267 The recasting of the Barberini



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era from a Chigi perspective is perhaps best exemplified by Domenico’s portrayal of a key figure of both papal courts, Sforza Pallavicino, visiting the Baldacchino “thirty years after its completion.”268 Situating Pallavicino’s conversation at the foot of the Baldacchino around 1660 rather than at the time of its erection reflects the historical fact that Pallavicino was removed from Rome almost exactly one year before the bronze structure was unveiled, because of his involvement with the Accademia dei Lincei and Galileo Galilei.269 The anecdote also suggests a parallel between the achievements of Urban and Alexander, by putting the praise of Bernini’s masterpiece for the Barberini pope in the mouth of the most frequently quoted authority at the Chigi court.270 By suggesting this parallel, Domenico’s biography incorporates an important topos in panegyric devoted to Alexander VII, who is portrayed as rousing the Muses and the arts from the slumber enforced by the barbaric Innocent X.271 Moreover, by having the praise come from a friend of Alexander looking back to a great achievement from his own troubled past, Pallavicino adopts exactly the same attitude toward Bernini’s work as espoused in some important contemporary publications of the 1660s that looked back to the 1620s.272 By assuming the same distance with regard to the accomplishments of the Barberini era, in a very brief passage essentially devoted to the Baldacchino, Domenico invokes the Galileo issue and Alexander VII’s imitatio Barberini, and he establishes a historical framework for Bernini’s time: Bernini’s achievement is not Rome of the Barberini, but the caput mundi of Chigi. The interplay between the biographies and the cultural milieu of their day and age is most acute in explicit or implicit references to specific contemporary texts. Through these references, the biographies enter contemporary debates on such issues as creativity, authorship, and innovation, in a way that sometimes contradicts the positions held by the authors or texts referred to. For example, as suggested by Montanari, the same passage in Domenico on the Baldacchino also literally quotes the work of its protagonist. Pallavicino’s praise of Bernini’s giudizio dell’occhio echoes his definition of the contrapposto proposed in the Trattato dello stile e del dialogo (1646/ 62).273 Domenico implicitly raises the issue of Bernini’s unique creativity again when, at the end of the same passage, he refers to Lelio Guidiccioni’s Ara Maxima Vaticana, published upon the Baldacchino’s unveiling on 29 June 1633, an encomiastic evocation of Urban’s Herculean endeavor to erect the gigantic bronze structure.274 This poem casts Urban VIII as the ingegno behind the creation of not only the Baldacchino, but of Bernini himself.275



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While this exaltation of Urban’s artistry fits into the conventions of praising magnificence, it does invoke a real tension, especially if one takes into consideration the contemporary dialogue between Bernini and Guidiccioni that discusses exactly whether Urban or Bernini is the real author of the Baldacchino.276 When compared with Guidiccioni’s dialogue, and Baldinucci’s fundamentally different view of Urban’s role in the creation of Bernini, Domenico’s interpretation of his father’s creativity emerges much more clearly.277 His implicit referencing of Pallavicino’s own work and the explicit referencing of Guidiccioni’s poem can be read as much as attempts to insert the biography into a well-established and highly reputed literary context, as strategies to subtly contradict or correct the views on authorship and creativity contained in other texts. The positions of Baldinucci and Domenico are made most obvious when they blatantly contradict the views held by each other and the authors or texts to which they refer. One example is Domenico’s inclusion of an anecdote where man-made portraits of Pope Alexander VII are compared to an ugly and minute but nonetheless living fly.278 This passage closely resembles a passage in Sforza Pallavicino’s Arte della Perfezion Cristiana, first published in 1665.279 However, in the subtle rearrangement of voices Domenico attributes Bernini with an acutezza that Sforza Pallavicino explicitly denies him. In the biography, Bernini wittily points out the superior likeness of the fly compared to any painting, which prompts Pallavicino, present at the scene, to offer an elaborate philosophical explanation of Bernini’s astute remark. In the Arte della Perfezion Cristiana’s rendering of the anecdote, the Jesuit uses the same comparison to challenge the likeness of Bernini’s sculpted bust of Alexander (fig. 14), forcing the artist to recognize the superiority of the fly.280 This similarity between Pallavicino’s Arte and Domenico’s biography confronts an important number of texts and actors. In his essay, Bellini shows that Pallavicino derived his pun on the superiority of even the most vile animal to any work of art from Galileo’s Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi (1632). Galileo in turn probably drew on the rhetorical topoi of mock praise of insignificant things, and the inferiority of the lifeless work of art with regard to divine creation. Moreover, Pallavicino used the same comparison between man-made art and the fly in a contemporary, yet at the time unpublished Trattato sulla Provvidenza.281 Unearthing the imbrication of Bernini’s biographies with a wider range of texts raises an important philological question of exactly how these texts



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fig. 14 Gianlorenzo Bernini, Alexander VII, 1657, marble. Private collection, Siena and Rome.

are related. Both Pallavicino’s treatise on divine providence and the Arte were written during the Chigi papacy, in the years before Pallavicino’s death in 1667, some time before any Bernini biography was composed yet while the Jesuit was involved in Pier Filippo Bernini’s training. Direct knowledge or transmission of either version of the anecdote or an actual event on which it might have been based are as probable as they are difficult to prove. In this respect it is striking that Baldinucci, who was familiar with the Arte della Perfezion Cristiana,282 does not relate the anecdote but uses the lines that introduce and conclude Domenico’s rendering of it.283



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One hypothesis is that an earlier manuscript included a version of the anecdote that Baldinucci chose to ignore, since it was contradicted by Pallavicino’s text of 1665. In this view, Domenico then subsequently restored an earlier version. But it is also possible that Domenico recast the anecdote because it appeared in Pallavicino’s work. In this second hypothesis, the occurrence of similar anecdotes in two different texts, then, results from an interplay between literary oeuvres—an idea strengthened by the explicit invocation of each other elsewhere.284 Even so, it cannot be excluded that the anecdote is based on an actual conversation originally cast or subsequently coated in a vocabulary derived from other sources. Without additional material from the archives, it is impossible to settle this part of the question. But we would like to stress that even without a solution, it is worthwhile examining how intertextual relations determine our understanding of the biographies as texts. The philological problem offers a fruitful starting point to understand the function and meaning of the two versions of the anecdote within their respective contexts. Domenico’s version, which is dismissive of the imitative capabilities of painting, ultimately forms part of his reflection on his father’s manner in sculpting lifelike busts, an essentially demiurgic activity. By contrast, when read as part of Pallavicino’s oeuvre, the anecdote helps to put Bernini’s work into the proper theological perspective, for Pallavicino’s agenda was, among other things, to rein back artists whose pretensions to creative powers cannot be sustained in the face of God’s unique power to create life. As such, the anecdote fits into Pallavicino’s elaborate reflection on the role of imitative arts in man’s quest of salvation.285 Thus, in recontextualizing the two versions of the anecdote, they appear as significant elements of a larger art-theoretical agenda, and their differences as important indices of the artistic debate under Alexander VII. The theoretical implications of these differences then go some way to explain the occurrence of the anecdote in both texts. Conversely, the parallels and differences between the two texts point toward theoretical issues that lie hidden in the biography and Pallavicino’s work. This goes to show how the philological question is less important as an assessment of the sources and truth value of the biographical text, than as a heuristic tool to detect important issues and agendas. This example suggests, finally, that while the first and foremost textual reference points for our understanding of Bernini’s vite are undoubtedly other artistic biographies, it will only be by reinserting them into the mass of texts that circulated in Rome at the time of their inception, writing, and



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reading, that we will be able to begin to grasp the meanings and agendas of Bernini’s vite in all their textural, cultural, and factual complexity and richness. notes 1. For example, he uses the same phrase used by Domenico about the statue of Saint Lawrence—“Per divozione del santo di cui portava il nome”—without acknowledgment. Fraschetti, Bernini, 20. 2. Soussloff, “Old Age and Old-Age Style”; Soussloff, “Critical Topoi.” 3. Avery, Bernini: Genius of the Baroque, 39, 83. 4. Hibbard, Bernini, 29. 5. Marder, Bernini and the Art of Architecture, 23. 6. Wittkower, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, 1997, 195–96. 7. Lavin, “Bernini’s Death,” 159. 8. Pommier, “Winckelmann: Des vies d’artistes.” See also Kaufmann, “Antiquarianism, the History of Objects.” 9. All references are to the 1964 reprint of Schlosser, Letteratura artistica. On Schlosser’s attitudes to different biographers, see Cropper, “‘La più bella antichità che sappiate desiderare.’” 10. Ketelsen, “‘Kunstgeschichte’ und ‘Kunstlergeschichte,’” 11. 11. Kurz, “Julius von Schlosser.” As a result of this approach the Austrian Institute in Rome started an ambitious “Quellenprojekt,” which resulted in the publication in 1928 –31 of Pollak, Kunsttätigkeit unter Urban VIII. On the sources project, see the 1929 obituary for Ludwig von Pastor, “Memoriam.” 12. Tietze, Methode der Kunstgeschichte, 194. See Schlosser, Letteratura artistica, 1–2. 13. Tietze, Methode der Kunstgeschichte, 36 –37, 189. 14. Schlosser, Letteratura artistica, 2. Schlosser justified the study of literary sources by pointing out art history’s intimate relation to classical archaeology, also founded on rigorous philology. On the contemporary discussion of the methodologies and domains of these two sciences, see the thematic issue of the Revue de Synthèse Historique of 1914 dedicated to the history of art; de Jerphanion, “La voix des monuments”; Bendinelli, Dottrina dell’archeologia. 15. Kallab, Vasaristudien. 16. Hess, “Künstlerbiographien des Giovanni Battista Passeri,” especially the section “Credibility.” Hess’s edition of Passeri’s biographies appeared in 1934; his edition of Giovanni Baglione only in 1995. References to the former are drawn from the 1995 reprint edition, Passeri, Künstlerbiographien. 17. Hess, “Künstlerbiographien des Giovanni Battista Passeri,” 7. 18. Schlosser, Letteratura artistica, 303–14, with references to Agostino Mascardi’s Dell’arte istorica, 1859 (for which see below and the essay by Eraldo Bellini in this volume). 19. Schlosser, Letteratura artistica, 304. For an alternative view of Schlosser’s attitude toward biography, see Soussloff, Absolute Artist, chap. 4. 20. Ernst Kris and Otto Kurz, Die Legende vom Künstler: Ein historischer Versuch (Vienna: Krystall Verlag, 1934). All further references are to Kris and Kurz, Legend, Myth, and Magic. 21. Ibid., 2 –3. 22. Ibid., 1–2.



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23. Ibid., 8 –12. 24. Bickendorf, Historisierung der italienischen Kunstbetrachtung. 25. See, for instance, Blunt, Artistic Theory in Italy, 88; Grassi, “Storiografia artistica del Seicento in Italia.” On the other hand, Mahon, Studies in Seicento Art and Theory, does a remarkable philological analysis to dispel the biographical myth of Carracci eclecticism. 26. See, among others, Vasari, Vite; Vasari, Vita di Michelangelo; Barocchi, Studi Vasariani. Interdisciplinary research into the text of the Lives was initiated in Vasari, storiografo e artista, published in 1976. 27. Rubin, Giorgio Vasari. 28. As observed by Hope, “Can you trust Vasari?” 10, and earlier in Barolsky, Giotto’s Father, 118 –19. An approach comparable to Rubin’s is taken in Maginniss, “Giotto’s World through Vasari’s Eyes,” with previous literature. See, by contrast, Alpers, “Ekphrasis and Aesthetic Attitudes.” Elements for a literary approach to Vasari have appeared sporadically. See, for instance, Gombrich, “Vasari’s Lives and Cicero’s Brutus”; Beccati, “Plinio e Vasari.” 29. Barolsky, Michelangelo’s Nose; Barolsky, Why Mona Lisa Smiles; Barolsky, Faun in the Garden; and Barolsky, Giotto’s Father. The quote is from Why Mona Lisa Smiles, 119 –20. 30. Cropper, review of Legend, Myth and Magic. 31. Goldstein, “Image of the Artist Reviewed.” See also Goldstein, Visual Fact over Verbal Fiction, 8 –28, 156 – 62; Goldstein, “Rhetoric and Art History,” 643–52. 32. Goldstein, “Image of the Artist Reviewed,” 13. 33. On the ongoing discussions of the tripartite distinction between poetry, history (including biography), and oratory, see Weinberg, History of Literary Criticism, esp. 13–16, 38 – 45, 148, 502 –11. It is worth noting that these discussions are still very much alive in the seicento. See Bellini, Agostino Mascardi. This issue has been raised by both Mendelsohn and Kramer: Mendelsohn, Letter in Response to “Vasari’s Rhetoric”; Kramer, Letter in Response to “Vasari’s Rhetoric.” 34. Pilliod, Pontormo, Bronzino, Allori, 9. Further, see Pilliod, “Representation, Misrepresentation and Non-Representation.” 35. Spear, “Divine” Guido, 15. 36. Ibid., esp. 17. 37. Different as their approaches may be, André Chastel and David Cast are among those art historians who aim to write a cultural history of certain topoi. See Chastel, “Musca Depicta”; Cast, Calumny of Apelles. See also Baxandall, Giotto and the Orators, 99. 38. Cropper and Dempsey, “State of Research in Italian Painting.” 39. See, for instance, Falaschi, “Giotto: The Literary Legend”; Jacobs, “Construction of a Life”; Gardner, “Homines non nascuntur, sed figuntur”; Pon, “Michelangelo’s Lives”; Watts, “Giorgio Vasari’s Vita di Michelangelo Buonarroti.” 40. Perini, “Biographical Anecdotes and Historical Truth”; Perini, “Carlo Cesare Malvasia’s Florentine Letters”; Perini, “L’arte di descrivere.” 41. Sohm, Style in the Art Theory, 69. See also Cast, “Reading Vasari Again.” 42. Matthias Waschek, “Introduction: ‘Vies’ d’artistes, une fiction?” in Waschek, “Vies” d’artistes. 43. Soussloff, Absolute Artist, 1. See also the review by Kaufmann. It is important to note that because Soussloff’s ambition was to demonstrate art history’s unwillingness to engage with its historiographical premises, she examined a different historiographic trajectory than that under discussion here. 44. Riegl, Filippo Baldinuccis Vita. 45. Riegl, Entstehung der Barockkunst in Rom, 10 –11, 29. 46. Riegl, Filippo Baldinuccis Vita. Riegl engages with the literary nature of biography by recognizing some literary conventions (46 – 49), checking their accuracy (62), and by recognizing Baldinucci’s “agenda” (81).



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47. Sobotka, review of Filippo Baldinuccis Vita, 108: “Weibel geht von einer kulturgeschichtlichen Idee aus, die in letzter Linie auf Gurlitts Schlagwort vom Jesuitenstil zurückgeht. Es wird versucht, sie aus der geistlichen Literatur der Zeit und aus einigen Werken Berninis zu beweisen. . . . Reymond geht allein von den Werken aus, die er in chronologischer Reihenfolge behandelt. . . . Gegenüber jenem literarischen und diesem künstlerischen Erklärungsversuch ist Riegls Buch ein historischer, und zwar historisch im prinzipiellen Sinn des Wortes.” 48. There are occasional references to the biographies. Wittkower, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, 1981, 13, 56, 122, 195– 96. Brauer and Wittkower, Zeichnungen des Gianlorenzo Bernini, of 1931 (republished as Bernini’s Drawings in 1969). 49. D’Onofrio, “Note berniniane 2: Priorità.” 50. Bauer, introduction to Bernini in Perspective, 2. A remarkable exception is Bialostocki, “Gian Lorenzo Bernini e l’antico,” 62 n. 15. 51. Bauer, introduction to Bernini in Perspective, 3. On Mascardi’s admonishment, see Bellini, “Scrittura letteraria e scrittura filosofica,” 91–92. 52. D’Onofrio, “Note berniniane 1: Un dialogo-recita.” 53. The text was used by, among others, Ostrow, Art and Spirituality, 180; Kirwin, Powers Matchless, 212 –18; Delbeke, “Fenice degl’ ingegni,” 33– 40; Delbeke, “Antonio Gherardi e la questione dello stile,” 80. See also Bellini’s essay in this volume. 54. D’Onofrio, Roma vista da Roma, 90. 55. See Lavin, “Five New Youthful Sculptures,” 228; and the response in D’Onofrio, Roma vista da Roma, 90 (written on the basis of a lecture, on which Lavin’s 1968 article was based). 56. See note 2 above. 57. The following facsimile editions of Domenico’s text have been published: Ann Arbor: UMI, 1983; Munich: Mäander, 1988; Perugia: Ediart, 1999. Translated fragments are in Bauer, Bernini in Perspective, 24– 42; Lavin, “Bernini’s Death,” 160 – 62. An annotated English translation by Franco Mormando is now under way. 58. The extended biography of Bernini was not included in the first edition of Baldinucci’s Notizie dei professori del disegno, but seems to have been incorporated systematically into the Notizie since the second edition, by Domenico Maria Manni published 1767–74. The first edition of this text has been widely available since Paola Barocchi’s reprint edition of 1974–75. 59. Holt, Documentary History of Art, 2:106 –23. 60. FB-1966, xiv. 61. Weibel, Jesuitismus und Barockskulptur. 62. DB, 171: “Nel discorrere col Cavaliere di cose spirituali gli faceva di mestiere di un’attenzione tale, come se andar dovesse ad una Conclusione.” A rare critical assessment of Bernini’s relation with Oliva is in Kuhn, “Gian Paolo Oliva und Gian Lorenzo Bernini.” 63. Delbeke, “Fenice degl’ ingegni”; Montanari, “Bernini, Pietro da Cortona”; Montanari, “Gian Lorenzo Bernini e Sforza Pallavicino”; Montanari, “Fortuna poetica di Bernini.” 64. Soussloff, “Old Age and Old-Age Style,” 115–16, and note 4. 65. Exemplary of this widespread conflation is the remark by Wittkower quoted on page 4 above. See also Weibel, Jesuitismus und Barockskulptur, as excerpted in Bauer, Bernini in Perspective, 88; Maurizio Fagiolo dell’Arco and Marcello Fagiolo dell’Arco, Bernini: introduzione al gran teatro, 155–56; Weil, History and Decoration of the Ponte Sant’ Angelo, 37; Marder, Bernini and the Art of Architecture, 21–22; Bernardini, “L’estasi in Bernini,” 132. 66. Lavin, “Bernini’s Death,” and Lavin, “Afterthoughts on ‘Bernini’s Death.’” See also Perlove, Bernini and the Idealization of Death, 1, 48 –50. 67. Soussloff, “Old Age and Old-Age Style.” 68. Blunt, “Gianlorenzo Bernini: Illusionism and Mysticism.” An interesting alternative is offered in Revilla, “L’interpretazione della mistica,” 164, who takes Bernini’s lack of familiarity with mystical experiences as her starting point.



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69. Blunt, “Gianlorenzo Bernini: Illusionism and Mysticism,” 79; Delbeke, “Art as Evidence.” 70. Soussloff, “Old Age and Old-Age Style,” argues against stylistic change in Bernini’s work. For an opposing view, see Montanari, “Bernini e Cristina di Svezia,” 409 n. 74. 71. Montagu, “Bernini Sculptures not by Bernini”; Montagu, Roman Baroque Sculpture. For further discussion of this issue, see Levy, “Architecture and Religion,” 239 – 45. 72. See Montagu, Roman Baroque Sculpture, 9. 73. The issue of Bernini’s artistic practice was treated earlier in Weil, History and Decoration of the Ponte Sant’ Angelo, and taken up further in Tratz, “Werkstatt und Arbeitsweise Gianlorenzo Berninis.” 74. Barton, “Problem of Bernini’s Theories of Art.” The same attitude prevails in Maurizio Fagiolo dell’Arco and Marcello Fagiolo dell’Arco, Bernini: introduzione al gran teatro. 75. Schudt, “Berninis Schaffensweise und Kunstanschauungen.” 76. See, for instance, Panofsky, Idea, 225 n. 26. 77. Schlosser, Letteratura artistica, 469; D’Onofrio, “Note berniniane 2: Priorità,” 205. 78. See the pertinent passages in Francesco Saverio Baldinucci’s biography of his father, reprinted in FB-1948, esp. 49 –52. 79. See, for example, Robert Enggass, foreword to FB-1966, xii–xiii. 80. Panofsky, “Scala Regia im Vatikan,” 272 n. 1 and 276 n. 4. 81. D’Onofrio, “Note berniniane 2: Priorità.” Prior to D’Onofrio, the only scholar to reference Panofsky’s claim (and reject it), was Schlosser, Letteratura artistica, 476. 82. D’Onofrio, Scalinate di Roma, 54 n. 69. 83. Among his many publications addressing the Bernini biographies, see esp. Montanari, “Bernini e Cristina di Svezia,” 385– 425; Montanari, “Fortuna poetica di Bernini,” 128 –30, esp. 128 n. 2 and 129 –30 n. 5. Some scholars (prior to Montanari) did react to D’Onofrio’s arguments. They were accepted in: Dizionario biografico degli italiani, s.v. “Bernini, Domenico Stefano”; Bauer, introduction to Bernini in Perspective, 2; Baker, “Bernini: A Mercurial Life and Its Sources,” 23–24. D’Onofrio’s arguments were rejected by Audisio, “Lettere e testi teatrali di Bernini,” 28 n. 1. 84. Montanari, “Bernini e Cristina di Svezia,” 400. 85. For a transcription of the two texts (twenty-seven pages in length), see Montanari, “Pierre Cureau de la Chambre.” See also Montanari, “Bernini e Cristina di Svezia,” 400 – 401, 410, 417–19. A little known (anonymous) Spanish biography of Bernini, written soon after his death, makes reference to and in some instances directly follows La Chambre’s “Éloge.” Bassegoda i Hugas, “Un inédito ‘Elogio.’” 86. The Bernini papers are catalogued as BNP, Mss. Ital. 2082, 2083, and 2084. For the Cartari letter, see the transcription in Montanari, “Bernini e Cristina di Svezia,” 402 and discussion in Montanari, “Fortuna poetica di Bernini,” 129 –30 n. 5. 87. The three-page manuscript (BNP, Ms. Ital. 2084, fols. 132 –35) was first published (with numerous errors of transcription) in 1844 by Mazio, Saggiatore, 339 – 44, 380 – 84. A corrected transcription appears in Audisio, “Lettere e testi teatrali di Bernini,” 41– 43. According to Montanari (“Bernini e Cristina di Svezia,” 402), only the passages of the biography following the account of Bernini’s trip to France are in the hand of Pier Filippo; the earlier section appears to be copied (by another hand) from an earlier manuscript, which he presumes to have also been written by Pier Filippo. See also Bandera Bistoletti, “Lettura di testi berniniani,” esp. 62 n. 1 and 67 n. 50. 88. Two versions are in Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris, inventoried as Ms. Ital. 2084, fols. 116r–118v and Ms. Ital. 2084, fols. 123r–126v. The third is in Stockholm, Riksarkivet, Azzolinosamlingen K 436. See Montanari, “Bernini e Cristina di Svezia,” 403.



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89. Robert Enggass, foreword to FB-1966, vii. Montanari (“Bernini e Cristina di Svezia,” 425), believes that the Bernini family paid for the publication. 90. Montanari (“Bernini e Cristina di Svezia,” 403) deduced this from the date on one of the catalogues of Bernini’s works, which is in the hand of Baldinucci’s secretary. We thank Tomaso Montanari for clarification of this point. 91. The letter is transcribed in part in D’Onofrio, “Note berniniane 2: Priorità,” 202, and in its entirety in Montanari, “Bernini e Cristina di Svezia,” 416 –17. 92. D’Onofrio, “Note berniniane 2: Priorità,” 202; Montanari, “Bernini e Cristina di Svezia,” 419. 93. Montanari, “Bernini e Cristina di Svezia,” 421. Goldberg, After Vasari, 108, identifies the sender as Pier Filippo Bernini. 94. Montanari, “Bernini e Cristina di Svezia,” 422. This “official story” is repeated, with slight modifications, in Baldinucci’s shorter “Notizie” on Bernini, written ca. 1691–92, in Baldinucci, Notizie, 1974–75, 4:279 – 80. 95. The letter is transcribed in D’Onofrio, “Note berniniane 2: Priorità,” 203– 4, and Montanari, “Bernini e Cristina di Svezia,” 422. 96. For the chronology, see Montanari, “Bernini e Cristina di Svezia,” 424. 97. Domenico Bernini, Historia di tutte le Heresie, 4:261: “Vedi il cap. 15 della Vita del Cavalier Gio. Lorenzo Bernino scritta da Domenico Bernino suo figliuolo, Autore di questa historia.” First noted by D’Onofrio, “Note berniniane 2: Priorità,” 205. 98. DB, “Lo Stampatore a Chì Legge,” n.p. 99. Domenico Bernini, Historia di tutte le Heresie, 1: “Introduzione all’opera,” n.p.: “egli [the author] ben pago della sua fatica col solo haver sopr’essa vissuto vent’anni.” 100. “Li 3 di gennaro 1674 mi disse monsignor Bernini che egli voleva comporre e stampare la Vita del padre, e fare intagliare tutte le statue fatte dall’istesso padre, che passano il numero di settanta, con le spiegazioni, e che in questo libro haverebbe speso da ottomila scudi; ma pensava di non pubblicarlo vivendo il detto suo padre, hora in età di 76 anni. Che haveva finita la statua del Re di Francia a cavallo. Che la sua vita sarebbe assai curiosa, e mi raccontò diversi particolari curiosi.” Beltramme, “Un nuovo documento sull’officina biografica,” 148 – 49. 101. On Giovanni Baglione’s Lives (1642), see Baglione, Vite, 1:ix–xv, 19 – 41; Smith O’Neil, Giovanni Baglione, esp. 179 –96, and the review by Ostrow. On Malvasia, see, in addition to the work of Giovanna Perini cited above, note 40, Summerscale, Malvasia’s “Life of the Carracci.” On Giovan Pietro Bellori, see Borea and Gasparri, L’idea del bello; Bell and Willette, Art History in the Age of Bellori. The best analysis of Lione Pascoli’s views on art is still Battisti, “Lione Pascoli scrittore d’arte.” 102. FB-1948, 212 n. 55. 103. FB, 23; FB-1948, 94; FB-1966/2006, 28 –29. 104. See note 63 above. 105. For the madrigal, see FB, 30; FB-1948, 101; FB-1966/2006, 35, and DB, 84. On the dating of these works, see Montanari, “Bernini e Cristina di Svezia,” 401. 106. Ibid., 401; Montanari, “Bernini e Sforza Pallavicino,” 47– 49; Montanari, “Fortuna poetica di Bernini,” 138 – 44. 107. In France, Bernini “praised his [Pier Filippo’s] ability and his character, declaring he was fit to aspire to the papal chair.” Chantelou/Stanic´, 164; Chantelou/Blunt, 176. A clue to the year of Pier Filippo’s ordination may be found in the census figures (stati delle anime) for Bernini’s household. In 1658 he is listed as “Abb. Pietro,” and in 1661 he is recorded as “Mons.r Bernino.” Fagiolo dell’Arco, L’immagine al potere, 345. 108. DB, 111. Domenico also states that Alexander had already promoted him to the Prelatura di Roma. The document recording his appointment as canon is cited in Borsi, Acidini Luchinat, and Quinterio, Gian Lorenzo Bernini: Il testamento, 31 n. 36.



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109. DB, 163, 164; and Borsi, Acidini Luchinat, and Quinterio, Gian Lorenzo Bernini: Il testamento, 31 n. 36. 110. See, recently, Anselmi, “Progetti di Bernini e Rainaldi,” 39, 69, and Zollikofer, “‘Bisogna dissegnar’ all’occhio,’” esp. 209 –11, docs. 12, 23. 111. Montanari, “Fortuna poetica di Bernini,” 156 –57 and, on the memoriale, Montanari, “Bernini e Sforza Pallavicino,” 47– 48. 112. Ibid., 48 – 49. The letter from Cardinal Chigi is quoted in FB, 49 –50; FB-1948, 122 –23; FB-1966/2006, 56 –57, and in DB, 139 – 40. 113. Montanari, “Bernini e Cristina di Svezia,” 412 –14. 114. FB, 23; FB-1948, 94; FB-1966/2006, 29 (with minor changes). 115. Pier Filippo Bernini, Preghiera a Dio. 116. Although the libretto is usually attributed to Domenico Filippo Contini, Montanari (“Bernini e Cristina di Svezia,” 406 –7) offers convincing documentary evidence for Pier Filippo’s authorship. The music was composed by Bernardo Pasquini (1637–1710), one of the foremost musicians in Rome at the time. 117. Lionnet, “A Newly Found Opera.” The manuscript bears no title, date, or name of author, but internal evidence shows it dates to 1677–78 and was the collaboration of Scarlatti and Pier Filippo. Lionnet has called the opera “Una Villa di Tuscolo.” See also New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2d ed., s.v. “Scarlatti.” 118. In 1681 Scarlatti and his family moved to the Strada Felice, residing in the house of Bernini’s protégé, Mattia de’ Rossi. It may be coincidental that the Bernini family’s Mastro di Casa, since 1645, was a Cosimo Scarlatti (a Florentine), who accompanied the Cavaliere to Paris. Pagano, Scarlatti, 24, 26. 119. For the avvisi, see D’Accone, History of a Baroque Opera, 6, 11, 150 (docs. 7, 10). Another avviso, dated 22 July 1679, states that the opera “fu recitata colla direttione del Bernini.” Ibid., 13 and 154 (doc. 24). 120. There is considerable confusion about the authorship of this work. The published libretto is catalogued (in the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma), erroneously, as by Giovanni Filippo Bernini, L’honestà negli amori drama musicale di Felice Parnasso rappresentato, e dedicato alla sacra reale maestà della Regina di Suezia (Rome: G. B. Bussotti, 1680). According to the catalogue record “Felice Parnasso” is a pseudonym for Giovanni [sic] Filippo Bernini. On the confusion between Pier Filippo and Giovanni Filippo Bernini, see Montanari, “Bernini e Cristina di Svezia,” 407 note 70. D’Accone (History of a Baroque Opera, 30, 160 – 61, docs. 54, 59), quotes letters that refer to L’onestà negli amori as “la Comedia di Bernino.” See further Pagano, Scarlatti, 29; Montanari, “Bernini e Cristina di Svezia,” 407; Franchi, Drammaturgia romana, 528 –29. 121. Catalogued (in the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma) as: Giovanni [sic] Filippo Bernini, Oratorio di S. Alesso. Parole dell’illustrissimo, e reverendissmo monsignore Bernini, e musica del signore Bernardo Pasquini (Faenza: G. Maranti, 1693). There is some evidence that it was first performed in 1675 in the Oratorio di San Filippo Neri. Bernardo Pasquini, with whom Pier Filippo collaborated on La donna ancora è fedele, was organist at Santa Maria Maggiore ca. 1663– 64. An avviso of 28 January 1679 reports that “i Monsignori Cessi e Bernini . . . vanno solamente in certi festini segreti non penetrati dal sole per non perdere il concetto di santi appresso Sua Beatitudine.” D’Accone, History of a Baroque Opera, doc. 7. Another likely work by Pier Filippo is catalogued (in the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma) as: Monsignore Bernini, La vita humana, oratorio di monsig.r Bernini cantato nell’augustiss. Capela della S.C.R. m.ta dell’imperatrice Eleonora l’anno 1685. Musica del Sig. Gio. Becelli (Vienna: G. C. Cosmerovio, 1685). 122. See Borsi, Acidini Luchinat, and Quinterio, Gian Lorenzo Bernini: Il testamento, 31, 60, 65, who, inter alia, give his death date as 24 May 1698. In both the first inventory of Bernini’s possessions, compiled in January 1681, and in the inventory drawn up in 1706,



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Pier Filippo’s area of the house is listed as “Appartamento di sopra, dove dorme Monsig:re.” For the latter, see ibid., 118; for the former, see Martinelli, L’ultimo Bernini, 258. 123. “bastera il dire, che nella Primavera della sua eta ha cominciato, dove molti della sua professione si pregiarebbero di finire.” Cited in Franchi, Drammaturgia romana, 529. Compare to: “Esser egli arrivato nell’arte in quella picciola età, dove altri potevano gloriarsi di giungere nella vecchiezza.” DB, 10. 124. The biographical sources are: the short vita written by his son, Francesco Saverio Baldinucci, reprinted in FB-1948, 33– 63 and his spiritual diary, published as Baldinucci, Diario spirituale. For what follows, we have endeavored to read the biographical sources against the following secondary sources: Samek Ludovici, introduction to FB-1948; Schlosser, Letteratura artistica, 466 – 69, 473– 76; Dizionario biografico degli italiani, s.v. “Baldinucci, Filippo”; Baldinucci, Notizie, 1974–75, 1:7– 44 and 6:9 – 66 (Paola Barocchi’s important “Nota critica”); Goldberg, After Vasari; Barzman, Florentine Academy and the Early Modern State. 125. On the “Listra de’ nomi de’ pittori di mano de’ quali si hanno disegni,” see Goldberg, After Vasari, 66 – 67. 126. The questionnaire is reprinted in Baldinucci, Notizie, 1974–75, 6:564– 65. See further Goldberg, After Vasari, 65– 66. 127. Baldinucci, Notizie, 1974–75, 1:11 (“L’autore a chi legge”). 128. Ibid., 1:13: “lor persona, maniere, tempi, opere, e principali accidenti e bizzarrie succinctamente.” 129. On the “Apologia,” see Goldberg, After Vasari, 101–3. 130. Sohm, Style in the Art Theory, 167. 131. This volume is now available in a facsimile edition (with a “Nota critica”): Baldinucci, Vocabolario toscano dell’arte del disegno (1681. Facsimile reprint of 1st ed., ed. Severina Parodi. Florence: S.P.E.S., n.d.). For a penetrating analysis, see Sohm, Style in the Art Theory, 165– 84. 132. Goldberg, After Vasari, 111. 133. Baldinucci, Lettera all’Ill. e Clariss. Sig. Senatore e Marchese Vincenzo Capponi (Rome: Tinassi, 1681), reprinted in Baldinucci, Notizie, 1974–75, 6:461– 85. On the Lettera, see Goldberg, After Vasari, 104– 6, and Sohm, Style in the Art Theory, 169 –71. Capponi was the grand duke’s luogotenente (or representative) in the Accademia del Disegno. 134. On the Lettera, first published in 1765, see Goldberg, After Vasari, 115. It is reprinted in Baldinucci, Notizie, 1974–75, 6:421–26. 135. Goldberg, After Vasari, 117–24. The text of La Veglia is in Baldinucci, Notizie, 1974–75, 6:498 –542. 136. Baldinucci, Cominciamento e progresso dell’arte dell’ intagliare. 137. Goldberg, After Vasari, 172 –75 and 112 –13. The Lezione is reprinted in Baldinucci, Notizie, 1974–75, 6:579 – 609. 138. Soussloff, “Imitatio Buonarroti,” esp. 588 –91; Montanari, “Bernini e Cristina di Svezia,” 418. See also Montanari’s essay in this volume. 139. His familiarity is made evident in his questionnaire (see note 126), which states that “This request refers only to those artists not named in the books of Baglioni, Ridolfi, and Bellori, since we have already sufficient notice of these.” See Goldberg, After Vasari, esp. 66. 140. FB, 28; FB-1948, 99; FB-1966/2006, 33. 141. See note 124 above. For the letters, see Rosa, Lettere inedite del Beato Antonio Baldinucci. 142. Goldberg, After Vasari, 77. 143. Ibid., 244– 45 n. 183. 144. “Vita di Baldinucci” in FB-1948, 53, as translated in Goldberg, After Vasari, 165.



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145. Samek Ludovici, in FB-1948, 16; see also Goldberg, After Vasari, 88. 146. Dizionario biografico italiano, s.v. “Bernini, Domenico Stefano.” 147. DB, 105– 6. 148. Soussloff, “Old Age and Old-Age Style,” 117–18; Soussloff, “Imitatio Buonarotti,” 584. See also Kris and Kurz, Legend, Myth and Magic, 40 – 41; and, on the mutual interest of early modern courts and artists, Warnke, Court Artist. 149. DB, 8 –9 and FB, 4–5; FB-1948, 74–75; FB-1966/2006, 9 –10. On the mirroring of Gianlorenzo and Domenico, see Levy in this volume. 150. Fraschetti, Bernini, 106. 151. Domenico Bernini, Gianlorenzo’s brother, lived in the Bernini household, where he is recorded in the stati delle anime through 1656 as “S. Dom.co Bernini benefitiato di S. Pietro.” Fagiolo dell’Arco, L’immagine al potere, 344. His last will and testament and death notice (both from October 1656) are transcribed in Martinelli, L’ultimo Bernini, 251–52. 152. “Domenico si è fatto Giesuita, chiamato hoggi il P. Dom.co.” Martinelli, L’ultimo Bernini, 252 –53. 153. “Domenico, che chiamato . . . alla Prelatura Romana, per secreta disposizione del Cielo, invaghitosi di honesta, e civil Donzella Romana, visse, e vive in matrimonio con lei, Padre di un maschio, e di due femmine.” DB, 52 –53. A series of legal and financial documents transcribed in Martinelli, L’ultimo Bernini (265 and 268), tell us the name of Domenico’s wife (Anna Teresa) and of two of his three children (a son named Giovanni Lorenzo and a daughter named Angela). 154. The poem on the statue, entitled “Statua Equestris Ludovici XIV. Galliarum Regis ab Equite Bernino elaborata,” later appeared in his Vita of his father, DB, 151–52. On the date of its composition, see Montanari, “Fortuna poetica di Bernini,” 134, 164 n. 103. On the letter to the French court, see Hoog, Bernin, Louis XIV, 43. 155. See the stati delle anime in Fagiolo dell’Arco, L’immagine al potere, 347– 49. In his father’s will (28 November 1680), concerning the distribution of his money, we read: “con conditione che detto Domenico pigli moglie e, se Dio vorrà, faccia figli.” Borsi, Acidini Luchinat, and Quinterio, Gian Lorenzo Bernini: Il testamento, 68. 156. The will is transcribed in Borsi, Acidini Luchinat, and Quinterio, Gian Lorenzo Bernini: Il testamento, 58 –73. 157. A good précis of the book’s structure and contents is in Dizionario biografico degli italiani, s.v. “Bernini, Domenico Stefano.” 158. See Pastor, History of the Popes, 32: esp. 168 – 84. 159. See note 115 above. Giovanni Battista Bussotti also published the libretto of Pier Filippo’s L’onestà negli amori in 1680. 160. Dizionario biografico degli italiani, s.v. “Bernini, Domenico Stefano.” 161. Prior to Rocco Bernabò’s stewardship of the stamperia, it was run by Angelo Bernabò dal Verme (Rocco’s father?), who published, inter alia, Sforza Pallavicino’s Istoria del concilio di Trento, 1656 –57; Lettere dettata dal Card. Sforza Pallavicino di gloriosa memoria. Raccolte e dedicate alla Santità di N. Sig. Papa Clement nono. Da Giambattista Galli Pavarelli Cremonese, 1668; and Virginio Cesarini’s Carmina, editions in 1658 and 1664. 162. On Lodovico Pico della Mirandola (1668 –1743), see Cardella, Memorie storiche de’ cardinali, 8:118 –19. The choice of the volume’s dedicatee is a subject worthy of additional research. 163. Bonanni’s Gerarchia ecclesiastica considerata nelle vesti sagre was published in 1720. Whether he served in this capacity for other books has yet to be discovered. 164. Dizionario biografico degli italiani, s.v. “Bernini, Domenico Stefano.” 165. At the time of his death Domenico was known as “Sig.r Conte Domenico,” and at least by 1727 his son, Giovanni Lorenzo, also held the title of “conte.”



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166. An early assessment of Domenico’s reputation is made in Crescimbeni, L’istoria della chiesa di S. Giovanni, 277, where Bernini’s Vita by the “eruditissimo” Domenico serves as the historical source to explain that Vincenzio Bernini’s entering the canonicate of San Giovanni in Laterano on 22 July 1644 was promoted by Gianlorenzo, and awarded for the completion of the Baldacchino. The reference is to DB, 42. 167. For a theorized discussion of biography and genres, with extensive bibliography, see Soussloff, Absolute Artist, esp. 19 – 42. 168. On Mascardi, see Bellini, Agostino Mascardi and the essay by Bellini in this volume. The passage by Bacon is quoted and translated in the introduction to Mayer and Woolf, Rhetorics of Life-Writing, 1. 169. Ibid. 170. DB, 2: “[il] vero, ch’è l’unico pregio nell’historia, e che solo è l’Historia”; and 29. 171. FB, 22, 66, 103; FB-1948, 93, 139, 176; FB-1966/2006, 27, 73, 112. 172. Capucci, “Dalla biografia alla storia,” 111–13. See Baldinucci’s reference to his use of “autentiche scritture.” FB, 28; FB-1948, 99; FB-1966/2006, 33. 173. “Coll’uso degl’Indici ne’ Libri s’e’ agevolato da’ moderni il viaggio litterario quanto il marittimo col Bussolo.” Pallavicino, Massime, ed espressioni, 124. 174. The literature on the genre of artists’ lives is vast. In addition to works already cited, we have drawn, for this section, on Enenkel, de Jong-Crane, and Liebregts, Modelling the Individual; Buck, Biographie und Autobiographie. 175. On the typical artist’s life, see Bellori, Vite, l-li; Goldstein, “Rhetoric and Art History,” 646 – 47; Rubin, Giorgio Vasari, 157–58; Soussloff, Absolute Artist, 32 –37 and fig.1; Watts, “Giorgio Vasari’s Vita di Michelangelo,” 64– 65; Summerscale, Malvasia’s “Life of the Carracci,” 45– 49; Kris and Kurz, Legend, Myth, and Magic. 176. Baldinucci’s “Questionario,” formulated to solicit information for the Notizie and which he circulated around Italy, reveals the extent to which he followed the Vasarian model. See Baldinucci, Notizie, 1974–75, 6:564– 65. 177. Outside of a few funerary eulogies, stand-alone lives were dedicated to Brunelleschi (ca. 1480), Raffaelle Motta (1616), Tintoretto (1642), Paolo Veronese (1646), and Pietro Bellotti (1659), the last four published inVenice. See Schlosser, Letteratura artistica, 559 – 60, 578. For the three stand-alone vite of Michelangelo (one an extract), see Pon, “Michelangelo’s Lives.” For Giovanni Battista Tuzj’s rare Breve racconto dell’opere prodigiose fatte con minutissimo intaglio da Ottaviano Iannella (1676), see Levy “Ottaviano Jannella.” 178. DB, 97–98. 179. A good overview of the genre is provided in Dionisotti, “Galleria degli uomini illustri”; Eichel-Lojkine, “Vies d’hommes illustres.” See now: Casini, Ritratti parlanti. 180. Viola, “Marino e le arti figurative,” 9. This is the case in the 46-page text, Loredano, Vita del Cavalier Marino of 1633. In the note to the reader (“A chi legge”) he says that this life was meant for a larger collection, but that the publication of other biographies of Marino forced him to publish his own. 181. Gallavotti Cavallero, “Sculture come dipinti,” 236; Sebastian Schütze, “San Lorenzo,” in Coliva and Schütze, Bernini scultore: La nascita del barocco, cat. no.4, 72; Baker, “Bernini: A Mercurial Life and Its Sources,” 23. 182. FB, 3; FB-1948, 73; FB-1966/2006, 8; DB, 3. 183. Among the numerous studies of hagiography, we have found particularly useful Delehaye, Legends of the Saints; Grégoire, Manuale di Agiologia; Hefferman, Sacred Biography; Weinstein and Bell, Saints and Society; Vauchez, Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages. 184. Barolsky, Michelangelo’s Nose, esp. 53–72; Barolsky, Giotto’s Father, 129; Rubin, Giorgio Vasari, 162 – 83; Mayer and Woolf, introduction to Rhetorics of Life-Writing, 11–12, and Watts, “Giorgio Vasari’s Vita di Michelangelo Buonarroti,” 65; Goldstein, “Rhetoric and Art History,” 646 – 47; Lupton, Afterlives of the Saints, 143–74.



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185. Caglieri, Compendio delle vite de santi orefici printed in 1727 by Domenico Bernini’s publisher, Bernabò, offers an interesting example of an inverse phenomenon: in the life of San Eligio, the patron saint of the goldsmiths, the saint’s artistic accomplishments (described in an anecdote that recalls Bernini’s presentation of the two Scipione Borghese busts, ibid., 3– 4) are evidence of his already exemplary devotion. It should be noted, however, that notions of esteem and fame play a fundamentally different role in hagiography than in artistic biography. 186. Delehaye, Work of the Bollandists and Peeters, L’Oeuvre des Bollandistes. 187. FB, 9, 46; FB-1948, 79, 118; FB-1966/2006, 13–14, 52. See also DB, 19, 125. 188. FB, 65; FB-1948, 139; FB-1966/2006, 72; DB, 18, 48. 189. Passeri, Künstlerbiographien, 236: “Quel Dragone custode vigilante degl’Orti d’Esperia premeva che altri non rapisce li pomi d’oro delle gratie Ponteficie, e vomitava da per tutto veleno, e sempre trametteva spine pungentissime d’aversioni per quel sentiero, che conduceva al possesso degl’ alti favori.” 190. On the “divinity” of artists, see Panofsky, Renaissance and Renascences, 188 n. 3; Rudolf Wittkower and Margot Wittkower, Born under Saturn, 98 –99; Barasch, Theories of Art, 188 –90; Spear, “Divine” Guido, 260 – 63; and Emison, Creating the “Divine” Artist. 191. Cited and discussed in Livio Pestilli, “Annotazioni a margine delle ‘Vite de’ pittori, scultori ed architetti napoletani’ di Bernardo De Dominici” (paper presented at the American Academy in Rome, Italy, 27 April 2002). We thank the author for sharing his paper with us. 192. See Burke, “How to Be a Counter-Reformation Saint,” and Weinstein and Bell, Saints and Society, 141– 62. 193. Compare FB, 3; FB-1948, 73; FB-1966/2006, 8, to DB, 6. Bernini was “born by Divine plan” and Caterina Tezio, the artist’s wife, was a “gift saved by Heaven for a great man.” DB, 27, 51. 194. On autobiography, see especially Misch, Geschichte der Autobiographie; Pascal, Design and Truth in Autobiography; Olney, Metaphors of Self; Guglielminetti, Memoria e scrittura; Spengemann, Forms of Autobiography; Lejeune, On Autobiography; Battistini, Specchio di Dedalo. 195. This definition is a blending of many. We quote from Gusdorf, “Conditions and Limits of Autobiography,” 33. See also Howarth, “Some Principles of Autobiography,” 85– 86. On autobiography’s various forms, see Mayer and Woolf, introduction to Rhetorics of Life-Writing, 16 –17. 196. Mayer and Woolf, introduction to Rhetorics of Life-Writing, 8. On “collaborative autobiography,” see Lejeune, On Autobiography, 185–215. On “autobiography in the third person,” see ibid., 31–51, and Lejeune, “Autobiography in the Third Person.” 197. D’Onofrio, “Note berniniane 2: Priorità,” 208. 198. Derived from the Greek word “apologos,” it does not mean an expression of regret, remorse, or sorrow, but a formal statement of justification or defense, which is a secondary meaning of the English word “apology.” We exclude from this discussion the related theological science of apologetics, which has as its purpose the explanation and defense of Christian dogma. 199. Fernández, Apology to Apostrophe, 7–10, 21–22; Amelung, Flight of Icarus, 176 –77. 200. FB, 102; FB-1948, 175; FB-1966/2006, 108. In the short version of his life of Bernini (in the Notizie, 1974–75, 4:280), Baldinucci directs the reader “desideroso di maggior notizia, ad essa vita, la quale già sono dieci anni, che insieme con una apologia a difesa di lui, in ciò che appartiene à lavori fatti sotto la cupola di S. Pietro” (emphasis ours). 201. DB, 168. 202. McPhee, Bernini and the Bell Towers, 177; Passeri, Künstlerbiographien, 109 n. 2.



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203. DB, 130, 138, 145– 46, 152 –53. 204. Domenico twice refers to him as a “Huomo raro.” DB, 27, 99. 205. In addition to Passeri (see note 189 above), see, for example, the evidence of Bernini’s inability late in his career to allow his juniors to advance. Jarrard, “Inventing in Bernini’s Shop.” 206. For the size of publications on Michelangelo, see Pon, “Michelangelo’s ‘Lives.’” Domenico’s publisher is known to have been afflicted by the notoriously high cost of paper in Rome. Palazzolo, Editoria e istituzioni a Roma, 22 n. 46. 207. Bodart, L’Oeuvre du graveur Arnold van Westerhout, 172. 208. For the reference to Baldinucci’s apologia, see note 201 above. Domenico refers to Baldinucci as a “Nobile Fiorentino” where he reprints his verse about the statue of Truth. DB, 81– 82. There is an indirect reference when he says that he “riporti alla luce della Stampe la Vita del Cavalier Bernino.” DB, “l’autore al lettore.” 209. See Bouvy, Gravure de portraits, pls. 20 –21. 210. For documentation of the delay of the portrait due to the occupation of Rome’s engravers with the portraits for the newly created cardinals, see Montanari, “Bernini e Cristina di Svezia,” 424. The situation must have been exacerbated by the departure and death of Bernini’s preferred engraver, François Spierre, in November 1681. Westerhout, in Rome from April 1681, was immediately employed by the De’ Rossi on portraits of four of the fifteen new cardinals. Iusco, Indice delle Stampe de’ Rossi, 102, and app. 2. 211. For Ottavio Leoni’s portrait drawing and engraving after it, dated 1622, see Maurizio Fagiolo dell’Arco, “Bernini ‘regista’ del Barocco,” in Bernardini and Fagiolo dell’Arco, Gian Lorenzo Bernini: Regista del Barocco, 19 –20, cat. nos.1–2, 295. 212. DB, 50. On the rhetoric of love, see Greenblatt, Renaissance Self-fashioning, 165– 66. 213. DB, 160 – 61; FB, 56; FB-1948, 129; FB-1966/2006, 63. 214. See DB, 23, 42, 64, 65, 67, 68, 70, 101, 110, 118, 141, 145, 161, 162 and FB, 13, 18, 19, 21, 38, 51–52, 78; FB-1948, 83, 88, 89, 92, 109, 125, 152; FB-1966/2006, 17, 23, 24, 26, 43, 59, 85. For a context for Bernini’s high earnings, see Spear, “Scrambling for Scudi”; Hatfield, Wealth of Michelangelo, esp. 226 –30. 215. FB, 9 –10; FB-1948, 79 – 80; FB-1966/2006, 14–15. 216. “chiaro principio della sua futura fortuna.” DB, 21. 217. DB, 22. 218. DB, 23. 219. Ripa’s “giovane d’aspetto feroce, & ardiuto” is like Gianlorenzo, “ardente nell’ira”; Ingegno is represented as being young because “la potenza intellettiva non invecchia mai,” like Domenico’s father in whom, “nè l’età, nè ‘l male, gravi ambedue, e potenti nemici, havevano potuto offuscargli quella chiarezza d’intelletto, che sempre in lui si mantenne uguale.” Ripa, Iconologia, 1618, 188 – 89. DB, 177, 174, respectively. 220. DB, 103, 127. 221. “Paragone m. Sorta di pietra nera, che si cava nell’Egitto, e in alcuni luoghi della Grecia. Serve per saggiar l’oro e l’argento sfregandovisi sopra.” Baldinucci, Vocabolario, 118. 222. “E per chiedergli pace, / Ti sie d’uopo di fargli un tale onore? / No: perchè virtù vera / Malgrado dell’Età sie sempre intera.” FB 36; FB-1948, 107; FB-1966/2006, 41. 223. “Io credetti sempre vero, Sacra Maestà, anzi verissimo, che di tutto ciò, che fra le felicità mondane agli occhi nostri potè mai comparire appetibile, nulla più desiderabile vi fusse, che l’onore.” FB, “Sacra Reale Maestà,” n.p.; FB-1948, 67; FB-1966/2006, 3. 224. Baldinucci toured Christina’s palace and collections. The Bernini mirror is viewed as an extension of the concetto of Truth revealed by Time, by, among others, Matthias Winner, “Veritas,” in Coliva and Schütze, Bernini scultore: La nascita del barocco, 299 –300.



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225. “benche per figurare il Tempo, havesse già proveduto un grande, e bellissimo Marmo, tuttavia ò fosse sdegno del medesimo Tempo, che sua natura non volle eternarsi per la mani del Bernino altra grave occupazione ne distogliesse il lavoro, restò qual’era Marmo in vano cavato, e inutil sasso.” DB, 81. 226. DB, 84. 227. DB, 146. 228. “Mentre dunque non mai dissimile a se medesimo dava a divedere, che la sua virtù non soggiaceva alle variazioni della fortuna.” DB, 84. 229. Baldinucci writes of the letters from Monsù Lionne that “si trattava del gusto grande, con che S. M. si godeva questo grand’uomo, ed io per togliere ogni sospetto d’iperbolico ingrandimento, o esagerazione, il farò comparire evidente con le risposte medesime del Padre Oliva.” FB, 48; FB-1948, 120; FB-1966/2006, 54. 230. Christina originally wrote “grand’huomo,” then changed it to “grand’artefice,” and then restored the original. Montanari, “Bernini e Cristina di Svezia,” 424. 231. DB, 2, 4, 27, 61, 73, 97, 140, 175, 177. 232. Baldinucci also capitalized his final phrase, “IL PIU BEL FIOR NE COGLIE.” FB, 111; FB-1948, 185; FB-1966/2006, 111. 233. For Bernini’s reference to himself as either Florentine or Neapolitan and contemporary criticisms of this variability, see Marder, Bernini and the Art of Architecture, 14. The earliest portrait of Bernini was inscribed “Neapolitanus” (noted by Maurizio Fagiolo dell’Arco, “Bernini “regista” del Barocco,” in Bernardini and Fagiolo dell’Arco, Gian Lorenzo Bernini: Regista del Barocco, 19); he is “florentinus et civis romanus” in his will (Borsi, Bernini, 36). For Baldinucci’s depiction of Bernini as Florentine, see Soussloff, “Critical Topoi,” 83– 85; for his birth in Naples, see DB, 2. 234. The phrase is Karen-edis Barzman’s, cited in Pon, “Michelangelo’s Lives,” 1016–19. 235. “onde fù commune l’opinione,” that the only thing that prevented the times from rivaling antiquity, was “l’età.” DB, 8. 236. FB, 5; FB-1948, 75; FB-1966/2006, 10; DB, 9. 237. See Delbeke, “Gianlorenzo Bernini as la fenice.” 238. Letter from Christina of Sweden to Baldinucci, 18 April 1682, transcribed in Montanari, “Bernini e Cristina di Svezia,” 424. 239. Marder, Bernini’s Scala Regia, 171. Montanari (“Bernini e Cristina di Svezia,” 353) points out that Marder’s chronology is incorrect, that although Alexander did visit Bernini’s studio in June of 1662, Christina was outside of Rome until a year later. 240. Marder, chap. 7 in Bernini’s Scala Regia. 241. “[S]i trattava del gusto grande, con che S. M. si godeva questo grand’uomo, ed io per togliere ogni sospetto d’iperbolico ingrandimento, o esagerazione, il farò comparire evidente con le risposte medesime del Padre Oliva, e con una sua al Bernino scritte in quel tempo” (emphasis and translation ours). FB, 48; FB-1948, 120; FB-1966/2006, 54. 242. “Gli honori, che habbiamo sopra descritti, e quali furono fatti uguali alla stima, in cui era appresso tutti il Cavalier Bernino, acciocche siano esenti da ogni sospetto d’hiperbolico ingrandimento, piacemi farli comparire evidenti colle medesime Lettere, che in risposta al Marchese de Lionne, e al Cavalier Bernino diede l’altre volte nominato Padre Oliva” (emphasis and translation ours). DB, 141. 243. D’Onofrio, “Note berniniane 2: Priorità,” 205– 8. 244. DB, 141. 245. For another example, see how the authors use precisely the same words to describe the dissemination of Bernini’s works in engravings, but diverge on what verbal description cannot capture. FB, 11–12; FB-1948, 81– 82; FB-1966/2006, 16; DB, 38 –39. 246. Condivi, Vita di Michelagnolo. For the Vasari Vite, see note 26 above.



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247. Soussloff, “Critical Topoi,” 75, 81– 83. 248. Condivi, Vita di Michelagnolo, 56. 249. DB, 49. 250. Watts, “Giorgio Vasari’s Vita di Michelangelo.” 251. DB, 105. 252. Domenico’s remark about his position as writer to an audience of readers who knew the subject, gestures toward Condivi and then Vasari’s increasing claims to intimacy with their subject. 253. Soussloff has pointed to Domenico’s use (not cited) of Livy’s story of Mucius Scaevola in his extended recounting of Pietro Bernini coming upon his son burning himself in imitation of Saint Lawrence. Soussloff, “Critical Topoi,” 20 –23. Further, see Damm’s essay in this volume. 254. See Viola, “Marino e le arti figurative.” For instance, Giambattista Baiacca’s vita published in 1625 upon the poet’s death was 150 pages in length. 255. See, for instance, the 1632 work of Francesco Chiaro, Vita del Cavalier Marino, with an engraved portrait inscribed: “Si potes, effinge ingenium, non ora MARINI / Pictor, eritq. Maro, qui ore MARINUS erat.” There are other instances where praise of Marino’s ingegno prefigure Bernini’s biographies. 256. In the case of Marino, this ambition becomes explicit in letters introducing the vita by Baiacca, Vita del Cavalier Marino, 20 –22. In one letter (Rovino, 2 September 1625), Giovanni Bonifaccio asks Baiacca to write Marino’s life “per che sarebbe stato gran peccato, se la vita d’un cosi raro huomo, fosse stata da sciocco, ò malvagio Scrittore descritta.” Chiaro (Vita del Cavalier Marino, 63– 64), accuses Baiacca of plagiarising his manuscript life of Marino, which was based on accounts of Marino himself, the latter’s sister, and Chiaro’s mother. 257. Dionisotti, “Galleria degli uomini illustri,” offers a good overview of collections of lives in seventeenth-century Rome. Important examples of stand-alone lives are: Aringhi, Memorie istoriche della vita del Padre Virgilio Spada of 1788; de Rubeis (de Rossi), Compendio delle Azzioni, e Vita del Cardinale Marcello Lante of 1653; Sforza Pallavicino, Vita di Alessandro VII, only published in 1839 – 40. 258. For the heightened role of ekphrasis in the Vite of Bellori, see, most recently, Hansmann, “Con modo nuovo li descrive.” 259. Montanari, “Fortuna poetica di Bernini”; Montanari, “A Contemporary Reading of Bernini’s ‘Maraviglioso Composto’”; Ferrari, “Poeti e scultori nella Roma seicentesca.” 260. Strikingly, the work most open to these intertexts is the least biographyoriented. See, for instance, Preimesberger, “Obeliscus Pamphilius”; Bolland, “Desiderio and Diletto.” 261. See Montanari, “Bernini e Cristina di Svezia,” 401; Montanari, “Fortuna poetica di Bernini,” 138 – 44. 262. D’Onofrio, Roma vista da Roma; Fehl, “The ‘Stemme’ on Bernini’s Baldacchino”; Schütze, “‘Urbano inalza Pietro, e Pietro Urbano.’” The relation between Bernini’s work and the sermons of Gian Paolo Oliva is discussed in Kuhn, “Gian Paolo Oliva und Gian Lorenzo Bernini,” 231–33. 263. Marcello Fagiolo dell’Arco and Rossella Pantanella, “Libri,” in Fagiolo dell’Arco and Petrucci, L’Ariccia del Bernini, 163 – 77; Angelini, Gian Lorenzo Bernini e i Chigi; Angelini, Butzek, and Sani, Alessandro VII Chigi. 264. On the historiography of the Bernini-Marino parallel, see, most recently, Payne, “Architectural Criticism, Science and Visual Eloquence,” 146 and note 10. 265. Bolland, “Desiderio and Diletto”; on the continuity between the courts of Urban VIII and Alexander VII, see Bellini, Umanisti e Lincei.



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266. See the very summary remarks in FB, 37–38, 75–77; FB-1948, 108 –9, 151–52; FB-1966/2006, 42 – 43, 83– 84. 267. See the essays of Williams and Delbeke. 268. DB, 40 – 41: “E questa fu quella medesima [misura, che invano si cerca nelle Regole], di cui richiesto una volta doppo trent’anni dal Cardinale Sforza Pallavicino suo intrinseco, & amorevole” (emphasis ours). 269. Pallavicino left Rome on 24 June 1632. See Macchia, Relazioni fra il padre gesuita Sforza Pallavicino con Fabio Chigi, 58, letter 14. On the consequences of the Galileo-affair, see Bellini’s essay in this volume. 270. Montanari, “Gian Lorenzo Bernini e Sforza Pallavicino”; Delbeke, “The Pope, the Bust.” 271. See, for instance, Gibbes, Astraea Regnans sub Auspiciis . . . Alexandri VII. Pont. Opt., 7– 8. 272. See the essay by Bellini in this volume. 273. Pallavicino, Trattato dello stile, 178 – 80; Montanari, “Gian Lorenzo Bernini e Sforza Pallavicino,” 62. 274. DB, 41– 42. 275. On the poem, see above all Newman and Newman, introduction to Guidiccioni, Latin Poems. 276. D’Onofrio, “Un dialogo-recita,” 133–34: “G.L.: . . . mà di chi pensate, che sia il pensiero dell’Altar Vaticano, tale qual sia divenuta l’opera? / G.: Vostro hò sempre pensato. / G.L.: A pensarla meglio di Sua Santità.” 277. See Delbeke’s essay in this volume. 278. DB, 96. 279. Montanari, “Gian Lorenzo Bernini e Sforza Pallavicino,” 57. 280. Delbeke, “The Pope, the Bust.” 281. Sforza Pallavicino, Trattato sulla Provvidenza, in Pallavicino, Opere edite ed inedite, 1:55. 282. Delbeke, “Art as Evidence.” 283. The introductory remark is in FB, 37; FB-1948, 108; FB-1966/2006, 42, the closing remark in FB, 78; FB-1948, 151– 52; FB-1966/2006, 85; compare with DB, 95, 97–98. 284. Montanari, “Gian Lorenzo Bernini e Sforza Pallavicino”; Delbeke, “The Pope, the Bust.” 285. Delbeke, “The Pope, the Bust.”



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ONE at the margins of the historiography of art: the vite of bernini between autobiography and apologia Tomaso Montanari Les histoires, dans le siècle où je suis, ne sont plus que des panégyriques perpétuels, ou des satires sanglantes de ceux dont elles portent les noms. —La vie de la Reine Christine faite par elle-même1

“Let us now praise men of renown, and our fathers in their generation.”2 Every time Pier Filippo and Domenico Bernini heard this verse from Ecclesiasticus, they must have had a sense of deep satisfaction for having put it so perfectly into practice. It would be impossible to choose a better epigraph to sum up the essence of the vite of Gianlorenzo Bernini, which are profoundly rooted in the humanistic tradition of encomiastic biography, and the fruit of a singular family enterprise. The two biographies of Bernini by Filippo Baldinucci and Domenico Bernini have always been, and still remain, at the base of the massive historiographical edifice devoted to Bernini and his art; however, after reading them, it is hard not to feel a vague sense of disorientation, even disappointment. The lively immediacy with which Gianlorenzo’s historical personality emerges at intervals is not enough to mask the tendentious influence of contemporary reality, the absence of a real art-historical perspective, or a substantial insensitivity to the strictly figurative values—in other words, to the essence— of the experience of Bernini. I believe that such a contradictory effect is due to the complicated origins of the two books: they are in fact two versions of one text, written and rewritten over a period of forty years by three, if not four authors. Translated by Alice Sedgwick Wohl

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The two books coincide in fact to such an extent as to lead to the conclusion that one is copied from the other. The respective dates of publication would seemingly leave little doubt as to the plagiarist’s identity, and the idea current until 1966 was that Domenico Bernini had extensively used and reproduced the biography by Baldinucci “without even citing it.”3 In that year, a perceptive article by Cesare D’Onofrio reversed this opinion drastically and convincingly: many factors, both internal and external, suggested that Filippo Baldinucci had limited himself to publishing a manuscript prepared by Domenico, with a few corrections and additions.4 D’Onofrio proposed, then, that the idea of producing a life of Bernini was Baldinucci’s, that the promotion of the project was to be attributed instead to Christina of Sweden (the official dedicatee and patron of the 1682 book), and that the role of the artist’s family consisted of drafting the text. More recently, I examined the same history, attempting to collect all the information available in texts and documents, published and unpublished, and to fit it together in the most probable way. My reconstruction of events, which proved to be quite different, is as follows.5 In the last days of 1673, news spread through Rome that “a certain abbot, his dear friend, is writing the vita of Cavaliere Bernini, and of his works, in order then to publish it.”6 We do not know with certainty who the author was,7 but it is an established fact that a few months later the artist’s eldest son, Monsignor Pier Filippo, began to question friends and connoisseurs in order to collect documents and various sources pertaining to his father’s life and work; he then wrote a first, very brief biography and prepared a catalogue of his works.8 A version of this catalogue, securely datable to 1675, is still to be found among the papers of Queen Christina,9 which may mean that the artist’s family was already then seeking to involve her in the project of the biography. In the meantime, Bernini died, on 28 November 1680. Twelve days later, Filippo Baldinucci wrote a letter of condolence to Pier Filippo in which he refers explicitly to the biography that he has been writing “for some time” and had hoped to publish before the artist’s death.10 It is clear from the letter that Pier Filippo and Baldinucci were already in contact and that they had already discussed the biography on other occasions; moreover, a catalogue of Gianlorenzo’s works, analogous to the one belonging to Christina but datable to 1678, is to be found among the papers from Baldinucci’s study, and it is thus probable that the Bernini family had already reached him by then with their strategy of self-promotion.11 In April 1681, Baldinucci was in Rome to “prostrate himself at the feet” of Christina.12 According to what



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his son Francesco Saverio later wrote, the project for the biography was conceived on that occasion: When he returned, then, to the Queen one day, she received him gladly as usual and took him at once to see a statue of a most beautiful Savior, the last work of Bernini. And having discoursed upon it at length and upon its creator, she finally declared that she desired a separate life of this worthy practitioner, and since she knew that he had already written so many [lives] of other members of the profession, she wanted him to do this one also, for her satisfaction, and that it would be her concern to procure the information for him in all abundance and reliability. The Queen was as good as her word, for, summoning Bernini’s virtuous sons into her presence, she made known to them that it was her pleasure that, assisting Filippo in his every need, they should provide him with everything that he required for writing their father’s life.13 Baldinucci’s letter of condolence demonstrates that this version of the facts is false, and that four months before this meeting he had already been working on the biography at least “for some time,”14 perhaps even for two years. But why lie? Probably because once the possibility of publishing the biography while Bernini was alive—which would have put him on a level with Michelangelo—had evaporated, it was better to let it be thought that this was a posthumous project, which would appear much less arrogant and presumptuous. Besides, it could certainly not have been up to Baldinucci’s own son to give his father the lie, depriving him moreover of the conspicuous merit of having written the biography of the most important artist of his time. Such alteration of the truth raises doubts concerning the rest of the account as well, and especially concerning the role of Christina of Sweden. It appears consistent with this unabashed strategy of dissimulation to conceal the fact that the actual idea of a biography, not to mention the concrete initiative, came from the heirs, as the chronology of the material collected by Pier Filippo proves. Moreover, evidence from the queen’s account books establishes that her role as patron is not to be taken literally. She did not pay Baldinucci, nor did she underwrite the expenses of publication.15 Her patronage could be understood in a broader sense, then, as planning or promotion, but as we have seen, the records assign all the first moves to the Bernini family, with no mention of the queen. And furthermore, the idea



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that it was the sons or even Gianlorenzo himself who planned and promoted the biography is completely in keeping with the very pronounced autobiographical and self-justifying attitude which, as I have attempted to show elsewhere, characterizes the last years of the artist’s life.16 In any case, the biography appears in Florence in April 1682, under Baldinucci’s name as the author and Christina’s as the dedicatee and patron. When in 1713 Domenico Bernini, by now an established historian of the Church, published the biography of his father under his own name, the printer’s foreword specified that he wrote it “in his most blooming age”17— in other words, in his early youth. When his father died, Domenico was twenty-three, an age at which by the standards of the day he was perfectly capable of writing the biography. Two other small indications suggest that he did indeed have a role, alongside the preponderant and documented role of his elder brother Pier Filippo, who was also a proven writer (mainly for the theater).18 In fact, the passage by Francesco Saverio Baldinucci speaks of his father’s sources as “the virtuous sons of Bernino,” in the plural, probably referring to the fact that Pier Filippo had not been alone in drafting the manuscript that was sent to Florence. Moreover, when Bernini’s heirs petitioned Louis XIV in September 1681 to declare his intentions regarding the colossal equestrian statue that remained abandoned (and unpaid for) in Rome, they did so by means of a mémoire written by the “prélat Bernini” and by “son frère,”19 in other words by Monsignor Pier Filippo and by Domenico, the only credible candidate among the other brothers. But even if Domenico did not have a significant role in the preparation of the text that was sent to Baldinucci, the publication of the book under his name should not seem particularly singular, much less inexplicable. By 1713, Christina, Baldinucci, and even his brother Pier Filippo were dead. Bearing in mind the close-knit identity of the family, and historicizing the concept of “the author,” I see nothing strange in the fact that Domenico should use his own name to claim for the whole family the inspiration and the writing of the book published earlier by Baldinucci. From a critical and textual point of view, this complex sequence of events naturally had important effects on the biographies, since at every step along the way, the text was integrated, modified, and redesigned. To summarize: (1) Beginning in about 1674, Pier Filippo Bernini collects documentation and begins the writing of a text that is unknown today, but whose existence is postulated on the very extensive superimposition of Baldinucci’s two texts and that of Domenico. In philological terms it could be called the archetype, in other words, the manuscript that is not preserved but can be reconstructed



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on the basis of comparison of its derivatives, and which represents the text closest to the original. In the preparation of this manuscript (which we shall hereafter call “Pier Filippo’s sketch”), it is possible that Domenico joined his brother to an extent that cannot now be determined. Among the Bernini family papers only one very condensed version of that text survives, perhaps one of the first drafts.20 It is nevertheless already full of information, ideas, and even turns of phrase that will end up in the two biographies: this is one of the clearest proofs that Baldinucci used material prepared by Bernini’s heirs. It is more than likely that Gianlorenzo (alive, living in the same house, and deeply involved during those years in defending himself against sundry accusations and promoting his own fame in various ways) intervened in the project at many levels. He is certainly the principal source, he may have been interviewed by his sons, but it cannot be excluded that he also participated in the writing. In short, he may have dictated, censored, deleted, and perhaps actually written some pages. (2) Probably around 1678, the archetype reaches the hands of Filippo Baldinucci, who rewrites it and adds to it (and sometimes distorts it) from many points of view: historical, linguistic, and conceptual. As his letter of December 1680 to Pier Filippo shows, Baldinucci continues to ask the artist’s family for information and material, but it is probable that he also added sections of his own, especially after his trip to Rome in the spring of 1681, when he was directly exposed to many of Bernini’s works. (3) Domenico takes the material in hand, having in mind the publication of 1713, but we do not know exactly when or in how many periods of time. He is likely to have had on his desk (a) the archetype or a derivative, (b) Baldinucci’s book, and (c) supplementary material in manuscript and published form, collected during and probably also since his collaboration with Pier Filippo. With the maturity and professionalism of a writer of history, which he now possesses, he recasts all the material in a more ample version. Only a critical edition systematically comparing the two publications with each other and with other material from the historiographical workshop set up by the Bernini family, as well as material belonging more generally to the early historiography of Bernini, could attempt to analyze the various passages of the biographies and seek to assign them to the first biography by Pier Filippo and Domenico (and within it, to the voice of Gianlorenzo himself ), to Baldinucci’s contribution, or to the final rewriting by the mature Domenico. In the following pages I shall try to show how the texture of the two biographies consists of a continuous interweaving of separate and related literary



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and historiographical codes, such as autobiography and apologia, and how this composite nature is responsible for some of the evident difficulties of interpretation, not to mention the essential marginality, even extraneousness, of the biographies with respect to the literature of art of their time. I am aware that this may sound arbitrary or mechanical, and I do not claim to exhaust the analysis of such a rich palimpsest. At the same time, I am convinced that isolating and critically examining the signs typical of certain genres provides access to a text that is indisputably complex and often contradictory. This is a step in the direction of an edition which, as an instrument of open research, will make it possible to surpass these same conclusions.

autobiography Much of the dialogue inserted in the Lives as direct quotations and thus in italics can be traced to the accounts that Gianlorenzo himself gave his sons and biographers, reinterpreting episodes and witty exchanges as the consummate inventor of theatrical scenarios that he was. I base this conviction mainly on comparisons between certain passages in the biographies and Chantelou’s Journal, a private memoir that was not intended for publication.21 Since it is most unlikely that the biographers had access to a copy, any extensive correspondence between the dialogues reported by Chantelou and those reconstructed in the Lives can only signify that the source was the same, in this case Bernini’s own voice. To choose one example among many possibilities for verification, on 17 August 1665 Gianlorenzo recounts to Paul Fréart, the Venetian ambassador, and the papal nuncio an episode from almost forty-five years earlier, involving “one of the earliest portraits he had done,” the one of Monsignor Pedro de Foix Montoya: Urban VIII, then still a cardinal, came to see it, accompanied by various prelates who all thought it was a marvelous likeness, each outdoing the other in praising it and saying something different about it; one remarked: “It seems to me Monsignor Montoya turned to stone,” while he [Bernini] recalls Cardinal Barberini said with great gallantry, “It seems to me that Monsignor Montoya resembles his portrait.”22 The same episode, slightly more structured, is set up in Baldinucci’s narration as follows:



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Quite a number of cardinals and other prelates betook themselves there expressly to see such a fine work, among them one who said: “This is Montoya turned to stone.” And no sooner had he uttered these words than Montoya himself arrived. Cardinal Maffeo Barberini, later Urban VIII, who was also among those cardinals, came forward to meet him and, touching him, said: “This is the portrait of Monsignor Montoya,” and turning to the statue, “and this is Monsignor Montoya.”23 And here, finally, is the form in which Domenico republishes it: Cardinal Maffeo Barberini, finding himself among those who flocked to the church to see this portrait, heard someone say: “This is Montoya become stone.” And as he spoke Monsignor Montoya actually arrived, whereupon the cardinal, having graciously approached him and touched him, said, “This is the portrait of Monsignor Montoya,” and turning to the statue, he added, “And this is Monsignor Montoya.”24 Stressing the clause “il se souvient” (he recalls), Chantelou manages to recapture the emphasis with which Bernini repeated the exact words pronounced so many decades earlier, an effect that is enhanced by the author’s insertion of the precise Italian form into his French prose. And it must have been a similar account that transmitted the same words to the Italian biographers, persuading them too to use direct quotes. This would moreover appear perfectly in keeping with what we know of Bernini’s personality. As is well-known, a strong autobiographical propensity pervaded his entire artistic and human trajectory. If already in his youth, the selfportraits, the plays, and a broad policy of self-promotion betray a clear will to self-representation, in old age the evidence of a continuous narrative of himself becomes increasingly dense, reaching its highest expression in Chantelou’s diary, where the density is almost obsessive. It is probable that, beginning in 1673, this propensity was channeled into the projected life, and that the family’s evenings, generally devoted to amusement or reading aloud devotional books,25 were now filled with numerous, vehement, and perhaps slightly confused autobiographical reevocations for the benefit of Pier Filippo and Domenico. These conversations, by nature difficult to document, must have been the basis for the earliest known biographical text drafted in the Bernini



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home, Pier Filippo’s sketch. In this brief unprinted work, brought, as they say, to an abrupt conclusion when the artist was eighty-two years old, narration in the past perfect tense (“nacque il cavalier Giovan Lorenzo Bernini il 7 dicembre 1598” [the cavaliere Giovan Lorenzo Bernini was born 7 December 1598])26 is combined with the use of the present tense, which has the effect of something straight from the protagonist’s mouth: Paul V “raccomandò specialmente alla sua protezione Giovan Lorenzo, dal quale egli riconosce il principio e l’aumento della sua fortuna” (specially commended him into his [Maffeo Barberini’s] protection, to which he ascribes the beginning and expansion of his fortunes); “fu singolarmente amato dai principi grandi non solo per la sua virtù, ma per . . . un talento e forza che ha nel discorso”27 (he was singularly loved by great princes not only for his virtues, but for . . . a talent and a power that he possesses in speech). At this point the following question arises: is it possible to look at the two Lives as an autobiography of Gianlorenzo, or should we not limit ourselves instead to verifying that he was merely the most authoritative source for his biographers? One of the characteristics that distinguishes biography from autobiography is the multiplicity of sources to which the former has recourse, while the latter is entirely dependent upon the author-protagonist’s own memories and documents.28 In fact, neither Bernini’s sons nor Baldinucci undertook to do real historical research; instead they based their work on the artist’s account of himself. Apart from the dialogues and other parts that derive demonstrably from his own voice, the entire documentary apparatus comes from his private archive. This is a point of crucial importance, which has not been given its proper due until now: the letters of popes, sovereigns, and princes, the poetical compositions, the catalogue of works published in the biographies are all taken from the documents, whether originals or copies, kept at the time in Gianlorenzo’s house, now in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France.29 This means that Bernini alone was the principal source not only for events, information, and circumstances, but also for judgments, interpretations of fact, and appraisals of himself and others. Also ascribable to him, to an extent that cannot be disregarded, are the omissions, nuances, and priorities in the biographical account, which can now justifiably—at least to this extent—be termed autobiographical. It is also necessary to bear in mind that the work of Pier Filippo and Domenico was not only begun but also concluded while their father was still alive, and that Baldinucci intended to publish it before the artist’s



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death. This would have imbued the text with one of the classic characteristics that set the genre of autobiography apart from the related genre of biography, namely, the absence in the former of any mention of the circumstances of the author-protagonist’s death. In the biographical tradition, instead, these constitute a topical focus-point.30 Had the project been realized, the book would have appeared as a sort of authorized biography of a living person, a type well-known today because of its intensive use by public figures in the twentieth century. Andrea Battistini has noted that it is sometimes difficult “to make a distinction regarding the coincidence or lack thereof between author and character. It can in fact happen that the drafting of a biography of a living person is overseen and guided by the protagonist himself to the point of making it a sort of autobiography in the third person, written through the mediation of a real narrator.”31 This analysis is very appropriate to our particular case, which for that matter is not unique, given that Marziano Guglielminetti speaks of a “superimposition of biographical and autobiographical elements” that “somewhat blurs the distinction between the two genres”32 in the Italian seicento. There was an important precedent in the recent tradition of the literature of art: the life of Michelangelo composed by Ascanio Condivi with material obtained through a long, intense “interview” with the artist (who was determined to clarify and defend his own image) and published in 1553 when the artist was still alive and well.33 Despite the criticisms that Michelangelo entrusted to a series of marginal notes written by Tiberio Calcagni in a copy of Condivi’s biography, it has frequently been considered, in the words of Karl Frey, editor of the first critical edition, “seine Selbstbiographie.”34 The reasons for this are comparable to those that induce me to speak of the biographies of Bernini in terms of autobiography. Indeed, it is not beyond reason that Gianlorenzo, who all his life had been engaged in appearing as the “Michelangelo of his century,”35 was determined to construct his own biography and to see it published in his lifetime, precisely with this illustrious precedent in mind. Naturally, it would not be legitimate to consider the lives published under the names of Condivi, Baldinucci, or Domenico autobiographies in the full sense of the word.36 Neither Michelangelo nor Bernini decided to publish a real autobiography in his own name during his lifetime, although both could have done so; and in Bernini’s case, a comparison across the board with the continuous account of himself that fills the pages of Chantelou’s Journal suggests a style and subject matter quite different from those that comprehensively characterize the two books under consideration.



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It is therefore possible, in my opinion, to speak of an autobiography of Bernini, but only as one of the various components of the singular textual accumulation published in the editions of 1682 and 1713. In other words, in seeking to identify the literary genres to which it belongs, it is impossible not to note that this biography is conceived partly as an autobiography, and that it preserves some of the characteristics of an autobiography. Awareness of this makes it possible successfully to employ some of the hermeneutical tools that would be inapplicable in dealing with a biography. Let us take an example using the language and conceptualization formulated by Philippe Lejeune. In autobiography, “the referential pact cannot be completely respected, according to the criteria of the reader, without losing the referential value of the text,”37 which is to say, “the resemblance of ‘Rousseau at sixteen’ represented in the text of the Confessions to the Rousseau of 1728 ‘as he was’ is less important than Rousseau’s twofold effort, ca. 1764, to depict 1) his relationship to the past and 2) that past as it was, with the intention of changing nothing about it.”38 Applied to our case, this means that once the autobiographical valence that pervades the text is accepted as one of the various threads, the question, for instance, of the resemblance of the thirty-year-old Bernini as he is represented to the historical Bernini at that age becomes less important than Bernini’s commitment at eighty in remembering the thirty-year-old Bernini and his intentions in representing him as he actually does. In other words, we have no guarantee that, for example, the episodes and dialogues from his childhood and youth reflect those that really took place; however, there is a good chance that these are not literary inventions but the faithful transcription of the version furnished by the artist as an old man. To put it as simply as possible: we do not know if we are dealing with historical truth, but it is probably at least the truth of the aged Bernini creating and presenting a memory of himself and not a truth reconstructed autonomously by his biographers. The fact that we are faced not with a classic autobiography but with autobiographical material reorganized by at least two biographers means that the matter is complicated and that the self-representational process remains in the text itself as a trace, actually becoming a theme. This is apparent in the various episodes in which Gianlorenzo is described as he reconsiders his early works at a distance of many years, often actually going to the location to see them again, as if scrupulously historicizing himself. It is the case when he visits Villa Borghese with Cardinal Antonio Barberini “after forty years,”39 or goes to see the Baldacchino in the company



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of Sforza Pallavicino “after thirty years,”40 or reconsiders the Santa Bibiana,41 all passages that take place in direct quotation. This sort of self-representation on the part of Bernini the biographer involves the inclusion of numerous retrospective judgments that are not self-celebratory but almost always critical, or at least problematic. I am referring for instance to the aged Gianlorenzo’s severe verdicts on his architecture (the episode in which Domenico comes upon him in solitary meditation in Sant’ Andrea al Quirinale),42 on the Fountain of the Four Rivers (“Oh how ashamed I am of having worked so badly!”),43 on the little progress he has made in art since his youth (expressed, precisely, when he sees his early masterpieces in the Borghese again in company with Antonio Barberini),44 and also to the entire conspicuously self-critical page (he was “wont to say . . . ‘that he who had done more work than others had made still more mistakes than others’”)45 with which Domenico’s biography ends and which is resolved in this paradoxical statement: “Wherefore he used to say, not with vain affectation of modesty, but with sincere truthfulness, because he felt it, that ‘if everything he had ever done was still in his possession, he would smash it to pieces.’”46 With these last examples we approach the possibility of further specifying the nature of the autobiographical code that is present in both vite, in other words attempting to clarify the literary model, or better, the moral paradigm that was operative in Bernini’s retrospective reflections. It was certainly not the novelistic picaresque model of Cellini’s Life, which for that matter was surely unknown to him and in any case, too overtly arrogant and vainglorious; rather, it was the psychological and introspective model that was developed by the Jesuits from the example of the Confessions of Saint Augustine and relaunched in great style. Andrea Battistini has suggested that in the second half of the seventeenth century “the cultivated classes had become accustomed in the course of few generations to meditating and writing about themselves, through the education they received from the Jesuits,” and that “the archetype of the Vita Ignatii, soon imitated in biographical form by numerous Jesuits, from Ribadeneira to Bartoli” should be recognized as the foundation of the modern autobiography as an autonomous genre, at least in the Catholic South of Europe.47 The classic constraints regarding the narcissism of speaking of oneself had thus been breached, and Bernini’s connections to Pallavicino, Oliva, Zucchi, and to the Jesuit order in general, put him in a good position to take advantage of this authorized breach. Furthermore, if we consider the autobiographical elements in the two vite in relation to this tradition of introspection,



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self-examination, and rehearsal of sins and redemptions, we can more easily understand, for example, why Domenico should speak so explicitly of his father’s violent and sinful love for Costanza Bonarelli.48 I do not believe it is a question of greater “sincerity,” as D’Onofrio suggests,49 or that it is due to Domenico’s privileged position as an observer of the family, which on the contrary would more readily have led him to keep silent. I believe instead that the context of this episode also lies in the aged Bernini’s autobiographical impulse, in a sort of expiatory memory that lays bare the initial sin in order to emphasize the path to conversion. But above all, this key helps us to understand the severe judgments that Bernini pronounced upon his masterpieces in old age. While the motive of self-dissatisfaction—a topos in the literature of art, and not by coincidence in that of Michelangelo in particular50—is also present, I believe there is an extra-artistic and distinctly introspective religious praxis in force here, which is carried over and applied to issues that are peculiarly visual. It is as though Bernini had looked through the filters of the examination of conscience and of spiritual autobiography in the Jesuit tradition, not at the moral values or failures in his works (as happened in the paradigmatic case of Bartolommeo Ammannati, who as an old man condemned his own youthful license),51 but at their intrinsically artistic qualities. With this notable displacement of the center of gravity, the vite of Bernini constitute an important stage in the development of the intellectual biography of the modern artist. And this really has to do with flashes of unconscious illumination of the autobiographical process insinuating the centrality of the works and artistic identity into a biographical construction that, as we shall see, tries in every way (successfully, and with the full consent of the protagonist) to place “Bernini the famous man” at the center and to make “Bernini the artist” disappear.

apologia I should like to point out how this complex text, in its two versions, may also be considered an apologia, and that means, literally, a formal written defense: a defense of himself willed and directed by Bernini (and thus another facet of the autobiography), a defense promoted and in large measure written by Pier Filippo and (possibly from the outset but certainly in preparation for the final edition) by Domenico, a defense of Bernini as a public figure, accepted and portrayed as such by Baldinucci, and finally, a



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defense of an entire system of cultural policy (that of papal nepotism) that was endorsed and adopted by Christina of Sweden. I should like to show particularly that the text not only possesses the external history and motives typical of the apologia, but that internally as well it takes on and is conditioned by its stylistic elements and its limitations. But against whom or what did Bernini and his friends feel they had to defend him? After his abrupt setback in Paris in 1665, Bernini’s forty-year dictatorship had begun to show more and more visible cracks. Not only was there his obvious failure with Louis XIV, but with the election of Clement X (1670) and above all that of Innocent XI (1677), he suffered a sudden separation from the persons and cultural policies of the popes, who not only began to patronize other artists but went so far as to take away commissions already awarded to him. They even opened investigations into the stability of the cupola of Saint Peter’s, as its presumed problems, going back at least to the time of Innocent X, were blamed on Bernini. Then Luigi Bernini’s involvement in a serious scandal with sexual overtones, together with the growing resentment of the Roman populace, which saw Bernini as the instigator of the huge expenditures on construction and thus of the imbalance in the state’s finances, created a climate in which there was even an attack on the carriage in which the artist was traveling.52 At least from the mid-1670s, all this translated into an endless series of avvisi and handwritten booklets (such as Costantino messo alla berlina),53 pamphlets (such as L’ateista convinto by Filippo Bonini),54 as well as real books of wide scope (ranging from the ferocious Vite by Passeri, circulating in manuscript form, to the chilly Vite by Bellori, published in 1672),55 which in a variety of tones and contents accused, insulted, and defamed the person and works of Bernini. This negative literature constitutes a vast production, a great part of which needs to be recuperated today, as does the other half of the diptych, namely, the even vaster encomiastic literature on the artist and, within this category, the apologetic writings that sought to defend him in general or against specific texts (including the little-studied response to the Costantino alla berlina).56 The biographies of Bernini can in fact also be understood as the most complete and complex of the apologias promoted, commissioned, or written by the artist and his entourage: a sort of tip of a great textual iceberg that survives today in archives and libraries. It is obvious that a complete contextualization and understanding of the two vite will only be possible when they are again placed in relation to the wide assortment of writings to which they respond and by which they were conditioned.



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A first point that appears more comprehensible in the light of this recuperation is the very daring decision to publish the biography while Bernini was still alive: even though it was a life, it was felt more as a defensive memoir and as a legitimate response. After all, the precedent cited above, Condivi’s Vita di Michelagnolo, belonged to this tradition as well, in that it was a defense against the supposed manipulations of Vasari.57 For Bernini and his intimates there was also no dearth of contemporary and familiar examples of biographies intended as militant apologies. To take but one, there was the Vita di Alessandro VII, which Bernini’s close friend Sforza Pallavicino had undertaken to write while the pope was alive, to defend him principally against accusations of flagrant nepotism.58 Moreover, even Bernini’s contemporaries were aware that the production of his biography was conceived to defend him against incidental events. The first notice to mention the enterprise links it explicitly to his falling out of favor with Louis XIV and to the attacks of the Roman populace, which had recently stoned Bernini’s carriage: 9 December [1673]. A certain abbot, his dear friend, has written the life and works of Cavaliere Bernini, and it is expected to include the response of the King of France to a letter written to His Majesty concerning his equestrian statue; but since there has been no response it is believed not to have been entirely perfect, although the presumption was to imitate Titian, who received a response from Charles V, whilst modern sculptors do not believe that the works of that man surpassed those of others, for at present the response they receive is stoning.59 The apologetic urgency, or the need to defend himself and his fame against accusations and attacks that extended to violence must have had considerable bearing upon Bernini’s own autobiographical definition. As Battistini has shown, on the threshold of the seventeenth century Giordano Bruno felt the need to justify his constant autobiographical references by pointing to his need of self-defense. Citing the poet Luigi Tansillo, he maintained that “to speak much of oneself is not proper / . . . / yet sometimes it seems appropriate, / when one speaks for one of two reasons: / to escape blame, or to help another.”60 In fact, there was a long tradition of moral justification for the narcissistic act of autobiography, simply framed in the genre of apologia. It extended from Dante (who wrote that it is permissible “to speak of oneself ” when otherwise “great infamy or danger



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cannot be stopped”)61 to the recent examples of militant apologia and selfpromotion that Giambattista Marino interspersed throughout his correspondence, which were immediately recycled in as many as five very premature biographies of the poet.62 Once the close connection between the genres of self-apology and autobiography is made clear, it becomes interesting to note how, and with what frequency and directness, Gianlorenzo and his sons practiced the first of these. In fact, the artist had in various circumstances responded to accusations, insinuations, and difficulties with “memoranda” written by him (such as the one addressed to Colbert in 1665, during the stormy business of the Louvre)63 or by his son Pier Filippo (the one about the Colonnade of Saint Peter’s),64 and the custom was continued after his death, for instance in the letter cited above, which Pier Filippo and Domenico wrote jointly to plead the cause of the unfortunate equestrian statue of Louis XIV.65 This body of apologetic material, which includes various other unpublished or little-known texts, represents a very important and unacknowledged matrix not only of the idea but also of the technique of the writing (by multiple hands) of the biographies. The apologetic motive quite naturally united Gianlorenzo and his sons, and it is worth asking whether the aged artist, when he became aware that he would not live to see the biography published, did not bind Pier Filippo and Domenico by oath to that undertaking, in words similar to those in which Baccio Bandinelli entreated his sons to arrange and publish the memoirs meant to redeem him after the attacks of Vasari: “And because now I have not had time to be able to bring them to perfection, to polish them, review them, and rewrite them . . . I beg you, I ask you, my children, to swear by the entrails of Jesus Christ, for the sake of the debt you owe me as your benefactor, for the sake of the love you owe me as your father, that after my death you must and will assemble them and have them rewritten and reviewed by intelligent persons of the profession of which they treat.”66 What is less obvious, the apologetic purpose is also carried out, quite unconditionally, by Filippo Baldinucci, who assumed it as one of his guiding criteria in the process of developing the material that came to him from Rome. Paradoxically, the thread of apologia that runs all through Baldinucci’s text is one of the factors that render it invalid in the eyes of modern readers: by now both the accusations and those who made them are long forgotten, and the lengthy passages that he devotes to rebutting them now seem hermetic and gratuitous. The close relationship binding Baldinucci to the pre-existing textual tradition is clearly exemplified in the passage on the



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Barcaccia in Piazza di Spagna.67 We find the passage in quite similar terms in Domenico’s version as well, but its form and language suggest that it is one of Baldinucci’s additions. The unusual apologetic vehemence and aggressive language with which the author inveighs against “troubled brains ready to envy the glory of others,”68 are prompted by a poetic composition that appears derogatory because it questions Bernini’s full responsibility for the invention of the Barcaccia: such was the determination to refute texts that would be forgotten today had they not been transmitted by the very author who sought to refute them, Baldinucci himself. He notes that this was an exemplary case, as he concludes with these words: “And I wanted to register such a fact here to make it all the more evident to the world how true it is that the cloud of envy sometimes reaches stars of the greatest magnitude.”69 This sentence, we might say, encapsulates the entire meaning and ultimate aim of Baldinucci’s biography. Beside some minor episodes (for example, when Baldinucci, speaking of the Baldacchino, finds it necessary to recall the fears expressed by the “tongues of fools” who worried about its occupying the “most beautiful part”70 of the Basilica), what is striking above all is the enormous amount of space and the quantity of details devoted to the business of the bell-towers of Saint Peter’s (six whole pages,71 as opposed to the half-page given to the Cornaro Chapel,72 the twelve or so lines on the Cathedra,73 or the three and a half pages dealing with the Fountain of the Four Rivers74) and the fully twenty pages75 taken up with the transcription of the report by Mattia de’ Rossi on the stability of the cupola of Saint Peter’s (itself a defensive text in a technical sense, having been addressed originally to the Congregazione della Fabbrica of Saint Peter’s to absolve Bernini of accusations that had begun to circulate again in 1680; Baldinucci himself refers to it later as an “apologia”76). In other words, a quarter of the entire biography, not to mention all the illustrative material,77 is reserved for the explicit defense of Bernini against accusations of incompetence as an architect. In the same way, it is to be noted that the ample citation of documentary material (which is unexceptionably genuine) functions not to support a more precise and detailed verification of the historical facts but on the one hand to confer credibility on the apologetic passages and on the other to confirm and emphasize the widespread appreciation enjoyed by the protagonist. And even the poetic texts are not introduced as ekphrastic equivalents of the works, as in Bellori’s Vite; instead they are used in an apologetic manner, to reaffirm the universal approval achieved by Bernini, above all among the influential Roman academies.78



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Baldinucci was quite conscious of having written an apologia, for he revealed as much in the polemical “Protesta dell’Autore” at the end of the book. It comprises three pages, among the few that are entirely his own, and it has been generally overlooked by modern commentators.79 It is all the more interesting in that, while it immediately turns into a furious and quite incidental polemic, it aims instead to present itself as an explicit declaration of the methods and objectives of the biographical genre. For Baldinucci, the biographer’s mission is purely encomiastic and celebratory: “to commend to paper the memory of the . . . virtues” of “men of marvelous talents” for the purpose of rousing “every most noble heart” of “future ages” and “setting them afire to imitate them.”80 The obvious result is a failure to exercise objective historical judgment: following the precepts of the “most noble and virtuous Accademia della Crusca,” he who writes biographies “of men of high merit” must “use compassion in what he perceives as not rising to the most perfect” and therefore take from it only “the most beautiful flower.”81 It is thus obligatory to conceal any possible imperfection, defect, or lack (“a particle of a not so whole alloy,”82 in Baldinucci’s phrase) that the biographer may “discover.” And with this, the type of screening — of censorship, I should say—to be applied to the material available is established. Immediately afterwards, Baldinucci declares that this method has been unfailingly applied to the subject of the book: Assuming this, it is appropriate for me now to protest to whomever will read the little that I have written to make known the great works of Cavaliere Bernini, that I never believed I would deserve to be called impassioned or somewhat less than sincere: because it is very true that in doing this, I adhered to nothing but the goals alluded to, which it did not occur to me could ever be achieved by his writings unless I made the effort to demonstrate what is most beautiful about them.83 It is as if to say that, given the panegyrical and hortatory scope of the enterprise, it was perfectly natural to renounce a critical and impartial attitude at the outset. It was not a matter of an abstract question of method, and the pragmatic Baldinucci had a precise aim, as can be deduced from the continuation of the same text: And I also want everyone to know that before I set about writing, I do not mean just about this man, but about every other famous



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man, I made a pact with my pen that it was to go about like an amorous bee in pursuit of the most honeyed qualities of the flowers, leaving the contrary to be done by some poisonous cobweb spawned in filth and nourished on refuse, which already (according to reputation) at the time when I wrote of this great artist, or else after I published his most noble deeds, wanted, or wants, to sink his teeth in the place from which I lifted my reverent lips, and to compile what is least to be valued, striving to draw from those same tender sprouts from which I took the sweetest and gentlest materials some atom of imperfection in order then to vomit it forth in poison, mingled with his own sordid inborn humor. In this alone [is he] prudent: in that he does not want his own name (which is unknown even to me) in print in order not to reap the infamy that such an ugly and hateful effort merits.84 To nip in the bud any possible comparison with this nameless adversarial writer, Baldinucci then places a decisive social, even metaphysical, bar, claiming that “Heaven” did not wish that it should be “ill-born men”85 to “declare the cavaliere Bernini great in the world.” It is not given to historians—a category of unaristocratic men in which Baldinucci places not only his enemy but also, quite serenely, himself as well—to dispute the unconditionally positive judgment to which “no great man of virtue, no pope nor king nor great monarch . . . did not subscribe.”86 And it is on the basis of their opinion that Baldinucci considered Bernini to be, in every work, act, or moment of his life, “always identical to himself,”87 thereby denying him any trace of development, growth, crisis, or difficulty, human or artistic. But what was at the root of this ingenuous and explicit methodological confession, and what was the object of Baldinucci’s violent resentment? At first sight, one would expect to find the answer in the vast body of anti-Bernini literature, but a surprising correspondence with a text published three years later suggests instead that we are faced with a bitter and embarrassing rift on the pro-Bernini front, a bloody confrontation between the artist’s first two biographers. I refer to the Préface pour servir d’histoire de la vie et des ouvrages du Cavalier Bernin, published by Abbé Pierre Cureau de la Chambre in Paris in 1685, a brief text previewing the contents and criteria of a biography of Bernini that in the end was not published.88 In it La Chambre, faithful to the rationalist and empiricist critical model of Gassendi’s biographies



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(which he draws upon explicitly), seems to oppose Baldinucci’s program word by word. His objective is not “to make a continuous eulogy in writing his life, following the custom of the majority of those who have given us individual histories which should rather be called panegyrics.”89 To Baldinucci’s Bernini “always identical to himself,”90 the French abbé opposes “the life of the man as he really is: weak, full of faults, subject to a thousand inequities, and as frequently worthy of pity as he is of admiration and envy.”91 And after asserting that everyone is subject “to perpetual vicissitudes,” and that “inconstancy always reigns and not this chimerical uniformity,”92 he declares that he wants to document “boldly the strong and the weak, the good and the bad of Cavaliere Bernini,” and not remain silent about “what his enemies and those who envy him reproach him for;”93 to sum up, he certainly does not pretend to make him into “a man without faults.”94 La Chambre is aware that he is thus opposing those who “embellish their subject to such an extent, and adorn him in such a manner that one can no longer recognize anything. These are highly finished portraits, but pure caprice and fantasy, portraits done with cosmetics and at pleasure: nothing natural or bearing a resemblance.”95 The methodological conclusion is promptly reached, and it is in direct opposition to Baldinucci’s: La Chambre situates biography in the mainstream of historiography and leaves the rest to literature. “Can one call this history? And should one not call it fiction?”96 The fit between the two texts is so precise as not to appear accidental. One hypothesis is that La Chambre, who had had a close relationship with the artist himself, and later with the family, had expressed his reservations about the apologetic hagiography confected by Baldinucci, as well as his intention to publish an independent biography of the type that today we would call “unauthorized.” In any case, it is a fact that neither Baldinucci nor Domenico ever cites the writings of the Frenchman, which is even stranger when one thinks how assiduously they emphasize every conceivable proof of Gianlorenzo’s contested success in France. As we can see, the choice of a biographer was not without risks and unknown quantities, and not everyone was inclined to lend his name, as a seemingly neutral author, to the apologia developed in the Bernini household. On the other hand, Pier Filippo and the young Domenico could not publish it in their names: the risk was that it would backfire and there would be widespread murmurs that, in Mascardi’s words, “ties of blood not infrequently cloud the historian’s mind and lead him to stray from the welltraveled path of the truth.”97 It is in this context that the choice of Baldinucci



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belongs. While in 1678 his gifts as a historian had yet to be demonstrated, at the same time it was known that he was working on the Apologia a pro delle glorie toscane. Restaurazione dell’arte del disegno da chi promossa (which would appear in 1681), and doing so in reaction against the recently published Felsina pittrice of Malvasia.98 What better choice than an apologist who could not be suspected of any contact or connection with the artist? The fact that Baldinucci’s patriotic impulse took the form of a pedantic and prolix erudite survey99 should not have been of much concern to the Bernini, who may instead have been reassured that their requirements were couched in moderate writing free of shocks, and a collection of data that was seemingly impartial. Coming now to the supposed patronage of Christina of Sweden, I know of no other case in modern Italian art literature of an artist’s life commissioned by a monarch (or for that matter by a representative of political power). It is thus a matter that calls for further reflection. As is evident, the commission (and thus also the fiction of a commission) for a biography presupposes a coincidence of interests between the biographer and the patron. In this case there were no family ties, but there were many ties of a political nature. In a moment of profound crisis for an established political and cultural model, when papal absolutism based on nepotism — a model given its most modern form by Urban VIII—was being subjected to harsh criticism and revision by Innocent XI, and when it was beginning to be dismantled, starting precisely with the apparatus of art patronage, to exalt the figure of Bernini meant giving encouragement to a current of rebellion that was only barely below the surface. In other words, it was a matter not only of an apologia for an artist, but also an apologia for an entire political and cultural era and the defense of a ruling class on the wane to which Christina was particularly tied.100 Precisely in 1679, Cardinal Decio Azzolino, Christina’s prime minister and alter ego in Rome, had resolutely opposed the publication of a papal bull banning nepotism. The bull was in effect postponed and would in the end be issued only in 1692, by Innocent XII.101 In the eyes of Azzolino and Christina, the rigorist and spiritualist line followed by Innocent XI and his choice not to employ Bernini represented the most obvious aspects of a traumatic break with the seventeenth-century tradition of the selfrepresentation of papal power. While Gianlorenzo lay dying in 1680, Azzolino promised Monsignor Pier Filippo Bernini that he would pray for his father during a consistory in Saint Peter’s, and he did so in these terms: “In that church I will remind the Lord God, the Holy Virgin and the Holy



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Apostles how much he has done for their glory, beseeching them to preserve him that he may do more, and not to count against his life these last years in which he has been unable to work, but to grant him at least as many more so that he can make up for this omission and finish his life using his talents to glorify God, the Holy Virgin, and Sts. Peter and Paul in that sanctuary.”102 The mention of “these last years” was a polemical allusion to Innocent XI, who was disinclined to proceed with the sumptuous decoration of Saint Peter’s and who was thus, in the cardinal’s eyes, guilty in effect of standing between God and Bernini, preventing the artist from carrying out the design of Divine Providence.103 Christina, for her part, lost no opportunity to remark on the pope’s culpable lack of interest in the patronage of art and conservation of the artistic patrimony. She had elevated herself to the position of tutelary goddess of the patrimony in part thanks to the services of Bellori, her antiquarian, who was simultaneously the unheeded commissioner of the antiquities of Rome.104 Given the additional fact that cuts in the papal budget had included a cut in Christina’s rich annual pension,105 it is easy to see how patronage of the biography of Bernini could also smack of political and personal polemics. This further key to interpretation makes it possible better to understand passages in the text that the pious and respectful Baldinucci (with difficulty and forbearance, I imagine) did not smooth over, precisely because he knew that they pleased the queen. Take, for instance, the passage in which Christina maintains without mincing her words that Innocent XI should be ashamed of having employed (and thus remunerated) Bernini so little: “On the day of Bernini’s death, the pope sent Her Majesty a noble gift by hand of a privy servant, of whom the queen inquired about the estate left by Cavaliere Bernini, and hearing that it was about four hundred thousand scudi, she said: ‘I would be ashamed if he had served me and had left so little.’”106 At that stage, moreover, Christina had become convinced that her own defense should be entrusted not to political or polemical initiatives but to an autobiographical and auto-apologetic text in order to reestablish the (her) truth in the eyes of contemporaries and those of posterity. Baldinucci was in Rome from mid-April to the first week in June 1681, and it was on 11 June that Christina wrote the first page of the Vie de la Reine Christine faite par elle-même, a text that in its most recent edition has been given the significant title of Apologies.107 It is obvious, therefore, how the several defenses— of the artist in disfavor, of the nepotistic system, and of Christina herself—might blend into one single apologia.



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This may explain why the biography should choose to present Bernini as a creature of Maffeo Barberini, both in terms of the court and in intellectual terms, to the point of ascribing to the latter the glory of having fostered the new Michelangelo, the new universal artist (a view that was moreover deeply rooted in the consciousness of the artist himself ).108 At the same time, the enormous role assigned to the popes and the cardinal nephews and in general to the Court of Rome (the true great stage on which all the action takes place) becomes more evident, as does the rigid way in which the biographical account hinges upon the succession of popes, to the point of certain glaring oversights. For instance, the execution of the two much later busts of Scipione Borghese is linked to the papacy of Paul V, an error that runs from the first sketch by Pier Filippo to the edition of 1713.109 Conceived, then, as a defense of himself as a father and head of a family, as a man of virtues, and of the system that produced him and made him triumph, the biography ignores precisely what the modern reader would most like to hear about: Bernini’s works and his artistic language.

a missed opportunity Dozens of documents, and among them the astonishing notes sent by Cardinal Decio Azzolino to Pier Filippo Bernini while his father was dying, demonstrate that what was important to Azzolino and to Christina of Sweden was an apologia for the man, not the artist. The recurrent judgment, attributed sometimes to Sforza Pallavicino, sometimes to Christina or other authoritative personages, that Bernini’s “greatest merit” was not “having been acclaimed for excellence in his profession,”110 but having been a virtuous man in general, simply “a great man”111 (to use the words with which Domenico’s biography emphatically begins and ends), sounds like an attempt to remove him from the artistic dynamics of his time and from the historical context. The most resounding praises awarded him by the biographies are in the main not connected to art and tend to place him outside the history of art. An interesting indication of the widespread endorsement of this way of seeing is contained in Daniello Bartoli’s Vita del padre Nicolò Zucchi, also published in 1682. Here, in the canonical list of positive judgments regarding the figure of his fellow Jesuit, the author cites that of “Cavaliere Bernini, a man of great intelligence and equally great judgment.”112 In other words, Gianlorenzo appears not as a famous artist but as a man of



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judgment, on a par with cardinals, theologians, and princes, a clear sign that he was perceived as an essential member of equal standing in a court society that was solid and self-referential. In fact, even though it was devoted to the greatest Italian artist of the century, the manuscript that arrived in Florence in 1678 can be compared with many genres—biography, autobiography, apologia—but not with the historiography or literature of art. The involvement of Filippo Baldinucci might have led one to expect a crucial change of approach, but that did not happen. As we have said, only through critical study of the edition would it be possible to isolate the pages that are wholly due to his intervention, but for now we can attempt an estimate. A path of investigation that has so far not been much pursued, and which might yield some surprises, involves the array of art-historical topoi in the biography. In this connection it is interesting to note that as early as 1675 Baldinucci had obtained a copy of the sole manuscript of the as yet unpublished autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini. While it must have been useful to him in drafting the sixteenth-century section of his Notizie dei professori del disegno (and in fact this is where some pages of Cellini’s Vita first appeared), it is inconceivable that his work on the biography of Bernini was not in some way influenced by that extraordinary text.113 And in fact, there is no lack of correspondences between the two texts. To cite one, there is the famous remark directed at Bernini by the newly elected Urban VIII: “It is your great good fortune, O Cavaliere, to see Cardinal Maffeo Barberini become pope; but ours is far greater that Cavaliere Bernini should be alive during our papacy.”114 Given Maffeo Barberini’s intellectual personality and his close relationship to Bernini, these words may well have been spoken, but it is also true that they recall, to an extent that cannot be disregarded, Francis I’s remark to Cellini: “My friend . . . I don’t know which is the greater pleasure, for a prince to have found a man after his own heart, or for a talented man to have found a prince who provides him with such comfortable conditions that he is able to express his great virtuoso ideas.”115 It is not to be excluded that Baldinucci consciously superimposed the biographies of the two sculptors, that in some passages he was influenced by that extraordinary model, and that he in turn influenced Domenico, who preserves and exactly repeats the passage cited above.116 In any case, this is a line of research that deserves to be pursued, and which will perhaps better clarify Baldinucci’s own contribution to the text published under his name. This said, one thing is clear: his contribution did nothing to situate the biography of Bernini within the very lively art-historical debate of the time.



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The text developed in the Bernini household paid scant attention to the artist’s works, according them little description and less discussion, nor was any effort made to insert the parabola of Bernini’s career into the history of Italian art. But why was it that Filippo Baldinucci, one of the most important writers on art of the seventeenth century, did not correct this peculiar situation? Baldinucci himself tells us that he went to Rome in 1681 in order “to see with [his] own eyes the most beautiful works of the hand of that artist.”117 While it is certainly significant, this indirect admission of the crucial importance of firsthand visual experience left few traces in the text, and those are generally disappointing. When descriptions do occur, with negligible variations, in both editions, it is not easy to sort out whether they were already present in the archetype or whether they were added by Baldinucci. To take the examples of the Fountain of the Four Rivers and the Tomb of Alexander VII:118 in the first case the homogenization of style and vocabulary is not enough to conceal the fact that we are dealing with the inclusion of a preexisting text, one perhaps conceived for other purposes and probably inserted into the narrative by the Bernini, then taken up by Baldinucci; in the second case it is hard to establish a precedent. The suspicion that Domenico is here paraphrasing an original description by Baldinucci is justified by the latter’s explicit statement that he went to Saint Peter’s119 to see some of the major works of Bernini. The results of that inspection survive mainly in the beautiful description of the Tomb of Urban VIII, which is absent in Domenico and clearly the consequence of direct knowledge (displayed, moreover, with ingenuous and rather vulgar satisfaction: “Just to see that, everyone in the world may betake himself to Rome and be sure that it is worth his time, not to mention the expense and effort”120). Baldinucci also recalls having been “in person to see with [his] own eyes”121 the Baldacchino, but the experience in this case turns into rhetoric and the trite assertion that description is impossible: since every verbal translation would be unequal to the original, “I would consider any time that I might spend on such descriptions to be completely wasted.”122 There was another work that “he who writes these things”123 had recently seen: the Truth. On a visit to Casa Bernini to see Pier Filippo and perhaps Domenico, evidently to discuss the biography, Baldinucci saw the large marble, but instead of offering even a minimal description of it (as Domenico would later do)124 he could think of nothing better to do than to print the verses that he himself had composed and given to Pier Filippo on that occasion.125



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Finally, we can add another stage to Baldinucci’s tour of Bernini’s works, this time not from an explicit statement but from evidence within the text, and that is Villa Borghese. The words applied to the expression of the David (“a powerful knitted brow, a terrible fixed gaze . . . the biting of the entire lower lip by the upper jaw”)126 indicate direct visual experience, and are among the few used by Baldinucci to attempt to create an image in the mind of the reader. But immediately after this comes the very disappointing page devoted to the Apollo and Daphne, of which he says, “to try to describe it here . . . would be hard work for nothing.”127 (Domenico, for his part, ignores this and all the other works of Bernini in the Borghese.) With this survey, brief as it is and with modest results, we have just about taken a census of all the space given to Bernini’s works in the volume that Baldinucci published. Not only did Baldinucci not consider including illustrations based on engravings, as La Chambre did (albeit in a limited manner), he also did not display the formal and literary sensibility, I won’t say of a Bellori, but not even of a Passeri or a Scannelli. He does not place the work at the center of his writing, and he almost always avoids ekphrasis, or even the mere description of the complex works of Gianlorenzo, resorting instead to rhetorical expedients or else simply to silence. It is not surprising, therefore, that when he chooses to print at the end of the book the brutal but valuable catalogue of Bernini’s works drawn up by Pier Filippo (Baldinucci himself admits that he got it “from Rome, from someone who has complete knowledge of it”128), he justifies himself by pointing to the need “not to break the thread by recounting one by one all Bernini’s works, even the most insignificant.”129 This amounts to a confession that he cares far more about the biographical chronicle than about any attempt to insert the works into it in a convincing manner, not to mention a stylistic analysis that would stitch together interpretations of individual works into a coherent account of the evolution of the language of an artist who was active for almost seventy years. The Gianlorenzo of the biography is not “organic;” he does not grow or grow old as an artist, and he is immutably identical to himself. Only eight lines in a hundred pages contain analysis of style, and the fact that Domenico does not include them in his edition seems a clear indication that they are an addition by Baldinucci. The statue of Aeneas carrying the aged Anchises, figures rather more than life-size: and this was the first large work that he did, in which, although something of the style of his father Pietro can be recognized, there is nevertheless, due to the beautiful consideration



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with which he executed it, a certain quality approaching the tender and true, which cannot fail to be noticed, and which even at that age his excellent taste attained, a quality that stands out most clearly in the head of the old man.130 On the basis of his visit to the Villa Borghese, and perhaps with the encouragement of some adviser, Baldinucci actually manages to distinguish various elements in the same work; he raises the issue of Bernini’s apprenticeship with his father (something the biography never confronts, as if Gianlorenzo had sprung from nowhere); and he correctly interprets the group as the turning point between Pietro’s mannerist culture and a sensibility attentive to the “tender and true” that recalls the neo-Venetian and neo-Correggesque intimations introduced in Rome by Annibale Carracci and Rubens. But, distressingly, this inviting sample of what the biography of Bernini might have become has no sequel. Baldinucci, moreover, makes no secret of his ignorance regarding the language of art. In the Lettera a Vincenzo Capponi nella quale risponde ad alcuni quesiti in materia di pittura (1681) he states, “I am not a painter, I do not dare claim to be a connoisseur, knowing to what league the true connoisseurs of our art belong;”131 and in the foreword to the Notizie dei professori del disegno (also published in 1681), Baldinucci explains that in order to formulate rare judgments on the works of art in the book “I in no way trusted to my own brain or opinion, but I availed myself of the statements of very good authors and members of the profession of art,”132 and that whenever he was unable to obtain the advice of an “insider,” he refrained from expressing a judgment. With this honest if not very consoling viaticum, the reader embarks on reading the Notizie, gathering the impression that the narrative unfolds, in the words of Giovanni Previtali, “completely ignoring the works,” and revealing an author who is “totally blind to the intrinsic values”133 of the paintings and sculptures with which it deals. The problem is, however, even greater, and concerns Baldinucci’s actual conception of the genre of the biography of artists. He appears to belong entirely to the classical humanistic tradition effectively relaunched by the Dell’arte istorica of Agostino Mascardi, which reaffirmed the clear division of tasks between the writer of history and the writer of biography, according to the intimist and anecdotalistic tradition of Plutarch (“neque enim historias, sed vitas conscribimus” [for we are not writing histories but lives]).134 Thus, for example, in the life of a military leader such as Caesar or Alexander, “wars and certain subjects that by virtue of their type smack of



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pomposity”135 will be omitted, and “great enterprises”136 will receive few lines, so that instead ample space can be devoted to “particular actions, even very minor ones, that may serve to cast light on the moral character” and even to “ordinary everyday doings.” This is because “in the actions of heroic men, who have a touch of the divine, every little particle has within it an indefinable something that is remarkable and great.”137 There is also the motive of imitation that biographies are meant to inspire in readers, particularly in the case of lives of saints (which are in fact central to Mascardi’s observations). We have already seen that Baldinucci’s stated purpose was to incite “every most noble heart” of “future ages” “to imitation of [him],”138 and there is no dearth of references in the text to Bernini’s works of charity and the frequency with which he took communion.139 To the alert eye, a genre of biography faithful to this tradition would seem woefully inadequate to the requirements of a history of art that was by now mature in its self-awareness, or to its pursuit of an ever more satisfying verbal translation of figurative values. Applied to the lives of artists, the prescriptions that Mascardi revived were in fact to be understood as exhortations to ignore the works (the precise equivalent to wars in biographies of generals), as well as strictly artistic issues, and to concentrate instead on the moral actions of the man. Almost twenty years before Baldinucci applied this model to his edition of the biography of Bernini, Marco Boschini, in Longhi’s words “the greatest of the seicento critics,” had rejected it with ironical resoluteness in his Carta del navegar pitoresco: To say that such and such a painter Was born in Mestre and grew up in Marghera. Was thin, had a red face Are salts that taste of nothing, And I call them trial records of painters And not accounts of talents and wonders And I far prefer instead To know how he put his colors together. . . . The flavor is in the cake and not in the plate.140 In these wonderfully lucid lines, collections of lives are branded as “trial records of painters,” in other words, prolix lists of artists’ names, and the conventions of biographical structure, dismissed as insipid and compared to the “plate,” are contrasted with discussion of the works of art, the real “cake.” To use the words of Martino Capucci, Boschini “faces the historian



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with the need to relive directly and with sensitivity the material of which he means to write the history, going beyond documentary knowledge.”141 And in fact, in the process whereby the literature of art in Italy develops from biography to history, or from Vasari to Lanzi, the seventeenth century is a crucial moment of passage, in which biographical structures either are abandoned in favor of other solutions, or they survive in form while changing in substance. While Malvasia’s Felsina pittrice (1678), although it is a collection of lives, betrays right from the title its character as an “open account,” as Barocchi calls it,142 of the course of Bolognese art, Bellori’s Vite (1672) appears programmatically as a solid and coherent system in which its articulation in individual biographies is definitely subordinated to a general historical vision.143 These fundamental stages of development occurred in the years when Baldinucci was gathering the material for his Notizie dei professori del disegno (conceived at least by 1673) and beginning to work on the biography of Bernini that had arrived from Rome; nevertheless, the Florentine continued instead to find the “plate” of the narrative or annalistic framework tastier than the “cake” of the works, and to think of the biographical formula as a sum of single accounts, conclusive in themselves and faithful to the tradition of the humanistic eulogy. It will come as no surprise at this point to learn that Baldinucci did not succeed in transforming the biography of a great man into an account of an artist’s life and works (something that must also have disappointed many of his contemporaries), nor did he succeed in turning it into a book of art history or an analysis that would extend that individual experience to a more general perspective. Plainly speaking, there is not a trace of anything to recall or effectively replace the teleological evolutionism of Vasari, the historical and stylistic interpretation of Bellori, or the analytical lucidity of Boschini. Baldinucci does not attempt to insert Bernini into the history of Italian art, and he never for a moment analyzes his problematic and controversial dialogue with the grand tradition of the Renaissance or the early seventeenth-century revolutions in painting. The theme of the imitatio Buonarroti, for instance, is not only a self-mythologizing notion of Bernini’s own and a typical example of “prescribed biography,” to use a famous phrase of Ernst Kris and Otto Kurz,144 but also an instrument that would theoretically have been very well-suited to the purposes of Baldinucci as a Florentine and follower of Vasari; yet it is omitted or, what is worse still, implied and impoverished.145 Even the crucial problem of the relationship between Bernini and Annibale Carracci is completely evaded. As is well-known, Bellori’s Vite had



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definitively consecrated Annibale as the great reformer of modern art and transmitter of the highest artistic culture of the Cinquecento, seen (in a break with Vasari) as culminating in Raphael rather than Michelangelo. Bellori had also, for the first time in the Italian tradition, confirmed the historical and no longer theoretical inferiority of sculpture, which had not been able to benefit from the Carracci reform but remained stuck at the outdated primacy of Michelangelo and produced in Algardi and Duquesnoy figures not of the first rank. As has often been noted, in various passages Bellori makes an out-and-out, if implicit, attack on Bernini,146 to whom he does not concede legitimation in relation to the tradition or mediation of Annibale, much less a warrant of absolute excellence. Instead Bernini, for his part, considered himself an heir, even a direct pupil, of Annibale; and we know from Chantelou’s diary that he lost no opportunity to assert this descent, whether it was true or merely a boast. In a passage of great historical significance, Gianlorenzo claims outright that Annibale advised him to draw Michelangelo’s Last Judgment for two years.147 Here we have in embryonic form a brilliantly intuited history of modern art that is an alternate to Bellori’s: not a Raphael-Annibale-Poussin lineage but instead a descent passing from Michelangelo to Annibale to Bernini, which has the advantage of not requiring theorization of the schism among the three sister arts of painting, sculpture, and architecture. Baldinucci then found a formidable ready-made historiographical warhorse inserted in the biographical outline that came to him from the Bernini family: a seductive twofold prediction by Annibale himself, who had foretold Gianlorenzo’s Vatican projects and endorsed his extremely precocious maturity as an artist.148 But far from making use of it, Baldinucci left the discourse as an anecdote of wonder-working, thereby losing his one opportunity to join the contemporary historiographical debate as a peer. While we thus do not find a developed and structured historical vision, and many elements tend toward a biography made up of small episodes intended to demonstrate the greatness of the man, it is also true that Baldinucci pays great attention to close firsthand documentation to support the events narrated (and this will give the Notizie its erudite character). But the presence of numerous documents, letters, and references does not mean that he is in tune with the most advanced historiographical technique. The solidity of Baldinucci’s documentary apparatus is always a matter “entirely of factual contents, not of method.”149 The documents are not altered, so that facts and dates are not distorted, but the whole is reduced to a dull objective catalogue. In this sense, the matter of Bernini’s correspondence is



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telling: it was passed on by his heirs to Baldinucci, who simply inserted it into the text as confirmation of the artist’s social position, or else as a convenient expedient to avoid an extended narrative. By contrast, La Chambre, for example, clearly perceives its importance as an independent critical genre to be dealt with.150 It is not accidental that Baldinucci should entitle his great unfinished work (which has the same characteristics and almost the same origins as the biography of Bernini)151 not Vite but Notizie dei professori del disegno. It suggests that he himself, and rightly so, suffered from the “inferiority complex in relation to classic historiography”152 that caused many seventeenthcentury authors, conscious of their limitations, to call their works “historical fragments,” “accounts,” “essays on history,” “historical memoirs,” or, precisely, “notes” (notizie). It is not difficult to imagine that in the decades that followed all these limitations should have become obvious to Domenico Bernini—by now a mature historian — every time he leafed through the biography of his father as published by Baldinucci. A passage of the introduction that Domenico added to his own edition would appear to be germane in this connection: “It is thus the life of this illustrious subject, whose virtue alone rendered him glorious and famous in the world, that we intend to write in this book, with that faithfulness that is necessary when one describes things that everyone who is alive has witnessed and they can all deny them whenever he who writes, in order to gain admiration, exaggerates successes in his accounts and departs from the truth, which is the sole value in history, and which alone is history.”153 Reclaiming objectivity and historical veracity for the new version of the biography, he completely contradicted Baldinucci’s Protesta dell’autore and made clear his awareness of the limitations of that work, and the need to overcome them. The declaration seems in effect to be almost a response to La Chambre, as if Domenico wanted to assert that in this final edition, his father’s biography would at last attain the dignity of history, after a settling process had taken place that removed its incidental apologetic functions and thereby freed it from its aura of literary panegyric. Domenico did introduce new elements that were purely apologetic (especially pertaining to the more recent vicissitudes of the equestrian colossus of the king of France),154 but he thought it opportune not only in various ways (which there is not space to point out here, and which only a systematic comparison of the texts can identify) to restore a more properly



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historical narrative structure, but also to replace the militant tone with an alleged objectivity. In the first place, he undertook to reweave the narrative, often amplifying it fancifully, but also providing historical background to the unfolding of events through his knowledgeable representation of the papal court and its cultural climate (see, for instance, the whole chapter devoted to the period of Alexander VII).155 As for the actual narrative, he reinforced the historical and causal connections, thereby reducing the effect of a rough list that Baldinucci’s pages often give. For instance, the connection between the demolition of the bell-towers of Saint Peter’s and the execution of the Truth, completely absent from the 1682 edition, is reestablished; the reconstruction of the political framework that created the conditions for the journey to France is broadened and deepened, beginning with the incident of the Corsican Guard in 1662; and Bernini’s opinions and sayings are redistributed throughout the narrative instead of being lumped together at the end as they were by Baldinucci, in a chapter amounting to an inventory. What Domenico was naturally unable to do was to make up for Baldinucci’s deficiencies in the more strictly figurative area; thus stylistic analysis, descriptions of the works, and above all a solid art-historical vision continue to be lacking in the more structured edition of 1713. But in order to grasp Domenico’s real contribution, and more generally in order to have a concrete knowledge of two texts that are diverse, and therefore distinguishable and comparable, a lengthy and patient philological study is needed, one that could establish what is attributable to whom of the various authors involved in this textual accumulation. Such a study, in my opinion, must of necessity precede more thorough textual, intertextual, critical, and historical interpretations, which at this stage would risk drowning the refined instruments of hermeneutics in material that is unreliable and chaotic. We must not forget that, consciously or not, it is still largely through the eddies of this chaos that we look at the art of Gianlorenzo Bernini.

postscript When this essay was already in proofs, an article appeared that provides an important piece of contemporary evidence (previously unpublished) relating to the genesis of the Bernini biographies.156



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In the enormous manuscript diary of the lawyer and scholar Carlo Cartari, the diarist recorded a crucial conversation he had with Monsignor Pier Filippo Bernini: The 3rd of January 1674 Monsignor Bernini told me that he wanted to write and publish the biography of his father, and have engraved all of the statues made by his father, which amount to about seventy, all with explanatory captions, and that for this book he would spend at least 8,000 scudi; but he decided not to publish it while his father, who is now seventy-six years old, was living. He has just finished the equestrian statue of the King of France. He told me that his biography would be very unusual, and he recounted to me various intriguing details.157 This is not the place to discuss the numerous and very important deductions (for example, the fascinating project of creating a sort of an “authorized” Berninian iconographic corpus—a project that I intend to treat elsewhere) that one can draw from this brief text (and seem to me to be in significant disagreement with some of the interpretations of the author of the article). Here, I wish simply to point out the way this passage provides documentary proof of some of the statements I have advanced in this essay and elsewhere. We are faced with one of those rare occurrences in the historical disciplines, in which we now have documentary proof (a sort of “smoking gun”) for two key points in my argument: the chronology and the person responsible for the initiation of what I have called the “officina biografica di casa Bernini” (biographical workshop of the Bernini house). As I hypothesized, we now know for certain that the director of the entire operation was Pier Filippo, and that he began the project at the beginning of 1674, when Gianlorenzo was still living and thriving. For those who have read the preceding pages, it will be evident the extent to which this strengthens the autobiographical and apologetic interpretations I have advanced.

notes 1. Christina, Apologies, 76. 2. Ecclesiasticus, 44:1. 3. Thus, authoritatively, Schlosser, Letteratura artistica, 469. 4. D’Onofrio, “Note berniniane 2: Priorità,” 201– 8. 5. For more extensive and detailed discussion, see Montanari, “Bernini e Cristina di Svezia.”



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6. Ibid., 400. 7. Possibly the French abbé Pierre Cureau de la Chambre, who was in fact the first biographer of the artist. See Montanari, “Pierre Cureau de la Chambre.” 8. See Montanari, “Bernini e Cristina di Svezia,” 402ff. The text of Pier Filippo is published in Audisio, “Lettere e testi teatrali di Bernini,” 26 –32. 9. Montanari, “Bernini e Cristina di Svezia,” 403. 10. Ibid., 416 –17. 11. Ibid., 403. 12. Ibid., 421–22. 13. “Vita di Baldinucci scritta dal figlio Francesco Saverio,” in FB-1948, 50. 14. See note 10. 15. Montanari, “Bernini e Cristina di Svezia,” 425. 16. Ibid., 385ff. 17. DB, n.p. 18. Montanari, “Bernini e Cristina di Svezia,” 406 –7. 19. Wittkower, “Vicissitudes of a Dynastic Monument,” 529. 20. Audisio, “Lettere e testi teatrali di Bernini,” 41– 42. 21. Chantelou/Stanic´; Chantelou/Blunt. The journal, which originated as a private document available only to a very few in the circle of the king of France, may have had a small circulation limited, however, to the French milieu closest to the Fréart. See Montanari, “Pierre Cureau de la Chambre,” and Del Pesco, “Genèse du Journal.” 22. “Qu’Urbain VIII, n’étant encore que cardinal, l’étant venu voir avec divers prélats, ils le trouvèrent tous merveilleusement ressemblant, et se mirent à louer cette ressemblance à l’envi les uns des autres, disant sur ce sujet chacun une pensée différente; qu’il y en eut un qui dit: Mi pare monsignor Montoya petrificato; qu’il se souvient que le cardinal Barberini dit fort galamment: Mi pare che monsignor Montoya rassomiglia al suo ritratto.” Chantelou/Stanic´, 123; Chantelou/Blunt, 125 (with minor changes). 23. “assai Cardinali, e altri Prelati vi si portarono apposta per vedere sì bell’opera; tra questi uno ve ne fu, che disse: Questo è il Montoia petrificato; nè ebbe egli appena proferite queste parole, che quivi sopragiunse lo stesso Montoia. Il Cardin. Maffeo Barberino, poi Urbano Ottavo, che pure anch’esso era con quei Cardinali, si portò ad incontrarlo, e toccandolo disse: Questo è il ritratto di Monsig. Montoia, (e voltosi alla Statua) e questo è Monsignor Montoia.” FB, 6; FB-1948, 76; FB-1966/2006, 11 (translation mine). 24. “Il Cardinal Maffeo Barberini, che trà i concorrenti nella chiesa a veder questo Ritratto, ritrovandosi anch’esso, intese un non so chi: Questo è il Montoia diventato sasso. Et in così dire sopravenne veramente monsignor Montoya, onde a lui accostatosi graziosomente il cardinale, e toccatolo, disse: Questo è il ritratto di Monsignor Montoya, e rivolto alla statua soggiunse, E questo è monsignor Montoya.” DB, 16. 25. See Chantelou/Stanic´, 86 (23 July) and 134 (23 August); Chantelou/Blunt, 75 and 139. 26. Audisio, “Lettere e testi teatrali di Bernini,” 41. 27. Ibid. (emphasis mine). 28. Battistini, Specchio di Dedalo. 29. On the history of this material, see Montanari, “Fortuna poetica di Bernini,” 129 n. 5. 30. Battistini, Specchio di Dedalo, 178. 31. Ibid., 179. 32. Guglielminetti, “Biografia ed autobiografia,” 865. 33. See Michael Hirst, introduction to Condivi, Vita di Michelagnolo, i–xx. 34. Frey, Sammlung ausgewählter Biographien Vasaris, xxiv. 35. On Bernini’s imitatio of Michelangelo, see Montanari, “Gianlorenzo Bernini e Sforza Pallavicino,” 61ff., and bibliography.



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36. On Condivi, see Paola Barocchi, “Michelangelo tra le due redazioni delle Vite vasariane,” in Barocchi, Studi Vasariani. 37. Lejeune, Patto autobiografico, 39. 38. Ibid., 43. 39. FB, 7– 8; FB-1948, 77; FB-1966/2006, 12; DB, 18 –19. 40. DB, 40 – 41. 41. DB, 42. 42. DB, 108 –9. 43. DB, 109. 44. See note 39. 45. DB, 179 – 80. 46. DB, 180. 47. Battistini, Specchio di Dedalo, 33ff. 48. DB, 27. 49. D’Onofrio, “Note berniniane 2: Priorità,” 208. 50. See the index to Vasari, Vita di Michelangelo, s.v. “Michelangelo, concetti e temi: Incontentabilità.” 51. The letter appears in Barocchi, Trattati d’arte del Cinquecento, 3:115–23. 52. On all this, see Montanari, “Bernini e Cristina di Svezia,” 385ff. 53. See Previtali, “Il Costantino messo alla berlina.” 54. Bonini, L’ateista convinto was published in 1665. A study of the anti-Bernini contents of this text by the author of this essay is in press. 55. Passeri, Künstlerbiographien; Bellori, Vite. 56. See Marder, Bernini’s Scala Regia, 208 –12. 57. Hirst, introduction to Condivi, Vita di Michelagnolo, xiii, speaks of the “apologetic character of the book.” 58. Pallavicino, Vita di Alessandro VII. 59. In Montanari, “Bernini e Cristina di Svezia,” 400. 60. Cited in Battistini, Specchio di Dedalo, 25. 61. Ibid., 26. 62. See ibid., 27–30. 63. Chantelou/Stanic´, 54; Chantelou/Blunt, 26 –27. 64. See Montanari, “Gianlorenzo Bernini and Sforza Pallavicino,” 47– 48. 65. See ibid., note 19. 66. In Barocchi, Scritti d’arte del Cinquecento, 2:1387. 67. FB, 13–14; FB-1948, 83– 84; FB-1966/2006, 17–18. 68. FB, 14; FB-1948, 84; FB-1966/2006, 18. 69. Ibid. (translation mine). 70. FB, 12 –13; FB-1948, 82; FB-1966/2006, 17. 71. FB, 24 –29; FB-1948, 94 – 99; FB-1966/2006, 29 – 33. See also McPhee, Bernini and the Bell Towers. 72. FB, 30; FB-1948, 101; FB-1966/2006, 35. 73. FB, 38 –39; FB-1948, 110; FB-1966/2006, 43– 44. 74. FB, 30 –34; FB-1948, 103–5; FB-1966/2006, 37–39. 75. FB, 82 –102; FB-1948, 155–75; FB-1966/2006, 89 –108. 76. In the introduction to Baldinucci’s summary of the biography of Bernini, published in Baldinucci, Notizie, 1974–75, 4:280. 77. Nine engravings illustrating the report by De’ Rossi, placed between pp. 108 and 109 of Baldinucci’s Vita. Cf. FB-1948, pls. 7–12. 78. See FB, 9, 17, 47; FB-1948, 79, 87,120; FB-1966/2006, 14, 22, 53. 79. FB, 109 –11; FB-1948, 183– 85; FB-1966/2006, 109 –11.



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80. FB, 109; FB-1948, 183; FB-1966/2006, 109 –10. 81. FB, 111; FB-1948, 185; FB-1966/2006, 111. 82. FB, 110; FB-1948, 184; FB-1966/2006, 110. 83. FB, 110; FB-1948, 184; FB-1966/2006, 110: “Ciò supposto, conviene ora, che io mi protesti con qualunque, che leggera quell poco, che io ho scritto per far palesi le grandi opere del Caval. Bernino, che nell’aver preso a lodarlo senza altro più, io non credetti mai di dover meritar la nota o di appassionato, o di poco meno che sincero; perchè verissima cosa è che io in ciò fare ad altro non mi legai, che a i poco anzi mentovati fini, i quali non mi cadde in mente, che potessero esser giammai conseguiti da’miei scritti, se non allora, quando io mi fussi sforzato di fare in essi vedere il più bello” (translation mine). 84. FB, 110 –11; FB-1948, 184– 85; FB-1966/2006, 110 –11. “E voglio ancora, che sappia ognuno, che prima di pormi a scrivere non dico di questi, ma di ogni altro celebre uomo, io feci patto colla mia penna, che ella, quasi ape amorosa, dovesse andare in traccia delle più melliflue qualità de’ fiori, lasciando il fare il contrario a qualche ragnatelo velenoso nato fra le lordure, e nutrito d’immondezza, che già (per quanto ne corre la fama) nel tempo, che io scrissi di questo grande Artefice, o pur dopo che io ne averò pubblicato le più nobili azioni, volle, o vuole avventare il dente onde io tolsi riverenti le mie labbra, con far raccolta del meno apprezzabile; sforzandosi di trarre da quegli stessi virgulti, onde io cavai le materie più dolci, e più soavi, qualche atomo d’imperfezione, per quella poi frammischiata col sordido umore nato in se stesso, e della propria sostanza, vomitare in veleno: In questo solo prudente di non voler dar fuori nelle stampe il proprio nome (che pure a me è ignoto) per non guadagnarsi l’infamia, che meritera una così brutta, e detestabile fatica” (translation mine). 85. FB, 111; FB-1948, 185; FB-1966/2006, 111. 86. FB, 111; FB-1948, 185; FB-1966/2006, 111. 87. FB, 111; FB-1948, 185; FB-1966/2006, 111. 88. See Montanari, “Pierre Cureau de la Chambre.” 89. Ibid., 116. 90. FB, 111; FB-1948, 185; FB-1966/2006, 111. 91. Montanari, “Pierre Cureau de la Chambre,” 116. 92. Ibid., 117. 93. Ibid. 94. Ibid. 95. Ibid., 116 –17. 96. Ibid., 117. 97. Mascardi, Dell’arte istorica, 1636, 149. 98. See Previtali, Fortuna dei primitivi, 51–57; Paola Barocchi, “Nota critica,” in Baldinucci, Notizie 1974–75; Perini, “Carlo Cesare Malvasia’s Florentine Letters”; Bickendorf, Historisierung der italienischen Kunstbetrachtung, 102 –22. 99. Previtali, Fortuna dei primitivi, 53. 100. On the relations between Christina and the politics of Innocent XI, see mainly Rodén, Church Politics in Seventeenth-Century Rome, 283ff. 101. See ibid. 102. Montanari, “Bernini e Cristina di Svezia,” 413. 103. Ibid., 385ff. 104. See Montanari, “Bellori and Christina of Sweden.” 105. Rodén, Church Politics in Seventeenth-Century Rome, 284. 106. FB, 64; FB-1948, 137; FB-1966/2006, 71. “Lo stesso giorno della morte del Bernino mandò il Papa per mano di un Camerier segreto un nobile regalo a quella Maestà, al quale domandò la Regina, che si dicesse per Roma dello stato lasciato dal Cavalier Bernino, e sentito che di quattrocento mila scudi in circa; mi vergognerei, diss’ella, s’egli avesse servito me, ed avesse lasciato sì poco” (translation mine).



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107. See Christina, Apologies, 72. 108. See FB, 11; FB-1948, 80; FB-1966/2006, 15; DB, 25–26. 109. See Audisio, “Lettere e testi teatrali di Bernini,” 4; FB, 7; FB-1948, 76 – 77; FB-1966/2006, 11–12; DB, 10 –11. 110. DB, 2. 111. DB, 180. 112. Bartoli, Vita del padre Nicolò Zucchi, 146. 113. For Baldinucci’s access to the Cellini manuscript, see Paola Barocchi, “Nota critica,” in Baldinucci, Notizie, 1974–75, 6:32, 338 –39. 114. FB, 10; FB-1948, 80; FB-1966/2006, 15. 115. Cellini, Vita, 333. See also Warnke, Artisti di corte, 241. 116. DB, 24. 117. Baldinucci, Notizie, 1974–75, 4:280. 118. FB, 32 – 33, 57– 58; FB-1948, 103– 4, 130 – 32; FB-1966/2006, 37– 38, 65– 66; DB, 88 – 89, 166 – 67. 119. FB, 12; FB-1948, 82; FB-1966/2006, 16. 120. FB, 16 –17; FB-1948, 86; FB-1966/2006, 21. 121. FB, 12; FB-1948, 82; FB-1966/2006, 16. 122. FB, 12 (and see also 38); FB-1948, 82 (and see also 109); FB-1966/2006, 16 (and see also 43). 123. FB, 35; FB-1948, 106; FB-1966/2006, 40. 124. DB, 81. 125. FB, 35–36; FB-1948, 106 –7; FB-1966/2006, 40 – 41. 126. FB, 8; FB-1948, 78; FB-1966/2006, 13. See below for the interpretation of the Aeneas group. 127. FB, 9; FB-1948, 78 –79; FB-1966/2006, 13. 128. FB, 103; FB-1948, 176; FB-1966/2006, 112. 129. Ibid. 130. FB, 8; FB-1948, 78; FB-1966/2006, 12. “la statua dell’Enea, che porta il Vecchio Anchise, figure ansi che nò maggiori del naturale; e fu questa la prima opera grande, ch’egli facesse, nella quale, quantunque alquanto della maniera di Pietro suo Padre si riconosca, non lascia però di vedersi, per le belle avvertenze, ch’egli ebbe in condurla, un certo avvicinarsi al tenero, e vero, al quale fino in quell’eta portavalo l’ottimo gusto suo, ciò che nella testa del Vecchio più chiaramente campeggia” (translation mine). 131. Reprinted in Barocchi, “Nota critica,” in Baldinucci, Notizie, 1974–75, 6:463. 132. Baldinucci, Notizie, 1974–75, 1:14. 133. Previtali, Fortuna dei primitivi, 53. 134. Plutarch, quoted in Mascardi, Dell’arte istorica, 1636, 53. 135. Ibid., 52. 136. Ibid., 65. 137. Ibid. 138. FB, 109; FB-1948, 183; FB-1966/2006, 110. 139. See, for example, FB, 61; FB-1948, 135; FB-1966/2006, 69. 140. Boschini, Carta de navegar pittoresco, 18. 141. Capucci, “Dalla biografia alla storia,” 107. 142. Barocchi, “Storiografia e collezionismo,” 54. 143. See the author’s introduction to the new English translation of Bellori, Lives. 144. Kris and Kurz, Leggenda dell’artista, 127–28. 145. See, for example, Montanari, “Un Bernini giovane,” 33. 146. Bellori, Vite, 6, 399; see also note 143. 147. Chantelou/Stanic´, 249; Chantelou/Blunt, 287.



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148. FB, 6; FB-1948, 75–76; FB-1966/2006, 10 –11; DB, 10, 37–38. 149. Perini, “L’epistolario del Malvasia,” xx. 150. See Montanari, “Pierre Cureau de la Chambre,” 113. 151. As Paola Barocchi (“Nota critica,” in Baldinucci, Notizie, 1974–75) has pointed out, all the Notizie are composites of texts, reports, and biographies that came to Baldinucci from every part of Italy. 152. Jannaco and Capucci, Storia letteraria d’Italia. Il Seicento, 880. 153. DB, 2. 154. DB, 147–53. 155. DB, 95–102. 156. Beltramme, “Un nuovo documento sull’officina biografica.” 157. Ibid., 148 – 49.



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TWO bernini’s voice: from chantelou’s journal to the vite Steven F. Ostrow

In his pioneering article on the “priority” of Domenico Bernini’s Life of Gianlorenzo to the one by Filippo Baldinucci, Cesare D’Onofrio posited the artist’s generative role in the creation of his biography. Expanding on a passage in the Journal de voyage du Cavalier Bernin en France, written by Paul Fréart de Chantelou, which relates that after Bernini “had worked all day, his wife and children entertained him in the evening,” D’Onofrio added that the artist, in turn, amused them “with his stories, his witticisms, his memories, some true and some false, contributing, among other things, to the creation and consolidation of the myth of his fabulous precocity . . . perhaps unconsciously dictating his biography to Domenico.”1 This suggestion — that Bernini was the source of his biographical narrative—has come to be widely accepted. Howard Hibbard, for example, with respect to what we read in the vite about Bernini’s prodigious talent, wrote that “Bernini himself was responsible for much of what is overstated.”2 Charles Scribner claimed that the two biographies are “based on his [Bernini’s] reminiscences.”3 And Tomaso Montanari, who has contributed more than any other scholar to our understanding of the genesis of the two vite, has argued that they were, to a great extent, the creation of Bernini himself, and thus should be viewed as the artist’s ultima opera.4 Knowing what we do now about the genesis of the biographies (as summarized in the Prolegomena to this volume), it would appear that Bernini was I wish to thank my co-editors, Maarten Delbeke and Evonne Levy, for their constant support, insights, and thoughtful commentary. I would also like to acknowledge Michael Cole, who read and commented on an earlier version of this essay, and Thomas Willette, for generously sharing with me his ideas on this subject. Special thanks go to John Lyons, who helped me to focus my thinking about the subject of Bernini’s “voice” and pointed me in new directions. Finally, I want to thank Noriko Gamblin for her editorial assistance, boundless interest, and encouragement.

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involved in crafting his vita, providing his sons with information, anecdotes, memories, as well as documentary material such as letters, that formed the basis of the vite. And more than any other aspect of the biographies, it is Bernini’s “voice”—his words— quoted throughout both texts, which seems to embody his presence and has led scholars to view Bernini as personally responsible for the fashioning of his literary legacy. In this paper I wish to interrogate Bernini’s voice, to analyze the way it functions in the two vite. Among the issues to be explored are the way Bernini’s words are presented in the texts, in terms of their typography and framing; the similarities and differences between Bernini’s voice as it is recorded in the two vite; and the relationship—both in terms of the continuities and discontinuities—between the artist’s words as they appear in the biographies and in the richest repository of the artist’s utterances, Chantelou’s Journal. By investigating these and related issues my goal is to problematize the reading of the two Bernini vite as autobiographical texts and to underscore the often-blurred boundaries between literary genres in the seventeenth century.

come che soleva dire Bernini’s voice is one among many in the two biographies. In addition to the artist’s words, we encounter those of Paul V, Urban VIII, Alexander VII, Innocent X, Clement IX, Scipione Borghese, Sforza Pallavicino, Pietro Ottoboni, Decio Azzolino, Paolo Allaleona, Gian Paolo Oliva, Charles I, Queen Christina, Louis XIV and his queen, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Thomas Baker, Annibale Carracci, Francesco Borromini, Caterina Tezio (Bernini’s wife), Domenico Bernini, the “people,” and several unnamed individuals. But it is Bernini’s reported speech that dominates the two vite, a voice, “often so lively and fresh,” as George Bauer has commented, “that we cannot help but be convinced that it is indeed the artist speaking.”5 In Baldinucci’s text Bernini “speaks” sixty-three times, in Domenico’s eighty-four. His words appear primarily in two contexts—as isolated pithy comments, judgments, and bon mots, or within dialogues. Their density in Baldinucci’s Vita is greatest in the final quarter of the text, which — following the birth-to-death narrative—focuses on the artist’s virtues and his ideas on art and art theory; it contains nearly 75 percent (47 of 63) of his detti.6 In Domenico’s biography they are distributed more evenly, with 43 percent (36 of 84) embedded in the first half of the text and 57 percent



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(48 of 84) in the second half.7 This more balanced distribution reflects the structure of Domenico’s book, in which Bernini’s views on art are integrated over the entire course of his narrative and no particular section is devoted to his virtues. As a result, Bernini appears as a more engaged interlocutor throughout. Bernini’s reported speech is presented in the two texts as either direct or indirect discourse. Regardless of which form the discourse takes, it is invariably introduced by Baldinucci and Domenico by a word or words indicating that the speech is Bernini’s. Baldinucci’s favored way of introducing Bernini’s voice was with the word diceva, the imperfect indicative of the verb “to say,” dire. The next most common is rispose, the past absolute of rispondere, meaning, “he responded.” And third in frequency of usage is disse, the past absolute of “to say.” Domenico, in contrast, preferred rispose, with which he introduced more than one quarter of his subject’s speech. The next most frequent are diceva and disse, which appear in equal number, followed by soleva dire, meaning “he was in the habit of saying.” In addition, we encounter (in the two texts) variations of the words rispondere (risposto, rispondendo, rispondesse, and rispondeva) and soggiungere (meaning “to say in addition,” such as soggiungeva, soggiunse, and con soggiungere) as well as era solito dire (it was his habit of saying), proruppe (he exclaimed), replicò (he replied), gridò (he shouted or proclaimed), parlò (he spoke), and a number of other similar words and phrases. The use of these various introductory words signals to the reader not only a shift in enunciation but also that what follows — the reported speech — is of special significance. It is somewhat surprising, therefore, given that by the seventeenth century it was not unusual for a subject’s speech to be indicated by quotation marks, that in neither of the two texts do we find such symbols used to indicate that certain words form a quotation.8 Instead, what we encounter—apart from the quotation indicated by a lexical clue—is Bernini’s reported speech being distinguished by italics or not differentiated typographically from the rest of the text at all. In Baldinucci’s Vita the use of italics is far less frequent than in Domenico’s. Of the sixty-three instances of Bernini’s voice, only six are set in italics.9 The first appears early on in the narrative, when in response to Annibale Carracci’s prophecy about Saint Peter’s, that one day a “prodigious genius will make two great monuments in the middle and at the end of this temple,” Bernini said “Oh, if only I could be the one.” The second example appears two pages later in Baldinucci’s narrative, when, visiting the Villa Borghese with Cardinal Antonio Barberini forty years after sculpting the



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Scipione Borghese busts (see figs. 20 and 21), Bernini encountered his works and exclaimed, “How little progress I have made in the art of sculpture through these long years becomes clear to me when I see that as a boy I handled marble in this manner.” Ten pages later we find the third use of italics in conjunction with the discussion of the Tomb of Urban VIII. To the suggestion made by a person of high rank that the bees on the tomb signify the dispersion of the Barberini family, Bernini replied, “Your Lordship, however, knows well that dispersed bees congregate at the sound of a bell” (fig. 15). The fourth and fifth examples appear almost thirty pages further on when, amazed over Louis XIV’s willingness to pose for an hour, the sculptor exclaimed, “Miracle, miracle that a King so meritorious, youthful, and French should remain immobile for an hour.” And a few lines below Baldinucci relates that while arranging Louis’s hair, Bernini exposed the monarch’s forehead and said, “Your Majesty is a king who must show his forehead to one and all.” The final example occurs eight pages later. When Clement IX nearly dismisses Bernini without a word, the artist, Baldinucci writes, hesitated, and the pope then asked him if there was something he wished. “Forgive me, Holy Father,” Bernini replied, “I am so accustomed to receiving from Your Holiness some word of consolation on leaving that I cannot bring myself to depart without it.”10 The six quotations marked with italics in Baldinucci’s text serve to heighten different themes: showing his youthful ambition and the prophetic fulfillment of his works; demonstrating his intimacy with and devotion to powerful patrons; and underscoring his modesty and self-criticism. But are they any more revealing of Bernini’s character and social status than other of his attributed statements? Why did Baldinucci italicize only these utterances and leave all the others—including many of the most often-cited quotations— typographically undifferentiated within the text?11 Editors of subsequent editions of Baldinucci’s Vita seem to have asked these same questions, for in Samek Ludovici’s 1948 edition of the text and in the English translation by Catherine Enggass, the reader discovers a very different presentation of Bernini’s voice, with nearly every reported speech enclosed by quotation marks.12 Baldinucci may have restricted his use of italics to those quotations for which he had some sort of written evidence, for he seems to have followed this rule elsewhere in his text. All of the fifteen letters he reproduced appear in italics, as do quoted verses (in Latin and Italian), the catalogue of Bernini’s works, and, in the concluding apologia, citations drawn from Carlo Maderno’s plan of Saint Peter’s and from decrees of the Fabbrica di San Pietro. Baldinucci, it seems, used italics in a rather selective way.



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With Domenico’s Vita the situation is very different. Of the eighty-four examples of Bernini’s voice, only fifteen are not italicized.13 There is nothing that distinguishes these typographically undifferentiated statements from the other sixty-nine that are set in italics, either with respect to their content or their form of discourse (direct or indirect). And Domenico introduced them with the same words—diceva, rispose, soleva dire, and similar formulations—that he used for the italicized quotations. But if we are left to guess as to why he chose to not italicize a small portion of his subject’s utterances, it is notable that his use of italics was far more extensive than Baldinucci’s, including most of the quotations that appeared in the earlier Vita without italics (figs. 17 and 18, and compare figs. 16 and 18).14 Italic typeface, based on cancelleresca (chancery script), was first introduced in Italy by Aldo Manuzio in 1501 as a means of printing more words per page (than Roman type allowed) and in imitation of Italian vernacular writing.15 Over the course of the sixteenth century, a variety of publications were set in italics, but when used within a text set in Roman or some other typeface, italics served to highlight certain words or passages, to set them apart from the main body of the text. Thus, for example, foreign words, titles of works, and key terms or names often appear italicized. So, too, do quoted passages, whether from the Bible or other texts. Italics became, in other words, a way to signal a textual borrowing, to mark the presence of an authenticating source within the text.16 This practice led to the italicizing of the spoken word (direct or indirect discourse) within the text, which adapted to the conventions of printing the much older practice of underlining such citations.17 And although by the mid-seventeenth century quotation marks became the dominant typographical method of signaling both borrowed written citations and speech, printers continued to employ italics for these purposes, just as writers continued to indicate speech by underscoring.18 Notwithstanding the differences between them, the fact that the two Bernini vite employ italics to mark their subject’s voice gains significance when viewed in relation to texts known to the authors and their readers. In both the 1550 and 1568 editions of Giorgio Vasari’s Vite, the proemi (prefaces) are set in italics, but within the text only epitaffi, inscriptions, and quoted letters are italicized, never reported speech. In Vasari’s stand-alone Vita del Gran Michelagnolo Buonarroti of 1568 and in Ascanio Condivi’s Vita di Michelagnolo Buonarroti of 1553, Michelangelo’s often-quoted speech remains undifferentiated typographically from the rest of the text. Neither Giovanni Baglione’s Vite of 1642 nor Giovan Pietro Bellori’s Vite of 1672 employ italics for reported speech. In the former italics are reserved for a



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fig. 15 Filippo Baldinucci, Vita del cavaliere Gio. Lorenzo Bernino scultore, architetto, e pittore, scritta da Filippo Baldinucci fiorentino (Florence: Vincenzio Vangelisti,1682), 18.

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fig. 16 Filippo Baldinucci, Vita del cavaliere Gio. Lorenzo Bernino scultore, architetto, e pittore, scritta da Filippo Baldinucci fiorentino (Florence: Vincenzio Vangelisti, 1682), 71.

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fig. 17 Domenico Bernini, Vita del cavalier Gio. Lorenzo Bernino, descritta da Domenico Bernino suo figlio (Rome: Rocco Bernabò,1713), 74.

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fig. 18 Domenico Bernini, Vita del cavalier Gio. Lorenzo Bernino, descritta da Domenico Bernino suo figlio (Rome: Rocco Bernabò, 1713), 134.

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number of quoted verses, portions of the fictitious dialogues between the Gentilhuomo and the Forestiere that introduce each of the main sections of the book, and for the title of each life. In the latter, only Annibale Carracci’s postille to Vasari, quoted letters, and cited verses and other texts appear italicized. And, similarly, in Carlo Cesare Malvasia’s Felsina pittrice of 1678 reported speech is consistently left undifferentiated. The italicizing of Bernini’s words in the two vite thus stands out as an exception within the context of Italian sixteenth- and seventeenth-century lives of artists. As Nicholas Paige observed, “When one reads typography closely, it becomes clear that a series of decisions were being made.”19 These decisions were, of course, purposeful, and in the case of italicizing reported speech in the two Bernini vite the purpose was to distinguish his words from the rest of the text and to emphasize their significance. But it is important to distinguish between the two biographies, in light of the differences noted above. Baldinucci’s more restrictive approach to the use of italics is closer to that of his fellow biographers of artists. Although he did employ italics for six of Bernini’s utterances (and for fourteen quotations of other speakers), he reserved this typeface primarily for cited texts, as, for example, did Bellori and Malvasia. Domenico, in contrast, adopted a more inclusive approach, italicizing 82 percent of Bernini’s words (as well as the majority of the words of other interlocutors). Domenico was not a professional biographer of artists, but he was a Church historian and hagiographer, and his use of italics in the life of his father is, not surprisingly, akin to what one finds in his work as a sacred biographer. Restricting ourselves to one such example, we may cite his Vita del venerabile padre Fr. Giuseppe da Copertino, first published in 1722. As in the biography of Bernini, here, too, Domenico employed italics in a remarkably consistent fashion for the reported speech of his subject, which in some cases runs for several pages. But in the case of Giuseppe da Copertino, for whom Domenico was writing a life intended to foster his subject’s cult and, ultimately, to aid in his eventual canonization, the author also used quotation marks extensively when citing words that would support this cause (such as attestations of Giuseppe’s sanctity — drawn from processi (legal proceedings)— and prayers and spiritual songs composed by his subject), and referenced his sources in marginal citations.20 It was a far more elaborate scholarly apparatus than the one he used in Bernini’s Vita, but it points to Domenico’s approach to his father’s biography as an historian and hagiographer. For the sacred biographer, especially, the reported speech of his subject took on a special, authoritative significance, as did the speech of others attesting to



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the subject’s sanctity. Quotations—typographically distinguished—were, therefore, considerably more important to the hagiographer than to biographers of artists.

chantelou’s journal: “a record of what he said” Since its discovery in the late nineteenth century, the importance of Chantelou’s Journal de voyage du Cavalier Bernin en France has always been recognized. Julius von Schlosser called it “a contemporary source of the very first order, and more than anything else immediate.” Howard Hibbard wrote that Chantelou’s “report of the visit is factual and impartial; its constant fascination is its revelation of the mind of Bernini speaking directly and honestly.” And more recently Charles Avery dubbed it a “document of major importance” in which “Bernini’s carefully recorded conversations with Chantelou . . . contain an enlightening series of comments.”21 For those interested in Bernini’s voice, Chantelou’s Journal is an unparalleled text, providing the richest gathering of the artist’s anecdotes, statements, and bon mots among all the Bernini sources. Chantelou himself called his Journal “a record of what he [Bernini] said,”22 and as the comments just quoted demonstrate, its seemingly faithful record of Bernini’s voice is one of its most enduring contributions. But how, exactly, is his voice figured in the diary? What is the relationship between the artist’s voice in the diary and his voice in the two vite? And, most importantly, is the Journal as immediate and as faithful a record of Bernini’s words as scholars have always assumed? As Milovan Stanic´ and Daniela del Pesco have recently argued, Chantelou most likely undertook the writing of the Journal at the behest of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, as a record of an affair of state, much like the same author’s Mémoire du traitement fait par la maison du roi à M. le cardinal Chigi, which documented Flavio Chigi’s legation to Paris in 1664.23 As a representative of the pope, Bernini was an “official” visitor, and the Journal was conceived, at least initially, as an official chronicle intended for a select group of readers. Several years after Bernini’s departure from Paris, however, in the early 1670s, Chantelou returned to the Journal, editing and adding to the text, with the intention of making it a more public document that would bolster his position at court.24 Essential to both the private and more public functions of the diary was the recording of what Bernini and those he encountered had to say, perhaps especially in regard to aesthetic matters, which were being vehemently debated within court circles at the



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time.25 Consequently, as Cecil Gould noted, Chantelou’s text reports what Bernini (and his interlocutors) said in great detail, in many instances recording Bernini’s words in Italian, and at other times translating them into direct speech in French.26 In the original manuscript of the Journal in the Bibliothèque de l’Institut de France, Bernini’s statements, when they appear in Italian, are underlined — the equivalent to the italics we encounter in the vite and to their italicized form as they are reproduced in most published editions of the text.27 One of the most striking aspects of Bernini’s voice as documented by the pen of Chantelou is the extent to which it corresponds to his voice in the vite. Indeed, many of his anecdotes, theoretical reflections, and comments about his aesthetic preferences and working method that appear in the Journal reappear, with striking similarity, in his biographies. As neither Baldinucci nor Domenico Bernini are likely to have read Chantelou’s diary, the correspondence between the anecdotes and other passages in the three texts suggests that Bernini himself was the source, relating his stories to his French guide and, later in Rome, once the biographical campaign was underway, repeating them to his sons.28 This does not mean, of course, that all the stories are true. As Cesare D’Onofrio first argued, many of the anecdotes, especially those illustrating Bernini’s extraordinary precocity, are of dubious authenticity, and appear to have been crafted by the artist himself as part of his “automitografia.”29 Chantelou records one such example in his entry for 5 August 1665. Bernini, Chantelou writes, told Colbert that at the age of eight [he] had done a head of Saint John which was presented to Paul V by his chamberlain. His Holiness could not believe that he had done it and asked if he would draw a head in his presence. He agreed and pen and paper were sent for. When he was ready to begin he asked His Holiness what head he wished him to draw. At that the Pope realized that it was really the boy who had done the Saint John, for he believed he would draw some conventional head. He asked him to draw a head of Saint Paul, which he did there and then.30 As recounted by Baldinucci, this encounter took place when the artist was ten, and rather than following upon a presentation of a head of Saint John, it was occasioned by the Santoni bust, which prompted Paul V to request a meeting with the young artist. “He had him brought before him and asked



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him in jest, if he could sketch a head. Gian Lorenzo in reply asked him which head he wished. ‘If this is the case,’ the Pope remarked, ‘you know how to do everything,’ and ordered him to sketch a Saint Paul. This he did to perfection with free bold strokes in a half an hour to the keen delight and marvel of the Pope.”31 Domenico also recounts that this event took place when the artist was ten, immediately after the Bernini family’s arrival in Rome. But in contrast to Chantelou’s and Baldinucci’s accounts, here no particular work incited the pope to summon the young prodigy. It was, rather, Scipione Borghese, who, having heard of the youth’s reputation, commanded his father, Pietro, to deliver him to the papal palace. The Pontiff . . . wished to try the courage of the boy by affecting terribleness and, facing him, he commanded in grave tones that there, in his presence, he should draw a head. Gian Lorenzo picked up the pen with confidence, and smoothed the paper over the little table of the Pope himself. Beginning to make the first line, he stopped, somewhat uncertain and then, bowing his head modestly to the Pontiff, requested of him “what head he wished, of a man or a woman, if young or old, and if one of these, with what expression he wished it, whether sad or cheerful, scornful or agreeable?” “If this is so,” the Pope now added, “you know how to do everything.” And he ordered him to make a head of Saint Paul. With a few strokes of the pen and with an admirable boldness of hand he completed it with such mastery that the Pope was lost in wonder.32 Notwithstanding the discrepancy in the date of the encounter and the variations in its details, the concordance in the telling of this anecdote is remarkable. Yet tracking the story from one text to the next and paying close attention to the changes in its telling also reveal how it took on increasing texture and varied significance — from proving Bernini’s authorship of the head of Saint John (Chantelou) to evidencing his mastery of disegno and the fact that he knew “how to do everything” (Baldinucci and Domenico); from demonstrating the young artist’s ability to draw a specific head (Chantelou and Baldinucci) to attesting to Bernini’s complete command of affetti (Domenico); and from eliciting no response from the pope (Chantelou) to delighting the pontiff (Baldinucci) and, ultimately, to leaving him in “wonder” (Domenico). A number of anecdotes about portrait sculpture, in which Bernini’s voice figures prominently, are also common to the three texts. One concerns



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the bust of Pedro de Foix Montoya, which appears with only slight variations in the comments uttered by the prelates who gathered to see it, and where the bust was viewed.33 Here we confront what appears to be one of Bernini’s most beloved stories, for it served to reveal the uncanny vivacità of his portraits, their ability to “stupefy” the beholder. The story of the Baker bust—for which Bernini was handsomely paid—is another, which serves as an example of the demand for his portraits and the extent to which patrons would pay extraordinarily high sums for his work.34 A third concerns Bernini’s use of preliminary drawings (or models) when making a portrait, which appears in the three texts in relation to the bust of Louis XIV (see fig. 25). In Chantelou Bernini states that the drawings served only “to soak and impregnate his mind with the image of the King,” for if he relied on the drawings when carving the marble, “he would have made a copy instead of an original.” Baldinucci and Domenico, in turn, quote Bernini as stating “that the models served to introduce into his mind the features” of the king, “but once they had been envisaged and it was time to make them manifest, the models were no longer necessary, indeed, they impeded his goal, which was to create a likeness of reality rather than a likeness of the models” (see figs. 16 and 18).35 And a fourth portraiture anecdote, again apparently one of Bernini’s favorites, addresses the paragone and the challenge of achieving a likeness in sculpture, which lacks the colors of painting. The fullest account appears in Chantelou’s Journal, but all three contain a version of Bernini’s observation that a man who covers his face in white no longer looks like himself.36 Bernini’s professed dissatisfaction with his finished works — for their failure to live up to the nobility of his idea — is repeated by Chantelou, Baldinucci, and Domenico.37 So, too, are his claim that as a youth he handled marble with extraordinary confidence,38 and his assertion that the ability to overcome difficulty, or to make do with little, is the greatest measure of a man.39 And Bernini’s familiar modesty formula — my “least bad work”—is found in each of the three texts, but, interestingly, in reference to different projects. In Chantelou he calls his bust of Louis XIV “the least bad portrait he had done;” in Baldinucci he is quoted as calling the Scala Regia “the least bad thing he had ever done;” and Domenico quotes him as referring to the Saint Teresa as “the least bad work that he had done.”40 One last example may also be cited —Bernini’s anecdote about the Pasquino. In Chantelou we read that “The Nuncio . . . asked the Cavaliere which was his favorite ancient statue. He replied that it was the Pasquino, and said that he once expressed his opinion to a cardinal who had asked



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him the same thing; he had thought he was laughing at him and had been quite offended.” As recounted by Baldinucci and Domenico (with only minor variations between them), “Bernini was the first in Rome to place the Pasquino highest. He told of one time being asked by someone from beyond the Alps which was the most beautiful statue in Rome, and that when he responded, the Pasquino, the foreigner thought he was mocking him.”41 That in Chantelou the questioner is identified as a “cardinal” instead of as “someone from beyond the Alps,” as the biographers recorded, may be taken as an effort on Bernini’s part not to offend his northern hosts. But the point of the story, in all three texts, is to emphasize Bernini’s unique ability to recognize beauty, even in a mutilated statue; and Chantelou and Baldinucci add to their telling of the anecdote Bernini’s assertion that the unique qualities of the Pasquino could only be perceived by “experts” or a “great man”—a claim Bernini was obviously making for himself. No less significant—with respect to Bernini’s voice—than the concordances among the three texts are the discontinuities among them. One such example of discontinuity, of particular interest, concerns the roles played by Annibale Carracci and Michelangelo in the artist’s anecdotes. In Chantelou’s Journal we find numerous references to Bernini’s enthusiastic response to paintings by (or attributed to) Annibale. On one occasion, when shown copies of the Farnese Gallery, he remarked, “It is a marvel. I have seen the originals hundreds of times, and yet I derive great pleasure from looking at these; it is the effect of excellence.”42 More significantly, however, the diary contains fifteen passages about the painter, or, more precisely, fifteen passages in which Bernini speaks about Annibale’s greatness or quotes his opinions and statements. On 5 July “he gave the highest praise to Annibale Carracci,” Chantelou writes, “saying that he had combined the grace and draftsmanship of Raphael, the knowledge and anatomical science of Michelangelo, the nobility of Correggio and his master’s manner of painting, the coloring of Titian, the fertile imagination of Giulio Romano and Andrea Mantegna.”43 On 10 and 12 October, Bernini stated, according to the diarist, that if Annibale had been Raphael’s contemporary, he would have been a “source of jealousy” and “have given him cause for worry.”44 Bernini cites Annibale as the authority on all kinds of artistic issues, from the posing of models, rules of perspective and appropriate illusionism for ceiling paintings, and the need to expose one’s work to the public so as to receive honest criticism to who is a fitting recipient of artistic advice, proper human proportions, “tight” versus “broad” handling, and



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frescoes being the true measure of a painter’s skill.45 And on two occasions Bernini is quoted by Chantelou as saying that Annibale had “un cervellone grande” (a great big brain).46 In the Journal, in other words, Annibale is cast as Bernini’s virtual alter ego, as his authority, spokesman, and mentor. Despite the fact that at the time of Annibale’s death in 1609 Bernini was not yet eleven, as presented in Chantelou’s diary he had met the Bolognese painter on several occasions, heard him speak, was observed by him while drawing, and received his counsel. Annibale appears in the diary as the central figure of Bernini’s youth, in essence his teacher, whose words and opinions he could quote verbatim after more than fifty years.47 Perhaps the most surprising aspect of Annibale’s role in Chantelou’s diary is the way Bernini used the painter to criticize Michelangelo. On two separate occasions Chantelou records an anecdote, related by Bernini, about Michelangelo’s Risen Christ in Santa Maria sopra Minerva. In the entry for 25 June we read: He recalled another story about Michelangelo and his work. One day Annibale Carracci went to S. Maria sopra Minerva with some pupils from his school. One of them was a Florentine and always singing the praises of his compatriots. He said to him, “Well, Signor Annibale, what do you say to this statue of Christ?” “Caspita,” exclaimed Annibale and, turning to the assembled company, said, “It is by Michelangelo; look well at its beauty, but to understand it thoroughly you must realize how bodies were constructed at that time,” in this way making fun of Michelangelo, whose style did not imitate nature.48 Almost two months later, on 21 August, Chantelou recorded the following: They [Bernini and M. de La Vrillière, the secretary of state] talked about sculpture; on the subject of the bust [of the king] the Cavaliere repeated what he had said many times, that Michelangelo never wanted to undertake a portrait; he was a great man, a great sculptor, and architect; nevertheless, he had more art than grace, and for that reason had not equaled the artists of antiquity; he had concerned himself chiefly with anatomy, like a surgeon; it was this that caused Annibale Carracci . . . to jest about his Christ in the Sopra Minerva, and then he repeated various remarks that have already been recorded elsewhere in this journal.49



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Beyond his appearing in these two anecdotes, Michelangelo occupies a conspicuous place in the Journal among Bernini’s remarks. Throughout the diary we find Bernini recounting stories about him, reciting verses about his statue of La Notte, and citing his views on art.50 We also find him repeatedly voicing his words, confirming Charles Perrault’s comment that “he very often quoted Michelangelo, and was almost continually heard to say: ‘si comme diceva il Michael Angelo Bonarotta.’”51 But for all of these citations (which evidence his familiarity with Vasari’s life of the artist), and notwithstanding certain words of praise, Bernini—as Chantelou presents him—was a severe critic of Michelangelo as well.52 He faulted him for the meager number of statues he produced in his lifetime, stating that he “had done only nine or ten, of which some were unfinished,” despite his having “lived to be ninety-two,”53 and more than once he derided Michelangelo for his reluctance to carve portrait busts.54 His harshest judgment, however, concerned Michelangelo’s inability to make his statues flesh-like and natural. This is apparent in the Risen Christ anecdotes, in which, through the mouth of Annibale, he ridiculed the figure’s over-zealous and unnatural musculature. “He had more art than grace,” Bernini quotes Annibale as declaring, meaning that while Michelangelo knew the rules of art, in this case anatomy, he lacked the ability to transcend them and to endow his figures with the more essential delicacy and proportions found in works of antiquity.55 Indeed, on 2 October, according to Chantelou, Bernini made this same point when he was shown an ancient torso of a Venus. “Anyone with a tendency,” he records the artist as saying, “to be puffed up should look at that torso to cure himself of vanity. All of us must be filled with humility in front of it; even Michelangelo could not approach its perfection.” When the diarist then commented that Michelangelo “lacked talent where the female form was concerned”— a criticism he had made once before—Bernini added “Also in making his works flesh-like.”56 On another occasion Bernini is quoted as stating that “in sculpture and painting he [Michelangelo] had not the gift of making creatures of flesh and blood, and they were beautiful and remarkable only for their anatomy.”57 And echoes of this criticism can be heard in another anecdote, of 11 October, when Bernini “told us that he had been advised by Annibale Carracci when he was a youngster, to copy Michelangelo’s Last Judgment for at least two years to learn the sequence of the muscles.”58 When we turn to the vite we find a very different presentation of the roles played by Annibale Carracci and Michelangelo, with respect to their relative importance to Bernini and to the frequency with which they are



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cited. According to Baldinucci and Domenico, Bernini stated that Annibale was the fourth-best painter, after Raphael, Correggio, and Titian, far from the “highest praise” for the Bolognese painter that Chantelou records.59 Beyond this mention of Annibale, there are only two others in Baldinucci’s Vita and three in Domenico’s. In the former, the first mention appears in the often-cited anecdote of prophecy, in which Bernini, as a young boy, was visiting Saint Peter’s in the company of Annibale and other masters. As they were leaving the church, that great master, turning toward the tribune, said, “Believe me, the day will come, when, no one knows, that a prodigious genius will make two great monuments in the middle and at the end of this temple on a scale in keeping with the vastness of the building.” That was enough to set Bernini afire with desire to execute them himself and, not being able to restrain his inner impulse, he said in heartfelt words, “Oh, if only I could be the one.” Thus, unconsciously, he interpreted Annibale’s prophecy and later brought it to pass.60 Baldinucci’s second reference to Annibale is a brief follow-up to the first when, later in his narrative, he describes the Cathedra Petri as a “fulfillment of the prophecy of Annibale Carracci.”61 Domenico tells the same story about the prophecy of Annibale and its fulfillment, employing almost exactly the same language—and quotations—as we read in Baldinucci.62 Annibale appears one additional time in Domenico’s Vita, in the role of knowing judge of Bernini’s youthful brilliance. Early on in his narrative he discusses the artist’s earliest works, a “marble head in the Church of S. Potenziana, and other small statues,” made, the author claims, when the artist was only ten. “And all appeared so masterfully executed,” Domenico writes, “that the celebrated Annibale Carracci, having seen some of them, said that ‘He, in his youth, had arrived in art where others could only boast of reaching in their old age.’”63 References to Michelangelo in the vite are only slightly more numerous, with five in Baldinucci’s text and four in Domenico’s. At the very beginning of his narrative Baldinucci establishes the Michelangelo-Bernini comparison, writing that “thanks to Bernini,” the most noble arts of painting, sculpture, and architecture were “maintained in rightful possession of their ancient dignity to which they were restored by the never sufficiently praised Michelangelo.”64 This is soon followed by an account of Bernini’s early studies in Rome “of the most praiseworthy works, above all those of



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the great Michelangelo and Raphael.”65 Then we encounter the anecdote about the drawing of a head of Saint Paul, which concludes with Paul V’s wishful prophecy, “We hope that this youth will become the Michelangelo of his century.”66 Several pages later, at the beginning of his account of Urban VIII’s pontificate, Baldinucci writes that the “pope had conceived the lofty ambition that in his pontificate Rome would produce another Michelangelo,” the rhetorical counterpart to Paul V’s prophecy.67 And near the end of his Vita we encounter the final reference, one that contradicts what we read in Chantelou concerning Michelangelo’s lack of naturalism and, by extension, grace: “Bernini wanted his students to love that which was most beautiful in nature. He said that the whole point of art consisted in knowing, recognizing, and finding it. He, therefore, did not accept the thesis of those who stated that Michelangelo and the ancient masters of Greece and Rome had added a certain grace to their work which is not found in the natural world.”68 In Domenico’s biography, we first encounter Michelangelo in Paul V’s prophecy, which, as in Baldinucci’s text, follows the anecdote about the drawing of a head of Saint Paul. Now, however, the prophecy is cast not as a hopeful, but as a definitive statement: “This youth will be the Michelangelo of his age.”69 Just two pages later, Paul V reiterates his prophecy, declaring “that he would be the Michelangelo of his age.”70 Domenico then invokes Michelangelo as Bernini’s coequal with respect to their appreciation of ancient statuary, writing that he carefully studied the Belvedere Torso and the Pasquino, “the former recognized by Buonarroti as his master, the latter by Bernini.”71 And the last reference, which parallels one of Baldinucci’s, concerns Bernini’s study of paintings, especially “the Stanze and Logge by Raphael, [and] the Last Judgment by Buonarroti.”72 Although the references to Michelangelo in the vite are few in number, and occur largely outside of Bernini’s voice, his presence is felt throughout the biographies. As Catherine Soussloff (among others) has shown with great clarity, he serves as the praiseworthy example, as a master of all the arts whom Bernini would emulate, equal, and even surpass.73 Notwithstanding the fact that both biographers cast Bernini as a singular man and artist, virtually self-taught, and comparable only to himself, Michelangelo figures in the vite explicitly and implicitly as Bernini’s teacher and alter ego (as Levy discusses in her essay). What we find in the biographies, in other words, is the antithesis of what we find in the Journal. Whereas in the former Michelangelo receives the highest praise, in the latter it is Annibale who is held up as the most authoritative and praiseworthy model. And in contrast



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to the vite, in which Bernini is presented as the new Michelangelo, in the Journal Bernini seems to present himself as Annibale’s heir and successor. What accounts for this discrepancy, this lack of continuity between Chantelou’s diary and the biographies? It has been suggested that during his stay in Paris Bernini simply told his audience what he thought they wanted to hear, tailoring his judgments and opinions to the classicizing views of his hosts.74 According to this argument he lauded above all others Annibale, whom the French considered to rank among the greatest modern masters, and criticized Michelangelo, whose reputation was being attacked.75 André Félibien, for example, who would begin publishing his Entretiens sur les vies et sur les ouvrages des plus excellents peintres anciens et modernes in 1666, presented Annibale as Raphael’s heir, an unequalled synthesis of the greatest aspects of Renaissance painting, an excellent colorist, and a master of expression and design.76 Moreover, one of Annibale’s most ardent champions was Chantelou’s brother, Roland Fréart de Chambray, who also stood at the forefront of the campaign against Michelangelo. In his Idée de la Perfection de la Peinture of 1662, Chambray called the Florentine a dangerous model to follow, the “adversary of ancient painters,” whose work, particularly his paintings, displayed far too much license and broke too many rules. “One could say in truth,” Chambray wrote, “that [he] is the Evil Angel of Painting,” a judgment seconded a few years later by Félibien.77 While it is not inconceivable that Bernini adapted his comments on Annibale and Michelangelo to accord with the views of his French hosts, the question remains: Why would he have belied his true feelings with respect to Annibale and Michelangelo and yet made no attempt to conceal his genuine opinions about virtually everything else, openly criticizing the vast majority of the works he encountered? A more plausible explanation, I would argue, is that it was not Bernini who was responsible for the proAnnibale/anti-Michelangelo slant in the Journal, but, rather, its author, Chantelou. This is to say that the diary was (as noted earlier) a motivated text, intended, as Del Pesco has demonstrated, to document an affair of state and, as it progressed, to serve as a vehicle for Chantelou and his brother to articulate their position within the aesthetic debates of the day and to gain Colbert’s support.78 That position was a rigorously classicizing one, upholding the authority of ancient art and promoting, among modern artists, Raphael, Annibale, and Poussin. To achieve this end, Chantelou, it seems, presented a Bernini who reinforced his own aesthetic beliefs, recording those statements that helped his cause, omitting those that did not, and, it is not unreasonable to presume, altering some of them so as to



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make the authoritative artist appear to be in accord with the position of the brothers Fréart.79 Thus we hear Bernini criticizing Michelangelo (through his own voice and that of Annibale) and singing the praises of Annibale. In the Journal we encounter a Bernini who nearly swoons in front of the works of Poussin —“the greatest and most learned painter of all time,” according to Chantelou—but who is not even mentioned by Bernini’s biographers as an artist he admired.80 The diarist also appears to have been selective in what he chose to record. It is highly unlikely, for example, that Bernini never saw Rubens’s Medici cycle in the Palais du Luxembourg, for he visited the palace twice, as Chantelou records, even noting (about the first visit) that “the Cavaliere went into the Luxembourg . . . [and] looked at it very carefully.” Might Chantelou have suppressed any positive comments Bernini made about the Flemish artist’s works, given the raging querelle between the Rubenistes and Poussinistes?81 In light of these considerations, the Journal may not be the factual and impartial record of Bernini’s voice that scholars have assumed it to be. Notwithstanding the many instances of his voice that appear to be genuine and unmediated, many of his recorded statements may well owe more to Chantelou than to Bernini.82 The same argument can be made for the vite as well. During the early years of the 1670s, when the effort — led by Pier Filippo — to produce a biography of Bernini got underway, the question as to which artist could best serve as Bernini’s exemplary model was still to be determined. A number of events appear to have helped determine who that model would be. In 1672 Giovan Pietro Bellori published his Le vite de’ pittori, scultori e architetti moderni—dedicated to Colbert—in which he glorified Annibale as the savior of art and the greatest painter ever to have lived.83 Moreover, modern sculpture, Bellori claimed, lagged far behind painting, and modern sculptors — including Michelangelo — paled in comparison to the ancients. Although he included the lives of two sculptors, Alessandro Algardi and François Duquesnoy, his praise for them was limited and, with respect to the latter, his accomplishments were largely credited to the guidance of Poussin.84 Most offensive of all, he omitted a life of Bernini, and even when discussing the Baldacchino and the Longinus he failed to mention Bernini’s name. Two years later, in 1674, with Bernini’s equestrian statue of Louis XIV still unfinished, Colbert cut off the sculptor’s pension, an additional French slap in the face after the failure of the Louvre project. That same year busts of Raphael and Annibale were placed in the Pantheon, after a campaign led by Bellori and Carlo Maratta.85 Annibale had been apotheosized, a classicism antithetical to Bernini had become the



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dernier cri, French cultural hegemony had been established, and sculpture —Bernini’s preferred art —had been denigrated. Thus, at the moment that Bernini’s biographers needed to identify their subject with a worthy alter ego, Annibale, who had come to be identified with all that was opposed to Bernini, would not do. An alternative had to be found. But it was an easy choice: Michelangelo Buonarroti, the artist to whom Bernini had, since the days of Urban VIII, been compared, who had come to be reviled by the French, and who, like Bernini, was a master of painting, architecture, and especially sculpture, had served numerous popes, and had brought glory to Rome. Bernini’s biographers virtually expunged Annibale from the vite, except when his authority served their needs, and they included not a single anecdote in which a criticism of Michelangelo was voiced. Most significantly, the prophecy of Paul V, that Bernini would be the Michelangelo of his age—which is conspicuously absent from Chantelou’s Journal—became the pivotal moment in their telling of the story of Bernini’s life.

the vite as autobiographical texts From the time the biographical campaign got underway in the early 1670s until his death in 1680, Bernini appears to have been personally involved in the creation of his life’s narrative. He provided his sons with a range of documentary material, which they, in turn, passed on to Baldinucci. He may also have given them guidance about what should be emphasized in or omitted from the story of his life. And as a living presence in his sons’ lives, he also furnished them (although not Baldinucci, whom he never met) with his voice, anecdotes and reflections that animate the vite and signal his virtual presence throughout the texts. Given Bernini’s involvement in the construction of his biography (or, at the very least, as its knowing subject), it is tempting to conclude—as Montanari does in his essay in this volume—that the vite should be considered autobiographical. As such they would be akin to Ascanio Condivi’s biography of Michelangelo, a text rich in direct-recorded speech, which Karl Frey and many other scholars have viewed as Michelangelo’s “autobiography.”86 Just as Condivi’s biography was composed at Michelangelo’s own directive, was intended to present the artist’s own (apologetic) record of his past, and was based on the artist’s information and quotations, so—according to this argument —Bernini’s Vita was written at his behest, on the basis of his



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memories and quotations, in order to defend him(self ) against his critics and to set the record straight. There is no question that Bernini was a highly self-conscious artist who was deeply concerned with his reputation and what we today call “image.” Chantelou, in fact, quotes him as saying that “he owed all his reputation to his star, which caused him to be famous in his lifetime, [but] that when he died its ascendancy would no longer be active and his reputation would decline or fall suddenly.”87 That Bernini would have undertaken an autobiographical project is thus not hard to imagine—all the more so in light of the fact that two individuals with whom he shared close ties, Christina of Sweden and Alexander VII, both penned autobiographical texts.88 But two inescapable facts remain: Bernini was not a writer, per se, and seems not to have thought of defining himself in literary form; and the authors of the two vite are not the same as their subjects; therefore, the two texts do not conform to the standard definition of an autobiography. How, then, might they be considered autobiographical accounts, if at all? As many theorists of the genre of autobiography have demonstrated, biographical and autobiographical writing are at times so closely related as to dissolve the distinctions between them. Such is the case when a biographer entirely adopts the image that the subject has of him/herself, resulting in what Philippe Lejeune has termed “collaborative autobiography.” Although “the exercise of memory and the exercise of writing are ensured by different people,” Lejeune writes, “collaboration blurs in a disturbing way the question of responsibility.”89 The result is a text intermediate between autobiography and biography, which presents “the image of [a] life floating in the memory and spoken word” of the subject.90 Similarly, Andrea Battistini has pointed to that special instance of a biography of a living person— what he calls an “authorized biography”—which is overseen and guided by the subject to such an extent that it renders the text a “sort of autobiography in the third person, written with the mediation of an actual narrator.”91 In many respects Bernini’s vite can be seen as meeting Lejeune and Battistini’s definitions. But while they contain what we might call a strong autobiographical register, the many differences between them (as noted in the Prolegomena and in many of the essays in this volume)—with respect to their structure, emphases, and presentation of Bernini’s reported speech—point to a more decisive role played by their authors than by their subject in their conception—and, of course, their writing—and militate against their being considered autobiographical texts in any true sense of the term. As Lejeune has written, “We are coming closer to biography if the



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intervention is critical and creative, or rather to autobiography if it tries simply to relay the model [i.e., subject] by discreetly effacing itself.”92 A close reading of the biographies, in fact, reveals that neither Baldinucci nor Domenico served merely as Bernini’s amanuensis. Rather, they made critical and creative choices about what to present and how to present it, and it is through a consideration of their use of their subject’s voice that we can gain another perspective on their role as writers of biography. When Baldinucci and Domenico wrote their narratives, their goal as authors was to present their subject as vividly as possible. Baldinucci relates in his “Protesta dell’Autore” that his aim was to make Bernini’s deeds “come to life again” for the reader, while Domenico expresses his hope that through his book Bernini will “live again” for those to whom he is lost.93 As professional writers, both of them knew that one essential way to achieve vividness (and the effect of truth) in their biographies was by employing the rhetorical device of enargeia (evidentia, in Latin).94 This term, which means clarity and palpability, figures prominently among ancient writers, including Quintilian, who in his Institutio Oratoria defines it as “the vividness which makes the hearer feel that he is seeing what is described.” “As to vividness,” he continues, “it is . . . undoubtedly an important virtue of narrative, when a truth requires not only to be told but in a sense to be presented to the sight . . . [but] it is more than mere perspicuity, since instead of being transparent it somehow shows itself off.”95 Enargeia was not, however, considered a device exclusive to orators; as Agostino Mascardi makes clear in his Dell’arte historica (1636), it was deemed essential to historical writing as well. “It is a virtue,” he declares, “appropriate and necessary to the historian, for without it his writings will be formed imperfectly and deficiently.” Its value to history, Mascardi tells us, “is for amplification [in the rhetorical sense], and for moving the emotions.” It makes things more vivid to readers and, therefore, “the prudent writer of history should put all possible effort into illuminating his compositions with enargeia.”96 Closely related to enargeia—what can be considered its equivalent, as Carlo Ginzburg has argued—is the use of quotations.97 Quoting the words or speeches of a historical subject renders him distinct and palpable, allowing the reader to hear his voice in a way parallel to enargeia’s ability to make the listener see what he is hearing. Like enargeia, the quotation amplifies the narrative, exemplifying and expanding a point, and just as classical historians strove to vivify what they were saying by using enargeia, so early modern historians—including biographers—used quotations to enliven



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their arguments. Perhaps most importantly, just as enargeia was regarded as a guarantee of historical truth,98 so the quotation was seen as authenticating what the historian claimed. Mascardi does not go so far as to make this comparison between enargeia and quotations, but he discusses at length the appropriateness and necessity of citing the words of great men in order to provide the verisimilitude and vivacity that was the goal of enargeia.99 Quotations, he argues, have their rightful place in historical writing. They can help to prove a point or serve as ornaments for display, convincing by reason or delighting by artifice. And the reader, he states, when encountering the quotation, sees how the historian “elevates his speech, freeing himself from the simplicity of narration, [and] moves with the rhetoricians to the use of figures.”100 This observation, underscoring the way the quotation stands out from the narrative, closely corresponds to Quintilian’s claim for enargeia, that “instead of being transparent it somehow shows itself off.” Quotations are, in fact, figures (in the rhetorical sense of the term), which, as John Lyons has observed, call attention to themselves by lying outside of and interrupting the discourse through a shift in enunciation and, in most instances, by being announced by lexical clues (such as “he said,” “he responded”), which indicate a change in speaker, and by the use of quotation marks or italics.101 What I am arguing is that Baldinucci and Domenico used Bernini’s voice as a rhetorical device to achieve enargeia, as a means to heighten their biographical accounts. His utterances, of whatever kind, animate the texts, making Bernini seem present to the reader. Instead of simply reading that he encountered a certain individual or held a certain opinion, we “hear” his own words, which makes him come alive, authenticating the authors’ narratives. As I have shown in the first part of this paper, Baldinucci and even more so Domenico emphasized the voice of their subject in an unprecedented way among sixteenth- and seventeenth-century lives of artists. But if the two biographies stand apart from the genre of artistic biography in their use of quotations, they share a great deal with seventeenth-century biographies of mystics and other religious figures in which the “cult of the voice,” as Philippe-Joseph Salazar has called it, is manifest.102 In this genre of life writing — the focus of a brilliant book by Nicholas Paige —biographers promised, as he puts it, “to make the oracle-like subject speak to us.”103 Reported speech and written biographical sources became “quasifetishistic substitutes for the deceased,” providing a “window onto the interior of the subject.”104 As a rule, the subject’s speech is distinguished in these texts typographically or by way of a discursive framing device, so as to



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emphasize the presence of the authenticating voice, to make it visible and audible to the reader. Most significantly, as the century progressed quotations, viewed as first-person autobiographical testimony, became the dominant element in the texts, to the extent that the role of the authors as authors was effaced. This is to say, the biographers of these texts increasingly attempted to make it seem that their accounts flowed directly from the mouths of their subjects, and by minimizing a sense of their own intervention they staked a claim for the authenticity and authority of their accounts. “Ultimately,” Paige writes, “the biographer is seen . . . not as a guarantor of meaning and trustworthiness; his presence is superfluous.”105 The boundary between biography and autobiography was thus blurred, with the biographical subject appearing as the autobiographical subject. Baldinucci’s Vita, as we have seen, includes fewer instances of Bernini’s voice than does Domenico’s, and the use of italics to mark the subject’s speech is considerably more prevalent in the latter text as well. Earlier I suggested that these differences might be explained by the authors’ respective professional identities, Baldinucci’s as a biographer of artists and an art critic, Domenico’s as a Church historian and hagiographer. This explanation takes on greater force, I believe, in light of the foregoing discussion of religious biographies, for Domenico’s privileging of his father’s voice closely parallels what we find in seventeenth-century lives of religious figures, albeit not to the extent of effacing his role as author of the life. It may also be posited that as Baldinucci’s vita was published within two years of Bernini’s death, when the artist’s memory was still fresh in the minds of his readers, the need to focus on Gianlorenzo’s reported speech, to make it serve as a relic of the deceased artist, was not as great as it was for Domenico, whose Vita appeared more than thirty years after his death.106 For Domenico it was more essential to give emphasis to Bernini’s speech, as a surrogate for the now long-dead artist, and to make him “live again.” In reading the Bernini biographies, then, in spite of the almost palpable presence of Bernini encountered through the repeated transcription of his voice, and notwithstanding what is known about his role in their creation, what exists here are not autobiographical texts, but the work of Baldinucci and Domenico. Like Chantelou, they wrote their accounts with specific goals in mind, framing, re-framing, and perhaps altering or even inventing his words as they saw fit. Whether or not the words they quote in their texts were actually uttered by Bernini is not the issue; the reader believes them to be true and thus they convince us of the texts’ fidelity to the life whose story they tell.107



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notes 1. D’Onofrio, “Note berniniane 2: Priorità,” 208. Chantelou/Stanic´, 86; Chantelou/Blunt, 75. 2. Hibbard, Bernini, 24. 3. Scribner, Gianlorenzo Bernini, 9. 4. Montanari, “Bernini e Cristina di Svezia,” 425. 5. Bauer, introduction to Bernini in Perspective, 3. 6. Excluding the front matter (table of contents, dedication, and portrait) and the nine engravings, Baldinucci’s text runs 111 pages; the narrative from 1 to 82, the apologia from 82 to 102, the catalogue of works from 103 to 108, and the “Protesta dell’Autore” from 109 to 111. My calculations are based solely on the 82-page narrative of the life. 7. Domenico’s text spans 180 pages, excluding front-matter and index. 8. On the history of quotation marks, see McMurtie, “Origin and Development of the Marks of Quotation”; McMurtie, Concerning Quotation Marks; Mitchell, “Quotation Marks”; Kluge, “Funktionen der Anführungszeichen.” 9. Other instances of quotations being italicized are: Paul V (twice), Annibale Carracci, an unnamed prelate, Cardinal Maffeo Barberini, Urban VIII (twice), an unnamed person, Charles I, Thomas Baker, Innocent X (twice), and Clement IX (twice). See FB, 4, 5, 6, 10, 13, 18, 19, 31, 34, 55, 56. As this distribution demonstrates, the frequency of italicized reported speech drops off dramatically after the first quarter of the text. 10. FB, 6, 8, 18, 47, 55; FB-1948, 76, 77, 88, 119, 129; FB-1966/2006, 11, 12, 22, 53, 63. 11. It is unclear who made decisions about typography, the author or the publisher, in this case Vincenzio Vangelisti. Presumably, passages Baldinucci wanted to be set in italics would have been underlined in his hand-written manuscript. 12. See note 10 above and FB-1948; FB-1966/2006, passim. 13. DB, 12 –13, 13, 26, 29, 29 –30, 30, 32, 111, 131, 132, 133, 133–34, 177, 179. 14. Also set in italics are the publisher’s letter to readers, the author’s letter to readers, the table of contents, the brief summaries of each chapter’s contents, verses (in Italian and Latin), the sixteen transcribed letters, and the vast majority of the quotations by Bernini’s interlocutors, including Alexander VII, Paul V, Annibale Carracci, Urban VIII, Scipione Borghese, Sforza Pallavicino, Gian Paolo Oliva, Charles I, Innocent X, Queen Christina, and Louis XIV. 15. See Chappell, Short History of the Printed Word, 85; Balsamo and Tinto, Origini del corsivo, passim. 16. Mitchell, “Quotation Marks,” 361– 62; Loewenstein, “Idem: Italics and the Genetics of Authorship”; Paige, Being Interior, 87. 17. Mitchell, “Quotation Marks,” 362. 18. For an example of the continued use of underlining to indicate speech, see Ostrow, “Gianlorenzo Bernini, Girolamo Lucenti,” 97 n. 47. 19. Paige, Being Interior, 87. 20. I have consulted the 1726 edition of Domenico’s Vita del venerabile padre Fr. Giuseppe da Copertino. 21. Schlosser, Letteratura artistica, 469; Hibbard, Bernini, 170; Avery, Bernini: Genius of the Baroque, 238. 22. Chantelou/Stanic´, 46; Chantelou/Blunt, 14. 23. Stanic´, “Génie de Gianlorenzo Bernini”; Del Pesco, “Genèse du Journal.” 24. On Chantelou’s later editing of the diary, see Stanic´, “Génie de Gianlorenzo Bernini,” 116 –18; Del Pesco, “Genèse du Journal,” 33 – 34; Stanic´, introduction to Chantelou/Stanic´, 29 – 31. Further, see Gould, Bernini in France, 141– 42 and Mirot, “Bernini en France,” 207 n. 3. Cf. Chantelou/Blunt, 3 n. 1 and 10 n. 20.



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25. See Del Pesco, “El Journal.” 26. Gould, Bernini in France, 142. Most often Chantelou translated Bernini’s words into French and cast them as indirect speech. 27. Although Ludovic Lalanne, who discovered the manuscript (ms. 2105), considered it a later copy, Stanic´ (introduction to Chantelou/Stanic´, 28) and Del Pesco (“Genèse du Journal,” 28 –29) have convincingly argued that it is the original draft. A later, “cleaner” copy of the Journal, now in the Institut Néerlandais, Paris (Collection Frits Lugt, ms. 9170) was discovered in 1969. The Stanic´ edition of the Journal, which is based on the original Bibliothèque de l’Institut manuscript, contains 110 italicized quotations by Bernini in Italian. Of those, nine purport to be statements voiced by Michelangelo, as quoted by Bernini, three by Annibale Carracci, and one each by Gian Paolo Oliva, Pietro Bernini, Ludovico Cigoli, Paul III, Maffeo Barberini, Giovanni Fontana, and an unnamed prelate. Additionally, two Bernini quotations in Latin are italicized, as is one in French. 28. As first suggested by D’Onofrio, Roma vista da Roma, 91, and as followed by Montanari in his essay in this volume. 29. D’Onofrio, Roma vista da Roma, 89 –105. 30. Chantelou/Stanic´, 106; Chantelou/Blunt, 102. When Bernini later repeated this anecdote, on 6 October, he claimed that the encounter with the pope took place when he was seven. Chantelou/Stanic´, 228; Chantelou/Blunt, 260. 31. FB, 4 – 5; FB-1948, 74; FB-1966/2006, 9. “e fattoselo condurre davanti, gli domandò, come per ischerzo, se avesse saputo fargli colla penna una testa; e rispondendogli Gio: Lorenzo, che testa voleva? Soggiunse il Pontefice, Se così è le sa far tutte: e ordinatogli, che facesse un S. Paolo, gli diè perfezione in mez’ora, con franchezza di tratto libero, e con sommo diletto, e maraviglia del Papa.” 32. DB, 8 – 9. DB-1976, 25. The anecdote also appears in the short biographical sketch of Bernini, preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, written by the artist’s eldest son, Pier Filippo, on which, see the Prolegomena to this volume and Audisio, “Lettere e testi teatrali di Bernini,” 41. 33. Chantelou/Stanic´, 123–24; Chantelou/Blunt, 125; FB, 6, FB-1948, 76, FB-1966/ 2006, 11; DB, 16. On this anecdote, see further the essays by Levy, Montanari, and Preimesberger in this volume. 34. Chantelou/Stanic´, 228; Chantelou/Blunt, 259; FB, 19, FB-1948, 89, FB-1966/ 2006, 24; DB, 66 – 67. 35. Chantelou/Stanic´, 98, 115–16; Chantelou/Blunt, 92, 115; FB, 71, FB-1948, 144, FB-1966/2006, 78 (with slight modifications); DB, 134. 36. Chantelou/Stanic´, 47; Chantelou/Blunt, 16; FB, 72, FB-1948, 146, FB-1966/ 2006, 79; DB, 30. It is noteworthy that so many of Bernini’s quotations are concentrated around his portrait busts; just as the artist vivified his subjects in his ritratti parlanti, so his biographers and Chantelou made their subject come alive by recording his speech. I owe this observation to Evonne Levy. 37. Chantelou/Stanic´, 201; Chantelou/Blunt, 224; DB, 109; and cast in a slightly different way in FB, 68, FB-1948, 141, FB-1966/2006, 75. 38. Chantelou/Stanic´, 141; Chantelou/Blunt, 148; FB, 8, FB-1948, 77, FB-1966/ 2006, 12; DB, 18, 19. 39. Chantelou/Stanic´, 239, 272; Chantelou/Blunt, 274, 315; FB, 73, FB-1948, 146 – 47, FB-1966/2006, 80; DB, 32. 40. Chantelou/Stanic´, 234; Chantelou/Blunt, 254; FB, 38, FB-1948, 109, FB-1966/ 2006, 43; DB, 83. I borrow “modesty formula” from George Bauer in Chantelou/Blunt, 254 n. 40.



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41. Chantelou/Stanic´, 53; Chantelou/Blunt, 24 –25; FB, 72 – 73, FB-1948, 146, FB-1966/2006, 80 (with minor changes); DB, 13–14. Further on Bernini’s special appreciation of the Pasquino, see Lavin, “Bernini’s Bust of the Medusa,” 157– 59 and Delbeke, “The Pope, the Bust,” 211–12. 42. Chantelou/Stanic´, 250; Chantelou/Blunt, 287– 88. 43. Chantelou/Stanic´, 70; Chantelou/Blunt, 52. 44. Chantelou/Stanic´, 245, 254; Chantelou/Blunt, 281, 293. 45. Chantelou/Stanic´, 59, 91, 156, 244, 178, 184, 280; Chantelou/Blunt, 35, 83, 168, 279, 193–94, 203, 324. 46. Chantelou/Stanic´, 91, 132; Chantelou/Blunt, 83, 137. 47. Cf. D’Onofrio, Roma vista da Roma, 97–104, who discusses Annibale’s place in the Journal and in the biographies, especially in terms of its historical accuracy. 48. Chantelou/Stanic´, 64; Chantelou/Blunt, 42 – 43. The word caspita (which the English edition of the Journal renders as caspitra) is a mild expletive expressing impatience, which can be translated as “damn” or “the devil.” 49. Chantelou/Stanic´, 132; Chantelou/Blunt, 137. 50. Chantelou/Stanic´: anecdotes: 53, 110, 124, 139 – 40, 161, 242, 273; verses on La Notte: 64; views on art: 58, 74, 84, 181– 82, 244, 245; Chantelou/Blunt, 25, 108, 146, 173, 277, 316, 42, 32, 58, 71, 199, 279, 282, respectively. 51. Charles Perrault, Memoirs of My Life, 62. For Bernini’s quotations after Michelangelo, see Chantelou/Stanic´, 53, 56, 84, 92, 124, 133, 195; Chantelou/Blunt, 25, 26, 30, 71, 83– 84, 126, 137, 216. 52. D’Onofrio, Roma vista da Roma, 184– 87. 53. Chantelou/Stanic´, 63– 64; Chantelou/Blunt, 41. Bernini was mistaken about Michelangelo’s age at the time of his death; he was 89. 54. Chantelou/Stanic´, 116, 132; Chantelou/Blunt, 115, 137. 55. For the meaning of arte and grazia in seventeenth-century theory, see the Dizionario dei termini artistici, s.v. “Arte,” s.v. “Grazia.” 56. Chantelou/Stanic´, 217–18; Chantelou/Blunt, 246. Chantelou’s earlier criticism, that Michelangelo “made muscles appear even in women,” concerned La Notte. See Chantelou/Stanic´, 64; Chantelou/Blunt, 41. 57. Chantelou/Stanic´, 64; Chantelou/Blunt, 41. 58. Chantelou/Stanic´, 249; Chantelou/Blunt, 287. 59. FB, 71; FB-1948, 145; FB-1966/2006, 79; DB, 29. 60. FB, 6; FB-1948, 75–76; FB-1966/2006, 10 –11. “quel gran Maestro, voltatosi verso la Tribuna, così parlò. Credete a me, che egli ha pure da venire, quando che sia, un qualche prodigioso ingegno, che in quel mezzo, e in quel fondo ha da far due gran moli proporzionate alla vastità di questo Tempio. Tanto bastò, e non più, per far sì, che il Bernino tutto ardesse per desiderio di condursi egli a tanto; e non potendo raffrenare gl’interni impulsi, disse col più vivo del cuore: o fussi pure io quello! E così sensa punto avvedersene interpetrò il vaticinio di Anibale, che poi nella sua propria persona si avverò così appunto.” This anecdote also appears in the biographical sketch in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France; see Audisio, “Lettere e testi teatrali di Bernini,” 41– 42. 61. FB, 38; FB-1948, 110; FB-1966/2006, 43. 62. DB, 37–38, 110. 63. DB, 9 –10. 64. FB, 3; FB-1948, 73; FB-1966/2006, 8. 65. FB, 4; FB-1948, 74; FB-1966/2006, 9. 66. FB, 5; FB-1948, 75; FB-1966/2006, 10. 67. FB, 10 −11; FB-1948, 80; FB-1966/2006, 15.



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68. FB, 69; FB-1948, 143; FB-1966/2006, 76 –77. “Voleva, che i suoi Scolari s’innamorassero del più bello della Natura, consistendo, com’ei diceva, tutto il punto dell’arte in saperlo conoscere, e trovare; onde non ammetteva il concetto di quei tali, che affermarono, che Michelagnolo, e gli antichissimi Maestri Greci, e Romani avessero nell’opere loro aggiunto una certa grazia, che nel naturale non si vede.” 69. DB, 9. Paul V’s prophecy — articulated in its hopeful way (“speriamo”)— appears in the biographical sketch in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France; see Audisio, “Lettere e testi teatrali di Bernini,” 41. 70. DB, 11–12. 71. DB, 13. 72. DB, 14. 73. Soussloff, “Imitatio Buonarroti.” 74. Barton, “Problem of Bernini’s Theories of Art”; Chantelou/Blunt, 22 n. 60. 75. See Thuillier, “Polémiques autour de Michel-Ange.” 76. Félibien, Entretiens, 3:260 – 87, esp. 280 – 85. 77. Fréart de Chambray, Idée de la Perfection, 66; Félibien, Entretiens, 2: esp. 286 –300. 78. Del Pesco, “El Journal,” 66 – 67, 111; Del Pesco, “Genèse du Journal,” 37. 79. Del Pesco (“Genèse du Journal,” 37) notes that the words Chantelou records Bernini as using (8 June) to describe a painting by Michelangelo, “rude et mal plaisant,” parallel to an uncanny degree the words used by Chambray (Idée de la Perfection, 14) “rustique et si mal plaisant.” 80. Del Pesco, “Genèse du Journal,” 39. Chantelou’s assessment is recorded in Chantelou/Stanic´, 246; Chantelou/Blunt, 282. For Bernini’s reactions to the work of Poussin, see, especially, Chantelou/Stanic´, 88 –90, 112; Chantelou/Blunt, 78 – 80, 111. 81. Bandera Bistoletti, “Lettura di testi berniniani,” 47– 48; Bandera Bistoletti, “Bernini e Chantelou,” 73–74. Bernini’s visits to the Palais du Luxembourg (then the residence of Gaston d’Orléans) are recorded in Chantelou/Stanic´, 56, 57; Chantelou/Blunt, 29, 31. 82. Del Pesco, “El Journal,” 76, 112. 83. Bellori, Vite, 31–108. On Bellori’s life of Annibale, see Dempsey, “Annibale Carracci,” 199 –201. 84. See, especially, Bellori, Vite, 6, 269, 289, 399, 426, and Barberini, “Giovan Pietro Bellori e la scultura contemporanea,” 121–29. 85. See Montanari, “Politica culturale di Giovan Pietro Bellori,” 43, with additional bibliography; and Montanari, “Bellori and Christina of Sweden,” 100 –103. 86. Frey, Sammlung ausgewählter Biographien Vasaris, xxiv. See also, inter alia, Tietze, Methode der Kunstgeschichte, 196; Hellmut Wohl, introduction to Condivi, Life of Michelangelo, xvii–xx; Barolsky, Michelangelo’s Nose, xvi and passim; Michael Hirst, introduction to Condivi, Vita di Michelagnolo, esp. xvi–xix. Cf. Pon, “Michelangelo’s Lives,” 1021 n. 30. 87. Chantelou/Stanic´, 86; Chantelou/Blunt, 75. 88. Christina’s autobiography, “La vie de la reine Christine faite par elle-même, dediée à Dieu,” is discussed in Haettner Aurelius, “Great Performance Roles.” On Alexander VII’s autobiographical “Notizie,” which would form the basis of Sforza Pallavicino’s Vita di Alessandro VII, see Incisa della Rocchetta, “Gli appunti autobiografici.” 89. Lejeune, On Autobiography, 188 and 192. 90. Ibid., 189. 91. Battistini, Specchio di Dedalo, 179. 92. Lejeune, On Autobiography, 190. 93. FB, 110 (“rivivere”), FB-1948, 184; FB-1966/2006, 110; DB, “L’autore al lettore,” n.p. (“viver di nuovo”). 94. See Lausberg, Handbuch der literarischen Rhetorik, 399 – 407, §810 –19 and Galand-Hallyn, Reflet des fleurs, 36 – 48.



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95. Quintilian, Orator’s Education, 4.2.63 – 64 and 8.3.61; and see also 6.2.32, 8.3.63ff., and 9.2.40. 96. Mascardi, Dell’arte istorica, 1859, 296 –303, esp. 298 and 302. On enargeia in early modern Italian literature, see Snyder, Writing the Scene of Speaking, 171– 80. 97. Ginzburg, “Ekphrasis and Quotation,” esp. 15–17. 98. Ibid., 7. See, further, Bellini, “Agostino Mascardi fra ‘Ars Poetica,’” 124–28. 99. Mascardi, Dell’arte istorica, 1859, 109 –17, 307–27. The term Mascardi uses is dicerie, the plural of diceria, the definition of which is “Il dire, il parlare; discorso, colloquio, conversazione, scambio di idee, racconto (ordinariamente di presenza e a viva voce, ma può aver luogo anche per scritto, specialmente per lettera).” See the Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, s.v. “Diceria.” 100. Mascardi, Dell’arte istorica, 1859, 193 and 189. 101. Lyons, Exemplum, 29 –30. 102. Salazar, Culte de la voix. 103. Paige, Being Interior, 77. 104. Ibid., 80, 84. 105. Ibid., 83. 106. Paige notes that the quicker a biography was published (after the death of the subject), the more authentic it seemed. Ibid., 80. 107. I borrow here the phraseology of Paige (ibid., 79).



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THREE plotting bernini: a triumph over time John D. Lyons

Reading the two early vite of Gianlorenzo Bernini for the first time is bound to make the reader wonder what kind of texts they are. Are they chronological catalogues of Bernini’s work? Are they histories of the papacy from a highly specific point of view, that of a papal employee? Are they a form of biographical writing? According to what conventions should we read these texts? The vite do, at least, seem to be in large measure narratives, however spare, and seem to make use of Gianlorenzo Bernini as a focalizing character. The narratives are, overall, chronological in sequence, and one of the two, Vita del cavalier Gio. Lorenzo Bernino, descritta da Domenico Bernino suo figlio, takes the birth date and death date of the artist to mark the starting and ending of the story-telling. Baldinucci’s text, on the other hand, has a less exclusive commitment to the chronological structure of life narrative and ends with a coda that consists of a combination of lists and an essay in defense of the artist. If Baldinucci concludes by abandoning the temporal sequence, perhaps this is a clue to a deep ambivalence about the relation between time and the project of an artist’s biography. Although both Domenico Bernini and Baldinucci mention Gianlorenzo’s project of a statue (fig. 10), variously called “la Verità scoperta dal Tempo”(Truth Revealed by Time)1 and “il Tempo, che scuopre la Verità” (Time, which reveals Truth),2 neither of them neglects to tell us that Bernini sculpted Truth, but left Time for later.3 Is there here a hint of a problem in the representation of Time in its discovery of Truth? If so, there is all the more reason to inspect closely the narrative in its recounting of the birth to death sequence that forms a vita. After reading and rereading these biographies, I have come to see them as the paradoxical presentation in narrative— chronological form— of an entity, Gianlorenzo Bernini, who was unaffected or only minimally affected by time. This entity is, of course, a fiction, and it is not my task here to

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compare this fiction to other versions — possibly more convincing — of Bernini’s existence. In this fiction both Baldinucci and Domenico Bernini weave together the static, essentially atemporal, life of the artist, with a chronological sequence composed most importantly of the cyclical change of popes and the linear progression of the artist’s reputation.

discursive emphasis and the recognition-scene If these vite are narratives, they must, like all narratives, present events that happen in some time framework and must convey some idea of how these events are related to one another in terms of cause and effect. As narratives, the texts are structured by a relationship of récit and histoire, or, in the usual unfortunate English equivalent terms, a relationship of discourse and story, the one being the way things are told and the other the events that (are said to) happen. In reading the vite with attention to the storytelling, we ask ourselves what the narrator tells us about and what he selects for particular emphasis. Both vite tell principally of events between 1598, the artist’s date of birth, and his death in 1680. Presenting the events of eighty-two years in a limited number of pages necessarily requires selectivity, and this selection allows us to speak of the narrative discourse in terms of speed and in terms of density. Not all of those eighty-two years are told with equal emphasis. To use the somewhat crude approximations of pagination—approximations that are, however, useful both to compare the two vite to each other and to compare sections within each individual Vita—we can see that the first ten years of Bernini’s life take Baldinucci only a page to tell, whereas the eleven years of the papacy of Innocent X take ten pages. In the story (histoire) as lived by the book’s characters, we assume that time passed at the same rate of speed between 1598 and 1608, on one hand, and between 1644 and 1655, on the other. But the narrator passes ten times more rapidly over the first period than over the second. In noting these characteristics, I simply follow the elegantly simple descriptive model of Genette’s Discours du récit, but it would be equally appropriate to speak in terms of “thin” and “thick” description, as those terms were introduced by Gilbert Ryle and popularized by Clifford Geertz. The “thickness” of description increases as the speed of the narrative discourse decreases, and vice-versa. When they are regarded in these descriptive terms, Domenico Bernini’s Vita and the Vita written by Filippo Baldinucci display some differences in



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emphasis, but in some respects they are strikingly, even amazingly similar. First of all, Baldinucci’s work, in the original 1682 Vangelisti edition, divides into three parts organized along distinctively different lines. The first major part is a birth-to-death chronological narrative of Bernini’s life (spanning pages 1– 63), then a non-sequential or thematic portrait of the artist (pages 64– 82), and finally an essay on the crepature (cracks) alleged to have been caused by Bernini’s modifications to Saint Peter’s (pages 82 –102). Domenico’s Vita, in contrast, consists entirely of the birth-todeath chronological narrative. In what follows, I will place side-by-side only the birth-to-death narratives, sixty-three pages in Baldinucci and 174 pages in Domenico. The midpoint of Bernini’s life is 1639, the year in which he married. About 24 percent of Baldinucci’s narrative discourse is devoted to the first half of the artist’s life (pages 1–15), whereas Domenico Bernini devotes 28 percent of his narrative to the first half of the artist’s life. Both writers devote close to a third of their birth-to-death narrative to events occurring during the papacy of Alexander VII, that is, to the years 1655– 67.4 Within those years, of course, the artist made his journey to Paris, and both narratives place great emphasis on this event, for the narrative pauses, and each author devotes more than a tenth of his story to these six months or so.5 Thus, I am struck most of all by the overall similarities in the two birthto-death narratives and to the particular events and type of events that are selected for the greatest attention. And, being a naïve modern reader rather than an art historian, I am struck by what the narrative does not select as meriting or requiring much consideration. There is, in general, little attention given to Bernini’s relationship to his family; almost no account of Bernini’s relation to other artists; no evocation of a particular evolution or trajectory in Bernini’s mastery of his primary disciplines of sculpture and architecture or of the changes in his emotional state or character after his childhood. The decisions, actions, and circumstances surrounding the making of specific objects (buildings, sculptures, drawings) are told only in exceptional cases. Political, social, and military events — other than the elections of popes—are given scant attention, particularly by Baldinucci, and religious doctrines and their effect on life and art are scarcely mentioned. In contrast, the narrative speed slows to magnify the transition from one pope to another; these are the suspense-laden, fraught moments of the life as constructed in the narrator’s discourse. Particular commands such as portraits and fountain designs are given selective attention, as are other manifestations of favor from popes, kings, queens, and cardinals.



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Let us look at some of the moments that are selected by both narrators for “thick” description. In chapter 3 of Domenico Bernini’s text, we learn of a large amount of work accomplished by the artist during two years: But his mind, lover of arduous and noble endeavors, did not doubt of success, and he resolved to make four statues, any one of which alone would have worthily occupied any ancient artist. One was the group of Aeneas, Anchises and Ascanius who flee from burning Troy with the Penates; another was the David who is in the act of delivering the blow from his sling against the giant Goliath; the third was the group of Daphne who flees from Apollo, her tempter, and who is being delightfully transformed into laurel; and the last was that of Pluto abducting Proserpina, which represents an admirable contrast of tenderness and cruelty. And what, besides the symmetry of each of them, caused extraordinary amazement in the critics of the time was that he brought all four, each larger than life, to perfection in the period of only two years.6 This is, in comparison with much of the text, a fairly “thick” description, but it is remarkable that it is, precisely, mainly description rather than narrative, or rather, it is the description of narrative sculpture, where the story elements are enclosed within the described statues as acts of mythical characters. Bernini’s activity is conveyed only by the expression “ridusse tutte e quattro a perfezione” (he brought all four to perfection) and this is enough to account for two years of activity. As the chapter draws to its close the narrative thickens and we are given much more information about Alessandro Ludovisi than about Bernini: [Bernini] was revered by all with demonstrations of special treatment. Monsignor Alessandro Ludovisi, who was later elevated to the papacy after the death of Paul V, held him in such high esteem and was so partial toward him that, agreeing to depart from Rome to become Archbishop of Bologna, [a position] which had been relinquished by Cardinal Borghese, besides wanting first to have his portrait made by him, he maintained a continuous correspondence in letters with him during the entire time he resided in Bologna, and on the occasion of his Nunciature in Lombardy and Piedmont, where he was sent by the Pope in order to resolve some differences between the King of Spain and the Duke of Savoy, and



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upon his return to Rome as a Cardinal, he was so eager for his virtuous conversation, that he visited him at his home with Cardinal Barberini, his old companion.7 There is, clearly, a good deal more information about the activity of Alessandro Ludovisi’s comings and goings than about Bernini’s. We learn that Alessandro was named to the archbishopric of Bologna, that he had Bernini do his portrait, that he served as a special emissary of the pope to Lombardy and Piedmont, and so forth. This amount of detail has at least two purposes. First, it gives an index of the favor in which the artist is held, and, second, it serves to alert the reader who is accustomed to the rhythms of the Vita that a shift in popes is about to occur. There were no doubt other patrons who held Bernini in similar esteem, but at the end of chapter 3 Alessandro is the focus of attention because in the first sentence of the following chapter Paul V dies, a death that creates “grand’agitazione a tutti nella Corte di Roma” (great agitation among all in the Court of Rome).8 Narrative rhythm has slowed here to give more attention and weight to the events in the days after Paul V’s death than to the years that preceded it. Slowed narrative rhythm and a sharp increase in detail are often linked to increased suspense, and Domenico makes a (somewhat timid) attempt to create suspense before announcing the return of calm: “But his [Bernini’s] spirits quickly brightened at the elevation to the Pontificate of Cardinal Alessandro Ludovisi.”9 The reader, however, knows in advance that Alessandro Ludovisi will be pope after Paul V and that knowledge, combined with increased attention to Alessandro’s actions, is what makes these actions significant. If we compare the parallel passage in Baldinucci’s Vita, we can see characteristics of the latter’s style: great descriptive detail of sculpture—such detail that Baldinucci’s writing seems closer to a descriptive list or catalogue simply arranged in chronological order than to a narrative—and intimations that the sculptured object represents the artist better than any verbal account can do. Yet, like Domenico Bernini, Baldinucci also places great emphasis on the artist’s friendship with those who are about to become pope, such as the incident of the statue of the David commanded by Scipione Borghese (fig. 19). This striking image of the cardinal and future pope (Maffeo Barberini) holding the mirror for the artist to see himself appears a few sentences before the death of Paul V, the very short papacy of Gregory XV—meriting four sentences in Baldinucci — and Barberini’s ascension himself as



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fig. 19 Gianlorenzo Bernini, David, 1623 –24, marble. Galleria Borghese, Rome.

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Urban VIII. Like Domenico Bernini, Baldinucci thus signals the reader that the text is about to reach and cross one of the crucial temporal markers of the Vita. The cyclical change of popes provides a rhythmic decoration to accompany the linear progression in Bernini’s reputation, a progression that culminates in the artist’s journey to France, his stay, and his return to Rome. We recall that the papacy of Alexander VII comprises almost a third of both vite and that the trip to France along with the negotiations concerning it takes, in turn, over three quarters of Baldinucci’s account of Alexander’s papacy (pages 40 – 53) and two-thirds of Domenico Bernini’s (pages 115–53). Recognition by Louis XIV constitutes the principal event in this life and marks the high point along the line from birth to death.10 Once this event concludes, with the completion of the equestrian statue, narrative time passes quickly to the artist’s death. The trip to France is actually a variant on the principal, or even sole, type of event in both vite: recognition of the artist. What makes the trip to France different from other events of the type is not only the emphasis conferred on recognition from a single sovereign (emphasis by virtue of the length of discourse devoted to it) but because the recognition comes from outside Rome and thus provides an independent confirmation to the recognition received from the cardinals and the papacy. This independent confirmation, however, also mirrors the multiple papal recognitions and sustains the basic structure of specular representation: the artist’s ability is mirrored in his patron’s admiration, and this admiration is in turn mirrored by Louis XIV before being mirrored in the vite. And while it is true that the choice of the verb “to mirror” is mine, this choice is suggested by Cardinal Barberini’s literal holding of a mirror to the artist.11

the lightness of time Let us now reflect a bit on the representation of the static element in these vite, namely the life of Gianlorenzo Bernini himself. Let us consider the account of the making of the David: [Scipione Borghese] immediately commissioned him to do a statue of David of equal size [to the Aeneas group]. In this work he [Bernini] overwhelmingly surpassed himself. He completed it within a period of no more than seven months, thanks to the fact



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that from youth, as he was wont to say, he devoured marble and never struck a false blow, an accomplishment of those who have made themselves superior to art itself rather than of those who are merely expert in art. He modeled the beautiful face of this figure after his own countenance. The powerful knitted brows, the terrible fixity of the eyes, and the upper jaw clamped tightly over the lower lip wonderfully express the rightful wrath of the young Israelite in the act of aiming his sling at the forehead of the giant Philistine. The same spirit of resoluteness and vigor is seen in all parts of the body, which lacks only movement to be alive. It is worth recording that while Bernini was working on the figure in his own likeness, Cardinal Maffeo Barberini came often to his studio and held the mirror for him with his own hand.12 We find that there are several mentions of time. This commission came “subito” (immediately) after a previous one by the same patron, Scipione Borghese; the work was entirely carried out “in ispazio di sette mesi, e non più” (within a period of no more than seven months); Bernini never missed a stroke—“non dava mai colpo a voto”; and, finally, Maffeo Barberini several times held the mirror for the artist, “volle più volte.” These are typical time indicators in the Vita, and they tell us the same story that we find elsewhere: commissions came to Bernini fast and furiously, he worked quickly, effectively, and without pause, and his relationships to persons in power (popes, future popes, and relatives of popes) were habitual, that is, based on repetition of marks of favor. In short, time is so uniform in Bernini’s life that there is almost nothing to say about it. The self-portrait shows him as a young man but as a young man, David-like, who has the force and skill of a man much older— or perhaps more exactly, a man who transcends the distinction of youth and age in his performance, “fin da quella tenera età” (from his youth). Bernini’s performance, then, neutralizes time, and Baldinucci here as elsewhere emphasizes that time is in no sense a predictive or limiting factor in what the artist can achieve. To measure time, as to measure achievement, we need points of reference, and Bernini is shown here to have none outside of himself. Not only is David Bernini and Bernini, David, but the making of this statue can only be compared to the making of Bernini’s previous statues. In this comparison Baldinucci does, it is true, indicate a change—“superò di gran lunga se stesso” (overwhelmingly surpassed himself )—but without saying in what way Bernini did so. If we can infer any specification on this point from what follows immediately



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(“e condussela in ispazio di sette mesi, e non più”), then it would seem to be that Bernini is simply accelerating. Bernini does what Bernini does, and what changes, from time to time, is the identity of the person holding the mirror. In this closed system of reflection, what distinguishes David from Bernini is merely that Bernini moves, yet Bernini moves without changing. By concluding the passage with the mention of the mirror, Baldinucci emphasizes his depiction of the sculptor as the statue, which is not only a self-portrait, and not only metonymically representative of this devourer of marble as marble-like, but also an allegory of the sculptor’s relation to his art, which he conquers and overwhelms as David did the giant. It is typical of Baldinucci, even more than of Domenico Bernini, that time is here subordinated to space. Rather than attempting to convey the seven months of work and any incidents and modifications that took place, Baldinucci concentrates on the statue, which is what remains and transcends time. This conception of the unchanging nature of genius and its transcendence of time is underscored by a passage slightly before the David, when Baldinucci writes of the busts of Scipione Borghese (figs. 20 and 21). Not only did Bernini, as the biographer writes, make two portraits within the time allotted to one, but Bernini later is reported to have exclaimed, on seeing these early works, “How little progress I have made in the art of sculpture through these long years becomes clear to me when I see that as a boy I handled marble in this manner.”13 Thus Baldinucci emphasizes, by attributing this concept to the artist himself, that a chronological narrative of Bernini’s career tells us nothing of the artist except his essentially unchanging nature. In Domenico Bernini’s account of the creation of the statue of Truth (fig. 10)—“il Tempo, che scuopre la Verità”— the artist’s conduct is so closely related to the concept of the statue of the Truth that the latter becomes virtually another self-portrait under a feminine, allegorical guise.14 In this period of Borrominian political triumph at the outset of the reign of Innocent X, the impressive thing about Gianlorenzo Bernini’s conduct was its unchanging quality: Only the Cavalier, who was the subject of all the discussions, kept silent; and although he received new and vigorous encouragement from the King of France . . . to enter the service of that Monarch, he always refused. . . . For in that same period when he seemed abandoned by fortune, he revealed to Rome the most beautiful works that he had ever made, authenticating by his deeds the valor which his adversaries discredited with their words . . . thus by



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waiting and with time the truth of his good faith would reappear with even greater beauty.15 Of course, this constancy of behavior belongs to an ancient tradition of the integrity of the unchanging virtuous man and of the higher spheres of the universe. Domenico Bernini does not invent anything new here, but he makes good and consistent use of the idea. Both in this contextual prelude and in the description of the statue, Domenico shows the world of time (history, circumstance, discorsi) to be ugly but useful for what it reveals by contrast. In their conception of a vita as the repeated revelation of a constant potential, the biographers make a significant statement through their treatment of the anecdote of the young Gianlorenzo’s first meeting with Paul V. Domenico Bernini prefaces this pontifical meeting with the contextualizing comment that fame had already brought to the attention of the court the name of the ten-year-old —“la fama haveva rappresentato in quella Corte molto superiore di spirito all’età” (whom fame had already represented in that court as superior in spirit to the age he represented): The pope . . . wished to try the courage of the boy by affecting terribleness, and, facing him, he commanded in grave tones that there, in his presence, he should draw a head. Gio: Lorenzo picked up the pen with confidence and smoothed the paper over the little table of the Pope himself. Beginning to make the first line, he stopped, somewhat uncertain, and then, bowing his head modestly to the Pontiff, requested of him “what head he wished, if of a man or a woman, if young or old, and if one of these, with what expression he wished it, whether sad or cheerful, scornful or agreeable?” “If this is so,” the Pope now added, “you know how to do everything.”16 At first, this anecdote seems simply to illustrate the topos of the young genius, already skilled beyond anyone’s expectation. However, as the Vita unfolds— or rather fails to unfold and instead cycles through the repetitious illustration of the artist’s brilliant execution of his patron’s command—we see that this early manifestation of Gianlorenzo’s complete potency detemporalizes his participation in the narrative. It is as if Domenico Bernini had furnished us with a textbook example of what linguists call the paradigmatic, in opposing it to the syntagmatic: the ten-year old portraitist has mastered all the elements from which to choose, category after category, prior to combining the chosen elements into proposition.



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Significantly, the paradigmatic is the static collection of these elements before they are actualized by combination into something that exists in time. In attributing to the young genius this paradigmatic mastery of the elements of what is to be represented, Domenico has strikingly emphasized both the timeless and the passive nature of his father-character, Gianlorenzo. Even at a young age he exemplifies the pure potentiality or competency that is available for the will of the pontiff. This potentiality at such a young age is surprising, yet this surprise—which does not affect the childartist (the artist is characterized throughout this episode by his imperturbability: “non si commosse punto Gio:Lorenzo in vedersi ammesso avanti la Maestà del Papa” (Gianlorenzo was not at all discomfited to see himself admitted to the majesty of the Pope)—is generated simply by the application to the artist of a category (time) that is not usefully applied to him. Domenico notes that the artist at this point is “superiore all’età” (superior to his age), but we later find that his gift makes him superior to his art (in Baldinucci’s terms “all’arte stessa s’è fatto superior” [superior to art itself ]). Time neither adds to nor subtracts from his gift, nor must he struggle to prove himself. Already in this first papal audience the artist behaves as if this event were out of order in the narrative and as if he had the experience of frequent conversation with the pope (“anzi come se per lungo corso di anni havesse assuefatta la vista agli splendori di quel Soglio” [as if the course of long years had accustomed his sight to the splendors of that Throne]).17 The biographer draws the reader’s attention to the bizarre inadequacy of the chronological framework in which this text is cast. Time is an organizing framework—a kind of filing system or rhetorical order— of the Vita rather than an explanatory category; that is, nothing in Gianlorenzo’s artistic potential is caused by the chain of events. Rather, time is the dimension in which others are able to view what is already within the artist as pure vessel of representational capacity. The discursive use of the category of time allows the biographer to cast Bernini himself as a kind of periodic manifestation of the world’s (or the Creator’s) transcendent force. In this view Bernini’s individual identity and agency is subsumed into a larger periodicity: “This child will be the Michelangelo of his age.”18

france as culmination and synthesis If Gianlorenzo Bernini is the unchanging phenomenon against which we can discern a history of recognition in the intermittent changes of pope



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and the occasional spasms of jealousy and criticism, then the artist’s trip to France is a culmination and synthesis of the recognition scenes that are the plot units of the vite. Four of Gianlorenzo’s papal patrons are dead and gone. The fifth is reigning and three more will be created pope before his death. Yet after the massive account of the triumphal trip to France, the life narratives move swiftly to their end. In thematic terms, the sojourn in Paris marks the “colmo” (climax)— in Gianlorenzo’s own words19—while confirming the essential passivity of the character Gianlorenzo in these biographies. After all, even this great event, the only account of the artist’s travel outside of Rome since his childhood, is not so much something he does as something that happens to him. He is really carried off to France —“più tosto tolto, che conceduto” (more taken away than having given himself )20——as a result of the agitation around him:

But with the turbulences of that Kingdom subdued, and with King Louis coming of age, it is hard to believe to what extent he [the King] again renewed the negotiations, and with what vigor he also promoted his [Bernini’s] successes. The Cavalier, then engaged in the service of Alexander, and with the famous works of the Colonnade and the Cathedra, either was incapable of receiving his [the King’s] invitations, or the Pontiff did not want to. . . . In order for him to leave Rome it would not take less than a war, which lasted for three years [and] shook and upset all of Italy.21 As a result, then, of the secret treaty putting an end to this conflict between the papacy and the French king, Bernini is transported through Tuscany and Savoy to the French border and then to Lyon, Paris, and Saint Germain in pages that appear to be the narrative equivalent to slow-motion photography, such is the enormous increase in detail and the discursive duration. Yet even in the story of these six months in Paris the account of Bernini the artist is arranged in such a way that his activity of redrawing the plans of the Louvre and overseeing the works is cast into the background— or accelerated—so that the foreground, or major part of the text, can be occupied with the audiences and messages that Bernini received from the king, queen, and other notables at the French court. Baldinucci gives this swift account of Bernini’s work in Paris: “Bernini stayed in Paris for six months during which time he made the plans for the Louvre and laid the foundations for the building; He then put his hand to



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the portrait of the King, [and] it must be stated that at that time there were so many Ladies, Princes, and Cavaliers visiting him that it was necessary for him to leave his lodgings [in the Louvre] and to go to the palace of Cardinal Mazarin.”22 Even in this single sentence one can detect the transition from a vast enterprise that Bernini handled ostensibly without incident and that requires no further account to the more detailed narrative of Bernini’s interaction with the admiring courtiers and king. The emphasis on the attention given to Bernini, in other words the positioning of Bernini as object of the gaze rather than as the subject of perception, is not only consonant with the use of the recognition-scene throughout the earlier, Roman, portions of the narrative but takes the pursuit of Bernini to a hyperbolic level, at which the artist must flee from his admirers in order to work. More important than what is the same in France is what is different. The French admiration for Bernini, and in particular the admiration and curiosity of “quel gran Monarca,”23 Louis XIV, is part of the struggle for possession of this artist, an eloquent example of mimetic desire.24 In this respect the biographers’ representation of the French frenzy about the artist and the king’s physical manifestations of eagerness to see the arriving Roman (“non potendo patir l’indugio a vederlo, [Louis] s’affacciò alla portiera” [no longer being able to wait to see him, (Louis) appeared at the door])25 are reported to an Italian audience as stimulants to ever greater admiration. What is importantly different is not the eagerness to see Bernini but rather that this valorization of the artist comes from the French.26 It thus confirms that Bernini is of international stature (as do the commands from Charles I and Richelieu reported earlier) and has an alternative to papal employment. A second important and more complex difference in the passages of the vite that concern France is the artist’s relation to his model. The life sessions with Louis for his portrait (fig. 28) are given more attention than Bernini’s architectural work, and in those sessions time and activity—two themes that appear insistently in earlier passages—are related in a strange way: “Once when the King had been standing for an hour, Bernini threw down his chisel in admiration and loudly exclaimed, ‘Miracle, miracle that a King so meritorious, youthful, and French should remain immobile for an hour.’”27 There are relatively few accounts in the vite of the moments in which a model is posing for Bernini. In fact, the most detail is given to two instances of Bernini posing for himself, first by burning himself so that he can pose as Saint Lawrence (fig. 31)28 and then later as David, on the occasion



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when Cardinal Barberini held the mirror. In both of those cases, Bernini was young and was making a statue of a young hero, and in the first case he was (apparently) heroically able to remain still while burning himself. Both of those episodes depend on the use of a mirror. In both he is described as being seen by someone while he sees himself and while he portrays himself transformed into an heroic character. In the case of Louis XIV—as recounted in the vite—Bernini seems to have found the perfect “mirror.” In this case the term is a metaphor, yet it conveys the structure of a double admiration, a dual narcissism. The greatness of Louis and the intensity of his desire to see and possess the artist Bernini reflects upon and magnifies the greatness of that artist. And Louis XIV provides the sculptor with the model that he did not have when he was himself a youth, except insofar as he portrayed himself. Bernini, the young artist in an old man’s body, finds in Louis XIV a paradoxical model that matches himself: a mature man in a young man’s body, capable of staying still and thus negating his youth.29 The image of Louis XIV as the great monarch who has the power to remain still is one of the tropes by which the biographers achieve the feat of imagining a synthesis between passivity and activity, between the artist as object of an admiring gaze and the artist as producer of objects that will in turn be admired. Gianlorenzo Bernini himself apparently attached great importance to the allegory of Time revealing Truth (see figs. 10 and 11). Both of the artist’s early biographers share a specific interpretation of that theme, for they present the artist as a character who is enfolded within the world of events while remaining himself fundamentally unaltered. When this conception of the transcendent talent of the artist is displayed in a conventional chronological framework, the biographers tend to stress temporal markers in order to show their lack of importance for the essential nature of the artist. Baldinucci and Domenico Bernini thus write Bernini’s life as a series of discoveries—not discoveries made by the artist but discoveries of the artist by other powerful persons. And both emphasize as a kind of epiphany the encounter with Louis XIV, for both the king and the artist are portrayed as perfect, exemplary beings, who transcend youth and age and who are revealed in, but not altered by, time.

notes 1. FB, 35; FB-1948, 106; FB-1966/2006, 40. 2. DB, 81. 3. Tomaso Montanari has drawn attention to the importance of this topos in Bernini’s mythography. “Pierre Cureau de La Chambre,” 105.



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4. Baldinucci devotes 18 pages to this period, or 29 percent, and Domenico Bernini devotes 60 pages, or 33 percent. 5. Baldinucci gives 10 pages to the trip (16 percent, FB, 44–53; FB-1948, 116 –26; FB-1966/2006, 50 – 60) and Domenico Bernini 19 pages (10.91 percent). 6. “Mà l’animo di lui amatore d’imprese ardue, e nobili non diffidò punto del successo, e risolvè il lavoro di quattro Statue, una sola delle quali poteva degnamente tenere occupato ogni vecchio Artefice. Una fù il Gruppo di Enea, Anchise, & Ascanio, che con i Dei Penati fuggono dall’incendio di Troja, l’altra il David, che con la fronda stà in atto di scaricare il colpo contro il Gigante Golìa, la terza il Gruppo di Dafne, che fugge Apollo suo insidiatore, e comincia vagamente a tramutarsi in alloro, e l’ultima quella di Plutone, che col ratto di Proserpina rappresenta un’ammirabile contraposto di tenerezza, e di crudeltà; E ciò, che oltre all simetria di ciascuna di esse recò uno straordinario stupore a i Professori di quel tempo, fù, che le ridusse tutte e quattro a perfezione molto più grandi del naturale, nel termine solo di due Anni.” DB, 18; DB-1976, 27. 7. “[Bernini] era da tutti riverito con dimostrazioni particolari di trattamento. Monsignor Alessandro Lodovisio, che fù poi innalzato al Pontificato doppo la morte di Paolo Quinto, in tal concetto l’haveva, & era tanto di lui parziale, che convenendogli far partenza da Roma per l’Arcivescovado di Bologna rinunziatogli allora da Cardinal Borghese, oltre a che volle prima dalle mani di lui il suo Ritratto, mantenne poi tutto il tempo che risiedè in Bologna, e coll’occasione ancora di sua Nunziatura nella Lombardia, e Piemonte, ove fù spedito dal Papa per comporre alcune differenze insurte trà il Rè di Spagna, & il Duca di Savoja, una continua communicazione di lettere con lui, e nel ritorno che ei fece in Roma già Cardinale, tanto fù vago della sua virtuosa conversazione, che di continuo ne veniva in Casa unitamente col Cardinal Barberino suo antico compagno. . . .” DB, 20. 8. DB, 21. 9. “Mà rasserenòssi ben presto l’animo nella esaltazione al Pontificato del Cardinale Alessandro Lodovisio.” DB, 21. 10. The “recognition-scene” is essential to the Bernini legend. Montanari (“Pierre Cureau de La Chambre,” 113) writes of the “aneddotica della familiarità con sovrani e potenti di varia natura.” 11. FB, 8; FB-1948, 78; FB-1966/2006, 13. 12. “[Scipione Borghese] di subito gli ordinasse una statua d’un David, di non minor grandezza della prima. In quest’opera egli superò di gran lunga se stesso, e condussela in ispazio di sette mesi, e non più, mercè che egli fin da quella tenera età, come egli era poi solito dire, divorava il marmo, e non dava mai colpo a voto; qualità ordinaria non de’ pratici nell’arte, ma di chi all’arte stessa s’è fatto superiore. La bellissima faccia di questa figura, che egli ritrasse dal proprio volto suo, con una gagliarda increspatura di ciglia all’ingiù, una terribile fissazione d’occhi, e col mordersi con la mandibula superiore tutto il labro di sotto, fa vedere maravigliosamente espresso il giusto sdegno del Giovane Isdraelita [sic], nell’atto di voler con la frombola pigliar la mira alla fronte del Gigante Fllisteo [sic]; nè dissimille risoluzione, spirito, e forza si scorge in tutte l’altre parti di quel corpo, al quale, per andar di pari col vero, altro non mancava, che il moto; ed è cosa notabile, che mentre egli la stava lavorando, a somiglianza di se medesimo, lo stesso Cardinal Maffeo Barberino volle più volte trovarsi nella sua stanza, e di sua propria mano tenergli lo specchio.” FB, 8; FB-1948, 78; FB-1966/2006, 13. 13. “Oh quanto poco profitto ho fatto io nell’arte della Scoltura in un sì lungo corso di anni, mentre io conosco, che da fanciullo maneggiava il marmo in questo modo!” FB, 8; FB-1948, 77; FB-1966/2006, 12. Compare the similar quotation in DB, 19. 14. In a very traditional sense a portrait of Bernini in a “feminine” guise is not without parallel in the vite, for the biographers cast Bernini into a relatively passive stance. Consider, for instance, the way Bernini, like a royal bride, is the object of exchange in treaty negotiations between the pope and Louis XIV (see below).



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15. “Il solo Cavaliere, che era il soggetto allora di tutti i discorsi, si taceva, e benche ricevesse nuovi, e gagliardi stimoli dal Rè di Francia . . . di portarsi al servizio di quel Monarca, non volle giammai acconsentirvi. . . . Poiche in quel medesimo tempo, in cui pareva abbandonato dalla fortuna, fece vedere a Roma le più belle Opere, che facesse giammai, autenticando co’ fatti il suo valore, che dagli Avversarii era discreditato colle parole . . . così la verità della sua buona fede risorgerebbe più bella colla dimora, e col tempo.” DB, 80; DB-1976, 33 (with minor changes). 16. “Il pontefice . . . volle provar l’intrepidezza del Giovane, con affettargli ancora il terrore, & a lui rivolto con suono grave di voce gli commandò, che quivi in sua presenza disegnasse una Testa. Gio: Lorenzo presa con franchezza in mano la penna, e spianata sopra il Tavolino medesimo del Papa la Carta, nel dar principio all prima linea, si fermò alquanto sospeso, e poi chinando il capo modestamente verso il Pontefice, richieselo, Che Testa voleva, se di Huomo, ò di Donna, di Giovane, ò di Vecchio, e se pur qualche una di esse, in quale atto la desiderava, se mesta, ò allegra, se sdegnosa, ò piacevole? Se così è, soggiunse all’hora il Papa, le sà far tutte.” DB, 8 –9; DB-1976, 25. 17. DB, 8. 18. “Questo Fanciullo sarà il Michel’Angelo del suo tempo.” DB, 9. 19. DB, 138. 20. DB, 124. 21. “sedate le turbolenze di quel Regno [France], e cresciuto in età il Rè Luigi, non è credibile, quant’ei di nuovo ne rinuovasse i trattati, e con quanto ardore ne promovesse ancora i successi. Il Cavaliere ò impegnato allora nel servizio di Alessandro, e nelle famose opere del Portico, e della Cathedra, non potè ricerverne gl’inviti, ò non volle il Papa. . . . Onde per levarlo da Roma non vi volle meno, che una guerra, che tenne per trè anni agitata, e sconvolta tutta l’Italia.” DB, 115–16. 22. “Fu la dimora del Bernino in Parigi per lo spazio di sei mesi, nel qual tempo fece i disegni del Lovre [sic], e ne gettò le fondamenta poi pose la mano al ritratto del Re; e non è da tacersi, che in quel tempo tale era il concorso delle Dame, Principi, e Cavalieri, che lo visitavano, che gli fu necessario partire da quel luogo, e portarsi al Palazzo Mazzarino.” FB, 47; FB-1948, 119; FB-1966/2006, 53 (with minor changes). 23. FB, 46; FB-1948, 119; FB-1966/2006, 52. 24. René Girard’s many works on this concept and its ramifications are well known. Most relevant here is his early study Mensonge romantique. 25. FB, 46 – 47; FB-1948, 119; FB-1966/2006, 52 (translation mine). 26. “Quanto di gloria s’accresceva al nostro Artefice nella Città di Parigi, e in tutta la Francia per lo nome, che di lui da per tutto correva, tanto ne portava la fama per tutta Italia, e specialmente a Roma, dove giunsero lettere.” FB, 47– 48; FB-1948, 120; FB-1966/2006, 54. 27. “Occorse una volta, ch’egli stette fino ad un’ora, la quale passata, il Bernino in atto di ammirazione, gettando i ferri, e’l martello, forte gridò. Miracolo, miracolo, stare un ora fermo un Re di sì alto valore, giovane, e Franzese.” FB, 47; FB-1948, 119; FB-1966/2006, 53. Cf. DB, 135. 28. “Gio:Lorenzo si abbrugiò le carni per desiderio di non errare. Sopraggiunse a caso Pietro suo Padre, e veduto il figluolo in quell’atto di martirio.” DB, 15. 29. Louis’s ability to immobilize himself in the presence of Bernini is matched in the vite by his inability to remain still while awaiting the artist. The biographers have thus carefully prepared the “miracolo” of the modeling sessions by emphasizing the king’s impatience and his impetuous jumping onto the carriage that brought Bernini to Saint Germain.



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FOUR chapter 2 of domenico bernini’s vita of his father: mimeses Evonne Levy

Mimesis, or imitation, is a three-stranded thread running through the Bernini Vita written by Domenico Bernini. First, Domenico’s version of imitation binds Gianlorenzo’s views on his practice of art1 to the author’s practice of life writing; second, the version of imitation he attributes to his father and in his own text is an important way he distinguishes his father from the Bernini constructed by Baldinucci; third, since imitation was largely regarded in the early modern period as a process by which men defined themselves, mimetic themes are a means by which Domenico places Bernini as singular in history. The core of this essay is a close reading of what might be considered the mimesis chapter of Domenico’s Vita (chapter 2), here compared to analogous passages in Baldinucci. Such close comparisons are instructive of just how important it is to read and understand the Bernini vite in their entirety, for the subtle differences between Domenico and Baldinucci’s recounting of the same mimeticallythemed episodes can be more fully understood once we see that these views are governed by the authors’ distinct perspectives. Domenico establishes the theme of his Vita in his preface to the reader, a typical component of early modern texts. Here he signals that the relationship between father and son is not a crippling, constitutive weakness of the text’s authorship,2 but a governing theme of the book: It will perhaps seem to be a new thing that a son can be the Author of the Life of the Father, a vita so compromised by the live pen of the Son, that immortal life must be recognized by those who come later from the hand of he to whom mortal Life amongst the living was given. But the miracles of Art are not so restricted to the narrow terms of nature that sometimes they cannot be superceded,

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particularly when in art more than the work of the hand what is operating is the liveliness of ingegno, which, though enclosed in man, passes and flies outside of him.3 Domenico presents two apparent paradoxes. First, he likens a parent’s authorship of his children (fatherhood) to the authorship of the biography (“Although it may seem novel for a son to be author of the life of the father”): both authors produce lives. But how can the son author the father? The paradox calls to mind Seneca’s oft-repeated metaphor for literary imitation in which he likened the product of imitation to the relationship of sons to their fathers. In Seneca’s view, imitation is a process through which traces of one’s model (the father) remain, but the work of imitation (the son) that emerges is recognized as having its own identity.4 At the same time that Domenico’s phrase “son, author of the life of the father” calls to mind Senecan imitation, it also calls to mind Saint Irenaeus’s Ad Heresias (a text heavily drawn upon by Domenico in his own work on heresies). Saint Irenaeus’s incarnational theory suggested that only with the coming of Christ, the logos, the word, could the life of the father be written. Similarly, Domenico’s father’s story could not be written down until a mortal son arrived with a pen. The phrase couples literary theory of imitation with the fundamentals of Christian mimesis: the son made in the image of the father, and the father made by the image (the Vita) of the son. Domenico is thus himself an imitation of the father (made in his image) as well as his author (maker of his image). The second paradox is related to this Christological reference. How, Domenico asks, can he with a live pen, who received mortal life from his father, make the father immortal? Domenico goes on to resolve his seeming paradox by invoking a miracle of art, which can surpass nature through the operation of a lively ingegno. As Robert Williams and Maarten Delbeke argue in this volume, ingegno is Bernini’s most important attribute, the key to his universality. Here Domenico seizes the attribute for himself and his biographical project, suggesting that because he is the son his project shares a family resemblance to Bernini’s life and work. Domenico’s text itself is intimately bound up with, to use a mimetic figure, a mirror-image of Gianlorenzo’s work. In this passage Domenico is situating foundational Christian notions of mimesis (the imitation of Christ, the formation of man in God’s image) at the intersection of his own identity and his literary practice of imitation. In bringing these two mimetic registers together as the project of his Vita,



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Domenico is working with the mimetic thread that runs through Western philosophy, theology, and aesthetics. Mimesis was an activity, persistently employing visual metaphors, by which man established his own identity as his place in history.5 In both its broader philosophical meaning and the more specialized discourse in the arts, mimesis was an entirely apt theme for a son to begin a biography of his father. It should be kept in mind that Domenico’s view of imitation through the relationship of father to son establishes his distinctness from Baldinucci, to whom this model of authorship was not available.6 Domenico’s establishment in the author’s preface of the theme of the ingegno moving art beyond nature is reintroduced as a biographical motif in chapter 1. In an anecdote from Bernini’s early youth (the core of the chapter, and which does not appear in Baldinucci), Pietro Bernini recognizes that his young son has already surpassed him. Domenico puts into the mouth of the eight-year-old Gianlorenzo a classical phrase from imitation theory, very similar to a statement made by Michelangelo, about not following in the path of others in order to get ahead:7 [Pietro] realized one day, that in copying a drawing, he [Gianlorenzo] had changed the foreshortening of a figure, but in a more natural and spirited motion, and supposing that the variation was more by chance than a stroke of mastery, he called attention to it as lacking and inattentive to the exemplar he was to copy. Gio:Lorenzo modestly replied that “avidity in working had made him err, and perhaps go beyond his task, but that if he always had to follow behind others, he would never succeed in easily passing in front of anyone.” From this response the Father finally understood, that the only worthy master of such a disciple was his own ingegno, at which point he left him free in his way of working.8 Nature made Domenico son of his father, just as Gianlorenzo was son of his father Pietro. But in both cases, through art (Domenico’s writing, which allowed him to eternalize his father, and Gianlorenzo’s sculpture which allowed him to leap beyond the father) there is the possibility of moving outside of the boundaries of the standard mimetic relationship. This sets up a theme of the book: Gianlorenzo, Domenico argues, had art in his nature: it was not taught (not art) but nature itself. As Lodovico da Canossa argued in Castiglione’s Cortegiano, the true masters of the greatest poets were their own ingegno and natural judgment.9 Just as Condivi distanced



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Michelangelo from his teachers,10 Domenico distances Bernini from his father Pietro: Gianlorenzo only became a sculptor because he had sculpture under his nose, but he attributed Pietro with little more than a disciplining role in Bernini’s early studies. In other words, Pietro was a good father because he got out of the way.11 Throughout early modern discussions of imitation, artists and writers debated the extent to which the imitated model should be visible. Seneca’s father-son model fell on the side of little resemblance, or of an unconscious resemblance, not immediately apparent. Domenico’s conception of imitation sets Bernini at the far limit of his resemblance to his models in order to stress his singularity. 12 In contrast to Domenico’s filial metaphor for imitation is Baldinucci’s consistent emphasis on selective imitation. Baldinucci mentions imitation in connection with Bernini’s study of the most illustrious works of antiquity and modern times, especially those of Michelangelo and Raphael. From these, he says, Bernini made “in himself an extract of everything exquisite and of everything most choice” in order to “measure up to the idea of those sublime minds.”13 Near this phrase Baldinucci also strings together a series of Bernini’s related statements about the selective imitation of nature. In portraiture in particular the artist should discern what is peculiar (proprio) to his subject, but take care to take “a beautiful, not an ugly feature.”14 Analogously, Baldinucci made a “pact” with his pen to gather only the most mellifluous parts; he structured his text as a Vita of selective imitation insofar as he opens with a metaphor of nature’s privileged seed flourishing in wellcultivated ground, and ends with a reference to an unnamed rival biographer who did not, as he did—to use another horticultural metaphor—15 “follow the trail of the mellifluous parts of the flowers,” but extracted from the same shoots “some imperfection.”16 Baldinucci characterizes his view of his subject as compassionate and selective, one which, Montanari argues, was Baldinucci’s attempt to reinsert Bernini into a Bellorian view of the arts from which Bernini had been excluded.17 Finally, he makes clear that his practice of imitation is perfectly consonant with that of his subject: in the very last words of the biography (in his word to the readers), he intones Petrarch’s famous epithet on selective imitation, also the motto of the Accademia della Crusca18 (to which he gained membership in 1681): “only gathers the most beautiful flower” (IL PIU BEL FIOR NE COGLIE).19 Given the consistency of Baldinucci’s method and reporting of Bernini’s view of selective imitation, Domenico’s position on imitation reads as a slight though crucial corrective. For although Domenico also cites his



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father’s statement about the importance of selective imitation (that the artist should discern individual qualities but choose to represent a beautiful one), he does not back it up with the two other statements that appear immediately thereafter in Baldinucci. Instead, he immediately cites a view of Bernini’s that could be read as contradicting it: Bernini also said that painters who were excellent in imitation could render someone ugly and nauseating in reality a delight to look at in a painting.20 The delight is in the excellence of the painting, the pleasure of viewing imitation, rather than the subject’s appearance. In this way Domenico paves the way for the defective to be subject of use and delight. Indeed, in contrast to Baldinucci, Domenico readily embraces defects and deformities for their capacity to reveal the transformative power of art, not on the page, but in the spectator. Domenico’s very different account of his father’s views of imitation also pertains to his own practice of imitation in his father’s biography. He writes of a father not entirely lacking in defects, a man of flesh and blood. In this respect Domenico’s text shares affinities with the wish of Bernini’s first biographer Cureau de la Chambre to describe a Bernini who has “defects.”21 They both stand in stark contrast to Baldinucci, who invokes selective imitation in his own method, saying that he wanted to avoid Bernini’s (now increasingly well-documented) bad behavior.22 Domenico, instead, talks about some (not all) of the sorted aspects of the Costanza affair,23 and in the final chapter writes at length about Bernini’s views of his work as deeply imperfect. Two of Bernini’s reported statements about his art parallel Domenico’s embrace of his father’s defects in writing his Vita. First, Bernini believed that for something to be great it is not sufficient that it have few errors but that it have many pregi; this, Domenico amply demonstrated. Second, in solving problems, great artists always discover more difficulties not perceived by others, so that the solution is all the more ingegnoso for having solved the problems. Bernini was “avid to convert to his own glory the defects of nature herself ” and believed that a defect be “made useful,” that they were in a sense, necessary.24 These statements justify Domenico’s depiction of his father as a great man—not in spite of, but indeed because of his flaws and his knowledge of his failings.25 Domenico’s view of imitation for his own literary project, paralleling his subject’s own reported views, extends to Bernini’s place in history as well.26 Depicting an artist who corrects defects makes sense of Bernini’s rise during an era that was itself considered defective (although Domenico does not use this word).27 If the defects of the times had not been there, Bernini would have had to invent them in order to overcome them.



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Bernini’s own view of his personal and artistic shortcomings as presented in Domenico’s text are seen by Montanari as the product of Bernini’s retrospective admission of his defects. This is consistent with Montanari’s detection of the literary forms within the biographical text as extensions of Bernini’s life: an old and repentant Bernini lived the form of the literary self-confession, and Domenico was there to write it down. The way these passages are integrated in the text, as we shall now see, also reveals the distinct perspectives of each biographer as a writer, highlighting how each chose from among the flowers or picked the garbage (as Baldinucci parodied other life writings) for the episodes illustrating Bernini’s life and beliefs. The crucial chapter for mimesis in Domenico’s Vita is chapter 2, which begins with the introduction of the ten-year-old Bernini to Paul V, whom he impresses first by his person. To test Bernini’s fearlessness, the pope commands him to draw a Saint Paul, after which the pope prognosticates that he will be (sarà) the Michelangelo of his time.28 He becomes celebrated in Rome and begins to work in sculpture. His first bust is at Santa Pudenziana, but the first works described at length are the two busts of Scipione Borghese. Hereafter begin Bernini’s three years of feverish study of the antique and Renaissance painting, followed by his Saint Lawrence. The chapter ends with a description of the reception of his bust of Montoya, which attracted attentive comparison between Montoya and the amazing likeness of Bernini’s bust. All of these episodes, in one way or another, focus on mimetic issues. This observation can help to explain why these and not other early works are discussed, and why the story of the Scipione Borghese is radically out of place in an ostensibly chronological account of events in Bernini’s life during Paul V’s papacy. What follows is a close reading of the principle episodes of Domenico’s chapter 2 as a thematically linked set of events.

the drawing for paul v29 When Paul V asks Bernini to draw a head for him, Bernini asks, what kind? Old, young, sad, happy? Paul asks for a Saint Paul.30 This complies with two logics: of the patron’s identification with a subject, and the young Bernini following in the footsteps of Michelangelo. The drawing, in other words, has a function in the text.



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Michelangelo’s first sculpture was also a head— of a faun, produced for his father-like patron, Lorenzo the Magnificent. Once the patron was furnished with this proof of talent, he saw to his early education. Paul Barolsky has argued that the faun may well have been a figure to express Michelangelo’s identification with a Socratic Silenus, ugly on the outside but virtuous within.31 Barolsky has also argued that in his later years Michelangelo identified with Saint Paul, who influenced his outlook and his selffashioning, and that both Vasari’s and Condivi’s biographies contribute to the characterization. What is more, this identification was inherited from Brunelleschi, who was referred to by Vasari as a “new Saint Paul.” There is an entire Pauline genealogy in Vasari’s Vite.32 Bernini’s drawing of Saint Paul can be viewed similarly as a device used by Domenico to establish Bernini’s identification, through Saint Paul, with Michelangelo and the entire Tuscan tradition. A drawing of a Paul for a Paul recalls Michelangelo’s Conversion of Saint Paul for Paul III.33 And Bernini is seen from his youth as precociously identifying with a saint—an improvement over Michelangelo, whose early identification was with a pagan figure. This is not just inference: the Michelangelo-Bernini association is made present in Domenico’s text, for it is on the basis of Bernini’s drawing that Paul V prognosticates that Bernini “will be the Michelangelo of his time.” One persistent theme, a subtext that emerges from this episode, is the Life of Bernini as a text imitating the Life of Michelangelo. Domenico Bernini’s Vita of his father is, among other things, a reading of the vite of Michelangelo, a textual imitatio Buonarroti in addition to any real-life or artistic imitatio Buonarroti.34

the scipione borghese busts35 The busts of Scipione Borghese (figs. 20 and 21) have been reliably dated to 1632,36 eleven years after the death of Paul V. That the bust story is radically out place in a loosely held-to chronological span of chapter 2 (the pontificate of Paul V, 1605–21), suggests that the story serves a theme. Its presence here underscores the constructedness of Domenico’s biography, in which a loosely followed chronology is at times subservient to thematic imperatives without calling attention to itself. In Domenico’s version of the bust story, it is the polishers who discover an imperfection in the marble running across the forehead of his bust.



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fig. 20 Gianlorenzo Bernini, Scipione Borghese (first version), 1632, marble. Galleria Borghese, Rome.

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fig. 21 Gianlorenzo Bernini, Scipione Borghese (second version), 1632, marble. Galleria Borghese, Rome.

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Bernini rushes to complete a new bust in a mere three days. The story of a flawed marble overcome in a second work recalls the discovery by Michelangelo of a visible black vein running down the face of his first version of the Risen Christ, which he abandoned while completing a second work for his client (fig. 22). The unfinished work languished in Rome, well known and discussed, in the first decades of the seventeenth century, when it was “completed.”37 Domenico’s explanation of Bernini’s eagerness to complete a second bust serves as a further illustration of imitation as having to do with overcoming defects (rather than selective imitation of the beautiful). About the flawed first bust, he says that Bernini wished to “convert to his glory the defects of nature herself.” This helps to account for the (im)precision of his description of the defect in this first bust, for the nature or cause of the defect had to support his assertion. Baldinucci says that it was Bernini who “discovered a crack” (e’ si scoprisse un pelo nel marmo), using language that leaves open whether the defect was a natural vein or produced by working the marble. By contrast, Domenico writes: “Because when they were cleaning the face of the portrait with pomice the polishers discovered a marble vein, or shall we say a crack, that ran all along the forehead and which notably altered the resemblance” (Poiche gli Allustratori nel ripulire con la pomice la faccia del Ritratto, scuoprirono una vena di marmo, ò vogliam dire un Pelo, che scorrendo in lungo per la fronte, alterava notabilmente la somiglianza). Domenico’s elaboration of the description (“a marble vein, or shall we say a crack”) raises a question in the reader’s mind whether the defect was in the material (a vein, as in Michelangelo’s first figure of Christ), or may have been produced during the work (a crack, also paralleling problems that arose in the completion, by assistants, of Michelangelo’s final Risen Christ38). Note also that Baldinucci says Bernini discovered it while Domenico, who introduces the damaging possibility that the problem was in the working of the marble, says it was the workers who discovered the problem. Domenico goes on to show the workers’ anxiety about fixing it, suggesting it was their fault, and, to deflect even further from Bernini, in a further elaboration about the defect, to be explicit that the defect was in the material: the workers tried in vain to “amend that macchia which was, by the way, natural in the marble.” Baldinucci did not ignore Bernini’s attitude toward the defect, citing him in another context as having said that if defects did not present themselves, one would have to invent them so as to overcome them.39 But in his retelling of the Scipione story, Domenico actually enacts his father’s dictum by



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fig. 22 Michelangelo Buonarroti, Risen Christ (Christ the Redeemer), 1514 –16, marble, detail of the vein in the face. San Vicenzo Martire, Bassano Romano.

strengthening the suggestion that the vein in the marble was just such a defect waiting to be discovered— or even produced—and overcome by Bernini. The flaws (and major repairs, which do not readily confirm the appearance of a vein) in the first Scipione Borghese have been, until recently, repeatedly explained as the product of faulty stone. The fact that these passages could, for so many years, shape our perception of material conditions visible to the naked eye testifies to the power of Bernini’s biographies. For



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the possibility that it was not only a crack, but the complete fracture of the top of the head possibly caused by working the stone that compromised the work has barely been entertained.40 The Borghese bust story told by both Baldinucci and Domenico does not end with the rapid completion of the second bust, but with the adjudication that it surpassed the first in liveliness. According to both biographers, Scipione Borghese viewed the first bust in progress (presumably before the vein, or pelo, revealed itself in the polishing), and set a time for the completed work to be shown to the pope. In Domenico’s account, at this appointment Bernini showed only the second unmarred bust. But the cardinal proved himself an acute observer, detecting the difference from the bust he had seen unfinished. Bernini then fetches the imperfect bust to compare. Bernini is much less psychologically manipulative in Domenico’s version than in Baldinucci’s account (according to which Bernini first shows the ruined bust and then relieves the cardinal’s disappointment with the second work). The stress in Domenico’s account falls, rather, on the improvement between the busts, with the second possessing an “espressione più viva.”41 Ostensibly it is a story of an original and its copy, but Domenico makes it into a story of imitation. Since Bernini expressed an aversion to copying himself (recorded by Chantelou),42 the stress here on the improvement of the first is critical, and once again calls to mind a Michelangelo story. Michelangelo’s second version of his Risen Christ was criticized by Vincenzo Giustiniani (in his essay on sculpture) for lacking in “vivacità e spirito.”43 Bernini’s second version of the Borghese bust, which arose from circumstances similar to Michelangelo’s Christ figures, not only corrected the defect of the material (nature), but surpassed his own work (and hence also Michelangelo, unable to do the same), by increasing in vivacità. Domenico’s elaboration of the story shows Bernini surpassing Michelangelo because he was capable of turning to his own advantage the defects he was bound to encounter. Proof of the Michelangelesque subtext in Domenico’s version of the Borghese bust episode is offered by Maffeo Barberini, who is placed at the scene of the comparison of the two busts and to whom, once again the pope purportedly repeated that Bernini “would be the Michelangelo of his time.” Although Michelangelo is indirectly invoked (with Bernini emerging as the more lively sculptor) Domenico is concerned to set up Bernini as his own prime referent. Once the two busts were in the room together, the conoscenti compared bust to bust, rather than bust to sitter. One consequence



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for the artist whose teacher must be his own ingegno is that his art becomes the standard against which he can perfect his own art.

study of the antique The Borghese bust episode that stresses the overcoming of defects is followed in Domenico by a description of Bernini’s studies, including an explicit discussion of imitation. In Domenico, Bernini’s early exemplars are antique.44 But unlike the rather clear goal of Michelangelo to compete with and to surpass the antique, Bernini’s relationship to his models is more coyly expressed. It is the antique, and especially the statues of Antinous and Apollo, to which he applied himself most fully. Domenico prefaces this revelation by saying that “whatever he studied must be gathered from what he said in his later years, when he began to prove the effects.” This is a rather puzzling statement. It suggests that while Bernini may have admired certain works, he did not imitate them in any visible way, that this is the form of imitation that is “scarcely perceived”—we would say unconscious. This is close to Seneca’s resemblance of father to son, which Petrarch understood as a resemblance to the source that “should only be apprehended by the silent enquiry of the mind: the similarity should be intuited rather than articulated.”45 What does Domenico gain by this? It reinforces Domenico’s construction of Bernini’s work in a self-referential group: Bernini was never like someone else, rather, he was, in Baldinucci’s words, “always like himself” (sempre mai simile a se stesso).46 There is bound to be some ambivalence about Bernini’s uniqueness in the text. For if Bernini’s teacher was his own ingegno how did Bernini become Bernini? In working this out, Domenico depicts what might best characterized as a Christian process of mimetic reform (a process that entails exemplars but is internal) to describe Bernini’s process of forming himself to “perfection,” a word he employs. It is perhaps less his particular exemplars than the way he worked with them that makes Bernini’s artistic formation resemble a Christian process of mimetic reform. Bernini’s period of study after the antique is described as a time of intense concentration and privation. The antique works upon which he formed his art, “noble exemplars,” stimulated him to “arrive at the perfection of art.” These “dead statues,” “produced in the body an unnamable sweetness,” giving him force for the entire day. Domenico’s



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portrayal of his father’s models as entering into the body partakes in the metaphors of ingestion of an imitated author from Quintilian and common in sixteenth-century theories of imitation.47 This characterization of this ingestion of relic-like exemplars, as producing “sweetness” and “love,” is equally typical of the language of mysticism, of the internalization of God in the Christian process of reforming the soul.48

saint lawrence This resemblance of Bernini’s artistic formation to the Christian process of mimetic reform would not be so remarkable if the section on Bernini’s study were not immediately followed by an explicit instance of Bernini’s imitation of a saint in his statue of Saint Lawrence (fig. 28).49 Baldinucci writes only one line about this work, identifying it as the work belonging to the Strozzi. Domenico elaborates the story of the genesis of the work: “Out of devotion to the saint, whose name he bore, he wanted to depict Saint Lawrence in the act of being burned in marble.” He tells us that in order to study the effect on his own skin and the expression of agony on his own face, which he observed in a mirror, Bernini burned himself. His father Pietro, reduced to an observer of his son’s progress, discovers him by accident, and was moved that his son, in order to portray a fake martyrdom, would create a real martyr out of himself. The desire to “provare in se” the martyrdom of the saint is good artistic practice—for it was believed that artists, like rhetoricians, could only represent convincingly what they felt themselves. In this respect Bernini also surpassed Michelangelo, who commanded others to imitate such agonies for him to observe and record.50 Bernini’s imitation of the saint (sometimes with pain), a first step in the reform of the soul,51 is invoked for another purpose as well. Sculpture here is a second-order representation: Bernini is the subject of his own mimetic practice, from which would emerge not a perfect mirror of Saint Lawrence but a distinct form of self-expression.52 Bernini’s Saint Lawrence story also has strong Michelangelesque subtexts. The connection to Condivi’s Michelangelo concerns the artist’s identification with one of the subjects of his work. Michelangelo had been severely beaten by his father and uncle for wanting to be an artist. Immediately after recounting the beatings Condivi describes Michelangelo’s first work, a painting of Saint Anthony Beaten by Devils after Schongauer. He does not state outright that the persecuted young Michelangelo identified



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with St. Anthony but the association is readily made by the reader.53 Condivi subsumed the episode into an example of imitative naturalism, for the painting amazed people for the likenesses of the species Michelangelo tracked down at Florence markets. While Michelangelo’s convincing naturalism in the Saint Anthony may have been a product of his identification with the saint, when he set out to model pain as a mature artist, he had someone copy the expression of a hired man for the grimace on the Porta Pia, and he copied another man’s expression for his Crucifixion of Saint Peter. In keeping his models at arm’s length, Michelangelo’s imitation was limited. Michelangelo’s identification with Saint Anthony is implicit in Condivi, but Domenico makes explicit Bernini’s identification with Saint Lawrence. Bernini could emerge with a truly lively expression of himself through his perfected form of performative imitation. Domenico’s discussion of the Saint Lawrence as a work with which Bernini identified because of his martyr’s name is also important in establishing a predetermined disposition of his character or his destiny. For in Domenico’s biography, an astrological or a mythopoeic explanation of the artist’s birth or name, one that could provide a key to the whole life, is absent.54 Domenico calls the Saint Lawrence the “primo parto della sua devozione,” the first-born of his devotion —we immediately recall the transmission of paternal devotion Domenico cited early on in his text, in his preface to the reader.55 But it is also a metaphor of auto-creation: after his ingestion of dead statues, Bernini gave birth, a live birth, to the Saint Lawrence—a new, perfected self.56 Bernini’s identification with Saint Lawrence, in name, and by imitating his martyrdom, widens the mimetic content of the whole chapter. For it shows Bernini conforming himself to a reformed figure (a saint) in a directly mimetic way that Domenico will not show Bernini doing with artistic exemplars. There is thus a devotional register for imitation in Domenico’s text that is lacking in Baldinucci, who speaks at greater length about Bernini’s use of his own countenance for his figure of the Old Testament warrior-king David (fig. 19).57 This may seem like too large a burden for Bernini’s youthful look into a mirror to bear. The Saint Lawrence episode, which probably never took place, is too overdetermined not to invoke mimesis as identity-formation. Together with Bernini’s internalization of antique statues, the Saint Lawrence story, in which the artist looked into the mirror at himself, point to the process by which Bernini reformed and perfected himself. Lacking a master, having only his ingegno as his teacher, these episodes show how Bernini became Bernini.



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the montoya bust The stern and attentive portrait of the Spanish monsignor Pedro de Foix Montoya, dated to 1622 (fig. 27), is the final mimetic episode. The bust story also represents a slight chronological revision in order to serve the chapter’s theme.58 Of all the episodes of chapter 2, the Montoya episode is the most similarly recounted in the two biographies and there is a similar rendering by Bernini himself in the Chantelou diary.59 In both vite the cardinals and prelates who viewed the remarkably lifelike bust called it Montoya “petrified.” When Montoya himself entered the room, Cardinal Maffeo Barberini remarked “This is the portrait of Monsignor Montoya” and then referring to the bust: “This is Monsignor Montoya.” The difference between Baldinucci and Domenico’s account of the episode is minor: Baldinucci says that for Montoya Bernini “executed a portrait so lifelike, that there was not an eye of these times that it did not stupify.” Domenico changes the phrase “al vivo” (lifelike) to “with such spirit and resemblance” (con tale spirito, e somiglianza) that “who wanted to take delight in comparing attentively the original and the copy, was heard saying that either both were fake or both real . . . that that statue had no need of a soul to appear alive” (“chi volea prendersi diletto di raffigurare attentamente l’Originale, e la Copia, gli era d’uopo di dire, ò che ambedue fosser finti, ò ambedue veri . . . che quella Statua non havea bisogno d’anima per parer viva”). At first reading, the Montoya episode revolves around its lifelike or lively qualities. Such a play between the portrait and the person vying with each other over life is a topos in writing about portraiture in general and Bernini’s portraiture in particular.60 But there is a twist here. Domenico adds the encouragement to compare the two. His conclusion that if one were to do so, that either both were false or both true, though conventional, is consistent with his ongoing argument about how Bernini became Bernini, for the distinction between nature and art introduced in Domenico’s note to his readers is leveled.61 As in the Scipione Borghese bust comparison, Domenico destabilizes nature as a referent for art. If the comparison of Montoya to his bust is not a question of nature versus art, the episode begs these questions: Who is Montoya and how are we possibly to know him? Will he make himself known to us in his “life”? Or will it take an artist or a biographer, to make him alive and known to us? With its confusion of referents, this mimetic episode also provides some reflection on portraiture as a figure for biography. The Montoya episode refers back to the issue of the mimetic relationship of the biography to



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Bernini’s life, raised in the preface when Domenico proposed the formulation: vita=Vita. Domenico portrays Bernini as able to make his portraits as if living and close to their subject. Art seemed to be able to surpass, to replace nature. This is not a function of idealizing at all; there is nothing at all in this about the improvement of form, or beauty, but rather about the priority of representation in knowing. The same case can be made for Domenico’s biography of his father. Bernini became himself through a series of mimetic processes. His models remain beneath the surface, just as the models for Domenico’s Vita of his father (like Condivi’s Life of Michelangelo) remain a subtext. How does the son give life to the father? Not through an ordinary birth, but through a kind of miracle by means of which nature is superseded and Bernini’s art provides its own models. Bypassing an imitative model of resemblance of art to nature, Domenico takes life (vita) and representation of life (Vita) as parallel processes, not indistinguishable from but equivalent to each other because both are forms of representations. Hence there is no need to set priority on the father or son as point of origin. For the son “resembles” the father both in the passive and transitive senses: he has given life to the father just as the father has given life to the son, in whom his image is reflected. Thus precisely because Domenico was Bernini’s son, not in spite of this fact, was he his father’s fated biographer.

notes 1. On the doctrine of imitation in seventeenth-century art see, among others, Panofsky, Idea; Lee, Ut Pictura Poesis, 9 –16; Cropper, “L’Idea di Bellori,” 1:81ff. and now Cropper, Domenichino Affair. 2. For Agostinio Mascardi’s view of family biography as compromised, see Montanari in this volume. Montanari views the choice of Baldinucci as a way that the Bernini family masked their own embarrassed authorship of the text. Domenico addresses the issue explicitly in the author’s note to the reader by citing “the example of sacred and profane authors who in their commentaries have widely described the doings not only of their parents and relatives but their own, without censure,” and specifically Saint Gregory’s oration on his sister in which praise of one’s own family is deemed virtuous. DB, “L’autore al lettore,” n.p. 3. “Sembrerà forse cosa nuova, che possa il Figlio esser Autore della Vita del Padre ò che possa il morto Padre tanto compromettersi dalla penna viva del Figlio, che riconoscer debba Vita immortale appresso i Posteri da quegli medesimo, a cui egli diè Vita mortale frà Viventi. Mà i miracoli dell’Arte non son cotanto ristretti frà gli angusti termini della Natura, che qualche volta non la trapassino, particolarmente quando nell’Arte, più del lavorìo della mano, operi la vivacità dell’Ingegno, che benche rinchiuso nell’Huomo, passa, e vola fuor dell’Huomo, e rivela, e supera i secreti stessi della Natura.” DB, “L’autore al lettore,” n.p. 4. For Seneca and imitation see note 45 below. Cristoforo Sorte, Osservazioni nella pittura, extends the imitation metaphor to the styles of artists by which personal identity is



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also established: “whence painters have that same liberty that is usually conceded to poets, and as these are known in inventions and styles [stile] different from one another, so it happens similarly with painters. Whence it is that the images or figures that they make are said to be their children since ordinarily they retain something of this Idea; and therefore one sees melancholy in the images of some painters, in some others modesty, and in others a certain vivacity of spirit accompanied by a certain gracious and perfect imitation.” Cited in Summers, Judgment of Sense, 119. 5. “To imitate creatively is to assume the historicity of one’s own particular place and moment and idiom, and thus to take on a kind of humility.” Greene, Light in Troy, 47. See also Hampton, Writing from History; Gebauer and Woolf, Mimesis; Metscher, Mimesis. 6. Filial imitation appears only in the reign of Urban VIII, who encourages Bernini to have children. FB, 15; FB-1948, 85; FB-1966/2006, 20. 7. Following in another’s footsteps is from Horace, Ep., I, 19. 21; Quintilian 10.2.10 and Seneca, Epistles, 33. The passages against imitation and in defense of individual expression are cited in a letter by Angelo Poliziano to Paolo Cortesi (reprinted in Prosatori latini del Quattrocento, ed. Eugenio Garin (Milan: R. Ricciardi, 1952), 902, as cited by McLaughlin, Literary Imitation in the Renaissance, 28 and 202 –3. The connection of Domenico’s citation to a very similar passage in Vasari’s Vita of Michelangelo was noted in D’Onofrio, Roma vista da Roma, 183. 8. “Accortosi un giorno, che nel ritrarre un disegno haveva mutato uno scorcio di una figura, in atto però più naturale, e spiritoso, e supponendo la variazione più tosto colpo di sorte, che tiro di maestria, lo ripigliò come mancante, e poco attento all’esemplare propostogli. Gio:Lorenzo modestamente rispose, che l’avidità dell’operare l’haveva fatto trascorrere, e forse passar oltre al suo dovere, ma che s’egli doveva sempre andar dietro altrui, non sarebbe giammai arrivato a passar facilmente avanti ad alcuno. Da questo risposta comprese finalmente il Padre, che degno Maestro d’un tal discepolo era il suo solo ingegno, onde lasciò a lui libero il modo d’operare.” DB, 5. 9. “Chi direte adunque,— disse il Conte,— che imitasse il Petrarca e ‘l Boccaccio, che pur tre giorni ha, si puo dir, che son stati al mondo?—Io nol so,—rispose messer Federico; ma creder si po che essi ancor avessero l’animo indrizzato alla imitazione, benché noi non sappiam di cui—. Rispose il Conte:—Creder si po che que’ che erano imitati fossero migliori che que’ che imitavano; e troppo maraviglia saria che cosí presto il lor nome a la fama, se eran boni, fosse in tutto spenta. Ma il lor vero maestro cred’io che fosse l’ingegno ed il lor proprio giudicio naturale.” Castiglione, Cortegiano, XXXVII, cited in Summers, Judgment of Sense, 317. 10. Michael Hirst, introduction to Condivi, Vita di Michelagnolo, xvii. 11. For the good father, either an encouraging non-artist or an artist who provided a family tradition in Vasari, or the substitute father in the patron, see Barolsky, Giotto’s Father. 12. In positing a Senecan form of mimesis as the theme of the book, Domenico is distancing Bernini from a family genealogy of the sort that Barolsky has shown to be operant throughout Vasari’s lives. Barolsky, Giotto’s Father. Andrea Bacchi notes the evacuation of Pietro from the biographies but does not provide an explanation. Andrea Bacchi, “Del conciliare l’inconciliabile,” in Bernardini and Fagiolo dell’Arco, Gian Lorenzo Bernini: Regista del Barocco, 65. 13. “imperciocchè ammirandosi in quella sola Città le fatiche più illustri, sì degli antichi, come de’ moderni Pittori, e Scultori, e le preziose reliquie eziandio della vecchia Architettura, che ad onta del tempo, non leggier nemico, stando ancora in piè, alle sue gloriose ruine miracolosamente s’appoggia, fu a lui facile coll’attento studio, e continovo dell’opere più lodate, e massimamente di quelle del gran Michelagnolo, e di Raffaello, il farne in se un estratto di tutto l’esquisito, e di tutto l’eletto, a fine di poter, giusta sua possa, agguagliare l’eccelse idee di quelle sublissime menti.” FB, 4; FB-1948, 73–74; FB-1966/2006, 8 –9 (emphasis mine). The phrase resembles the humanist educator Antonio Rho’s (and others’) eclectic



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approach to imitation: “I am writing so that [students of rhetoric] can come to this compilation as to a beautiful little orchard and pluck from the many varied flowers there the nobler ones, the prettier ones and the ones that smell the sweetest. With these they can weave and produce new garlands of eloquence.” Antonio Rho, De Imitationibus Eloquentie (1430 –33), as quoted in McLaughlin, Literary Imitation in the Renaissance, 109. 14. According to Baldinucci Bernini did not believe, as some people said, that Michelangelo and followers added some grazia; he thought the Zeuxis maiden a fable (because parts were not beautiful in and of themselves but in relation to each other); and he said that the trick in portraiture was to recognize that quality “che ciascheduno ha di proprio . . . ma che bisognava pigliare qualche particolarità non brutta, ma bella.” FB, 70; FB-1948, 143– 44; FB-1966/2006, 77. 15. On the migration of art/nature terms from horticulture to poetry, see Taylor, Nature and Art in Renaissance Literature, 17–19. 16. FB, 110 –11; FB-1948, 184– 85; FB-1966/2006, 110 –11. 17. See Williams and Montanari in this volume. 18. Thanks to Eraldo Bellini for identifying this as the motto of the Accademia della Crusca. 19. FB, 111; FB-1948, 185; FB-1966/2006, 111. 20. DB, 30. 21. Montanari, “Pierre Cureau de La Chambre,” 117. 22. See the conclusion to the section on genres in the Prolegomena. 23. For the Costanza affairs, with previous bibliography, see McPhee in this volume. Montanari interprets the inclusion of this less than flattering episode as Domenico’s faithful transcription of Bernini’s own self-reflection in old age. 24. His general statement: “il sommo pregio dell’arte consistere in sapersi servire del poco, e del cattivo, e del male atto al bisogno, per far cose belle, e far sì, che sia utile ciò, che fù difetto, e che se non fusse, bisognerebbe farlo.” DB, 32. About a defect encountered in a specific project, the window on the site of the Cathedra Petri: “E perche nel mezzo di questa Gloria sarebbe necesariamente caduto il vano di una gran finestra, egli convertendo quel difetto in suo vantaggio, fece, che ne’ vetri di essa, come in luogo di luce inaccessibile, apparisse lo Spirito Santo in sembianza di Colomba, che dà compimento a tutta l’Opera.” DB, 110. 25. Bernini’s humility is laid out extensively in the final chapter. 26. Thomas Greene has argued that imitation theory inevitably expresses historical anxieties, of the inadequacy of one’s age. 27. The passage about the defective times comes also in chapter 2. Domenico, describing the support of Scipione Borghese for the arts, writes that he was: “amatore al pari del Zio di cose belle, e gloriose, teneva ancor’ ei in somma stima quelle virtu, & in un continuo esercizio ancora gli animi de’ Professori, onde fu commune l’opinione, che per andar di pari quel tempo con quegli antichi, anche più chiari, e rinomati, altro forse non mancasse, che l’età.” DB, 7– 8. 28. Soussloff noted, but did not comment on the difference in certainty between Domenico and Baldinucci’s prognostications. She notes that both biographers “use the anecdote to show the artist’s precociousness” through recognition by a pope. Soussloff, “Imitatio Buonarroti,” 587. 29. FB, 4–5; FB-1948, 74–75; FB-1966/2006, 9 –10; DB, 8 –9. 30. In Chantelou’s diary, Bernini recounted this episode twice, including a few details not in the biographies. Most important is that the pope saw the youth’s drawing of a Saint John (Bernini’s namesake). To prove that the young boy had done it, the pope, in an imitative gesture, asked for a Paul (his namesake). Chantelou/Stanic´, 106; Chantelou/Blunt, 102. See D’Onofrio, Roma vista da Roma, 89 –96, for Bernini’s own role in establishing the myth of his precocity by misdating these episodes. Further, see Ostrow’s essay in this volume.



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31. Barolsky, Michelangelo’s Nose, esp. 18 –36. The form this took in Vasari’s biography was the invention of the story of the head of the faun, carved for Lorenzo de Medici in the patron’s garden. For Aretino’s possible adoption of the figure for himself, possibly following Michelangelo, see Waddington, Aretino’s Satyr, esp. 142 – 44. 32. Barolsky, Michelangelo’s Nose, 37–52. 33. See Steinberg, Michelangelo’s Last Paintings, esp. 39 – 41 (on Michelangelo’s identification with Saint Paul). 34. Overt references to Michelangelo are fewer in Domenico that in Baldinucci although this subject demands much additional study. D’Onofrio, Roma vista da Roma, 172 – 87. Baldinucci’s framing of Bernini’s reputation around Michelangelo in the context of the revival of Michelangelo in Barberini circles starting around 1618, is discussed in Catherine Soussloff, “Imitatio Buonarroti.” 35. FB, 7; FB-1948, 76 –77; FB-1966/2006, 11–12; DB, 10 –12. 36. For the early attention to the dating of the bust, see Fraschetti, Bernini, 108 note 1; Hibbard, “Un nuovo documento sul busto.” 37. For the first version, recently rediscovered, see Baldriga, “The First Version of Michelangelo’s Christ,” and Danesi Squarzina, “The Bassano ‘Christ the Redeemer.’” 38. Letter from Sebastiano dal Piombo to Michelangelo, 6 September 1521, in Poggi, Barocchi, and Ristori, Carteggio di Michelangelo, 2: DXXVIII, 313. Notice too that Domenico has the polishers discover the defect rather than Bernini, raising the specter of a defect in their workmanship and distancing Bernini from blame for defective work. 39. “diceva non essere il sommo pregio dell’Artefice il far bellissimi, e comodi edifici, ma il sapere inventar maniere per servirsi del poco, del cattivo, e male adattato al bisogno per far cose belle, e far sì, che sia utile quel, che fu difetto, e che, se non fusse, bisognerebbe farlo.” FB, 73; FB-1948, 146; FB-1966/2006, 80. 40. In 1908 Modigliani wrote: “quel che nè l’uno nè l’altro dei due biografi ha rilevato che il pelo del marmo dovette dar luogo a una vera e propria frattura. Io credo che ció non sia stato avvertito finora, eppura la presenza di un grosso pernio infisso verticalmente attraverso il berretto nel cranio, quella di alcuni tasselli di marmo innestati nella nuca e nell’occipite, e, più ancora, un sottile strato di mistura gommosa nella linea della lesione testimoniano all’evidenze che le due parti attraversate dal pelo si serano rilasciate e dovettero essere riunite e fissate per modo da impedire un nuovo distacco. Ed è logico presumere che ció avvenisse per opera dello stesso Bernini, anzitutto per le traccie d’antichitá che presenta la riparazione” (emphasis mine). Modigliani, “Busti del Cardinale Scipione,” 68. In an extensive entry on the busts in the Borghese museum catalogue, Faldi followed Momigliano in following the biographies: “Il ‘pelo’ di cui parlano i biografi dovette essere la causa della frattura del marmo che attraversava la fronte del primo busto, il quale presenta infatti segni della conseguente riparazione: un perno infisso verticalmente nel cranio attraversa il berretto, alcuni tasselli di marmo innestati alla nuca e un sottile strato di mistura gommosa lungo la linea del frontone.” Faldi, Galleria Borghese, 38. 41. Baldinucci refers to the bust as “un altro simile, di non punto minor bellezza del primo.” FB, 7; FB-1948, 77; FB-1966/2006, 12. 42. Domenico’s report that Bernini made a copy of the two angels on the Ponte Sant’Angelo for Clement X appears an exception, although judging from the payments to the two sculptors in his workshop who actually carved them, they do appear to be copies, and are not by Bernini’s hand. Weil appears to have been swayed by the attractive anecdote into attributing Bernini some role in the works, this in spite of the payment to the sculptors who made the copies of precisely the same amount paid to the sculptors who made “their own” works after Bernini’s designs. In the payment documents the works are referred to as “copie.” Weil, History and Decoration of the Ponte Sant’ Angelo, 81, 128 –29.



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43. “Allo scultore è necessario non solo il sapere disegnare perfettamente, con l’esperienza fatta nelle buone statue antiche e moderne, e bassirilievi, al pari del pittore; ma conviene che lo superi in saper dare bella postura alle figure, cioè che posino bene in terra, e con grazia e vivacità tale, ch’escano dal parere fatte da pietra, come si vede in alcune statue antiche, e particolarmente nell’Adone de’ Pichini ch’è una statua in piedi, ma con tanta proporzione in tutte le parti, e di squisito lavoro, e con tanti segni di vivacità indicibili, che a rispetto dell’altre opere, questa pare che spiri, e pur è di marmo come le altre, e particolarmente il Cristo di Michelangelo, che tiene la Croce che si vede nella chiesa della Minerva, ch’è bellissima, e fatta con industria e diligenza, ma pare statua mera, non avendo la vivacità e lo spirito che ha l’Adone suddetto, dal che si può risolvere, che questo particolare consista in grazia conceduta dalla natura, senza che l’arte vi possa arrivare; che il pittore ha mille e più modi e ripieghi di rimediare a’ difetti della postura della figura, e de’ piani, che non ha lo scultore, in poter del quale non è di rimediare all’errore già commesso, perché consiste nel mancamento della materia: Ex nihilo nihil fit, disse colui [Lucretius] e il pittore con i colori può fare molti tentativi, e scancellare e rifare, il che non è conceduto allo scultore.” Giustiniani, “Discorso sopra la scultura,” 70. The Adonis to which he compares the Risen Christ is the Meleager, identified in the seventeenth century as Adonis, in the Pighini family collection from 1579 to 1770. Haskell and Penny, Taste and the Antique, 263. 44. DB, 12 –15. Baldinucci places Bernini’s study of the antique later, during the pontificate of Urban VIII: “Non tardò il Giovane ad assecondare i consigli dell’amico Pontefice, e fecelo senz’altro maestro, che delle statue, e Fabbriche antiche di Roma, solito dire, che quante di queste si trovano in quella Città, son tanti Maestri pagati per li Giovanetti.” FB, 11; FB-1948, 81; FB-1966/2006, 15. 45. One of the five metaphors for literary imitation in Seneca, Epistolae, 84, concerns the resemblance of a text to a model not as closely as an artistic image resembles its original, but as a son is similar to his father. On Petrarch’s use of this metaphor to stress the distinctive difference of the son’s features, and his use of Seneca’s call that the similarities to a model “should only be apprehended by the silent enquiry of the mind: the similarity should be intuited rather than articulated.” McLaughlin, Literary Imitation in the Renaissance, 25–26, 30. Petrarch’s influence is apparent in the writings of Cristoforo Landino, Disp. Cam. 254: “there ought to be a careful rationale applied in imitating a writer, and we should not try to become the same as those we are imitating, but rather to become similar in such a way that the similarity is scarcely perceived, and even then it should only be apparent to the learned.” “The imitator should ensure that what he writes is similar but not identical to the original . . . and that very similarity should not be obvious, but should only be apprehended by the silent enquiry of the mind. Consequently, the similarity should be capable of being intuited not articulated.” Petrarch, Familiares, 22.2.20. Both are cited in McLaughlin, Literary Imitation in the Renaissance, 177. 46. “l’ingegno del Bernino tanto nelle cose grandi, quanto nelle piccole riusciva sempre mai simile a se stesso.” FB, 55; FB-1948, 128; FB-1966/2006, 62. And similarly: “Così Gio: Lorenzo col far sempre opere belle andavasi tuttavia dimostrando simile a se stesso.” FB, 59; FB-1948, 133; FB-1966/2006, 67. On this passage, see, further, the essays by Lyons and Montanari. 47. Quintilian is the source of Erasmus’s metaphor of ingestion of texts into the veins (rather than memory) to describe the complete assimilation of a model by the author whose imitation emerges as distinctly his own. Cave, The Cornucopian Text, esp. 36 –37, 64– 66. 48. On the Christian theory of internal modeling, see Morrisson, Mimetic Tradition of Reform, 3. 49. DB, 15–16; FB, 8; FB-1948, 77–78; FB-1966/2006, 12.



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50. Michelangelo’s production of the Porta Pia mascherone by observing someone else’s expression of pain was considered similar to, rather than qualitatively different from, the Bernini episode in D’Onofrio, Roma vista da Roma, 172. 51. For the painful imitation practices of nuns, see Hamburger, Visual and the Visionary, 263. 52. Self-expression arises as a distinct notion in sixteenth-century tracts on imitation. Cave, Cornucopian Text, 42 – 43. 53. As pointed out in Barolsky, Giotto’s Father, 128 –29. 54. Compare to Baldinucci who says Bernini was “nato in vero per divina disposizione, e per ventura della nostra Italia a portar luce a due secoli.” FB, 3; FB-1948, 73; FB-1966/2006, 8. On the question of the name with regard to this work, see the extensive discussion by Damm in this volume. 55. “Quindi meraviglia non è, se si riporti dal Figlio alla luce delle Stampe la Vita del Cavalier Bernino suo Padre, verso il quale e l’affetto lo stimola, e la gratitudine lo persuade, e l’ammirazione delle di lui eccellenti doti lo rapisce, e più di tutto la giustizia l’obbliga con la considerazione, che havendo egli di già complito con altre Stampe alla prima, e massima Legge, ch’è impressa in noi nel nostro nascere, verso la Religione, e verso Dio, complisca nella presente alla seconda verso Chì con la educazione gli coltivò il lume della Religione, e la cognizione di Dio.” DB, “L’autore al lettore,” n.p. 56. Bernini’s identification with Saint Lawrence appears again at the end of the biography in Domenico’s emphasis on his father’s charity, giving so much money away, as did Lawrence. See Soussloff, “Critical Topoi,” for Saint Lawrence’s charity, although the connection to Bernini’s charitable activities later in life is not made. 57. “è cosa notabile, che mentre egli la stava lavorando, a somiglianza di se medesimo, lo stesso Cardinal Maffeo Barberino volle più volte trovarsi nella sua stanza, e di sua propria mano tenergli lo specchio.” FB, 8, FB-1948, 78; FB-1966/2006, 13. 58. The execution of the Montoya bust, part of a cenotaph completed in 1632, two years after Montoya’s death, has been fairly securely dated to 1622 based on documents. Lavin, “Five New Youthful Sculptures,” 239 – 40. Domenico places the bust in the papacy of Paul V although the documents cited in its dating place the bust’s execution in the papacy of Gregory XV (1621–23). Further documents subsequently discovered by Lavin (the contract with Orazio Torriani for the tomb’s design, and with the scarpellino for the execution of its various parts) date to March and August 1623. They are strangely silent on both Bernini’s authorship of the bust (presumably already complete), and the necessity of designing an architectural surround to accommodate it, since the Montoya bust, more than most of its day, is intimately related to its niche. For the contracts, see Lavin, “Bernini’s Portraits of No-Body,” in Lavin, Past-Present, 125–29. For a critical evaluation of the sources, see Sebastian Schütze, “Anima Beata e Anima Dannata” in Coliva and Schütze, Bernini scultore: La nascita del barocco, 157–58. 59. FB, 6; FB-1948, 76; FB-1966/2006, 11; DB, 16; Chantelou/Blunt, 125–26; Chantelou/Stanic´, 123-24. On these passages, see further Preimesberger in this volume. 60. You can find similar such arguments in the poetry by Aretino and Marino quoted by Carlo Ridolfi in his vita of Titian, for example. Ridolfi, Meraviglie, 171, 176, 189. 61. This theme is not absent in Baldinucci, who has Pietro Bernini put Gianlorenzo in competition with himself early on: “invenzione in vero ingegnosissima, con cui facevalo divenire ogni dì emulo delle proprie virtù, e tenevalo con se medesimo in continovo cimento.” FB, 5; FB-1948, 75; FB-1966/2006, 10.



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FIVE “always like himself”: character and genius in bernini’s biographies Robert Williams

Both Baldinucci’s and Domenico Bernini’s biographies put an emphasis on the all-inclusive nature of their subject’s skills. This emphasis links the texts to one of the principal themes of Renaissance art theory, on the one hand, and to seventeenth-century concettismo on the other. In so doing, they show how concettismo might be seen as something like the completion or fulfillment of Renaissance art theory, even though it is not specifically concerned with the visual arts—indeed, precisely because it is not specifically concerned with the visual arts. For both biographers, Bernini demonstrates that a mastery of art at the highest level always involves a mastery of other things, that perfection in art is the sign of a more comprehensive intellectual and moral perfection. In giving emphasis to this idea, they say something important about art as well as about Bernini. They reinforce the cult of a particular personality by repeatedly insisting upon the artist’s unique ingegno, but by also showing how his achievement is the function of a higher, all encompassing mode of being, they use Bernini to represent the ideal relation between art and life. They thus use the biographical format to make a fundamental arttheoretical point; they exploit the potential within biography to reveal the essential moral content of art. Both biographies seem to draw upon a nearly identical body of source material and they treat many of the same themes, but their emphases differ in significant ways. Domenico’s is certainly the livelier piece of storytelling, and is thus the more immediately appealing of the two, even if its obvious embellishments strain the credulity of the modern reader. Baldinucci’s is more understated, yet it is also more polemical: part of its purpose is to present a detailed defense of Bernini’s architectural work at Saint Peter’s. We are likely to find it dry and formulaic by comparison with

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Domenico’s: in fact it follows a formula Baldinucci himself had created for writing artists’ lives and had sought to apply consistently;1 its formulaic quality is thus intentional and would have been regarded by its author as a virtue. The tactical differences between the two texts have much to do with the ways the writers perceived their intended audiences: Domenico Bernini appeals to readers familiar with the tradition of popular hagiographical literature; Baldinucci, writing for Queen Christina of Sweden, seems to aim at a more sophisticated readership, intellectuals influenced by the critical spirit of Enlightenment rationalism.2 Baldinucci’s evocation of stoic themes probably also has to do with the values of his patroness.3 Baldinucci expresses his intentions very clearly at the beginning of his text. He says his aim is to offer a brief account of Bernini’s life, just enough of an account as will suffice to prove the point that the artist has succeeded at maintaining the three “most noble arts” of painting, sculpture, and architecture at the high level to which Michelangelo had raised them a century earlier.4 That Bernini was to be the heir to Michelangelo was evident, Baldinucci claims, even in his childhood, recognized at their very first meeting by Paul V.5 Following a line of thinking that would have seemed perfectly natural to anyone deeply read in Vasari, Baldinucci credits this comprehensive mastery of the arts to Bernini’s unparalleled skill in disegno and the foundation of that skill, in turn, in the practice of drawing both the human body and ancient sculpture.6 Bernini’s mastery of the three arts is not only evident in individual works of painting, sculpture, and architecture, but also in his manner of combining them—the bel composto—and even, it would seem, in his manner of approaching sculpture in such a way as to allow him to “couple” it with painting (“accoppiare insieme la pittura e la scultura”).7 The recognition of this core structure, as it were, to Bernini’s cluster of skills would only be confirmed, from Baldinucci’s point of view, by the commemorative medal struck at the order of Louis XIV (fig. 23), with its motto, “singular in each, unique in all together” (singularis in singulis, in omnibus unicus):8 a king of France is thus made to witness to the truth of a prophecy uttered by a pope decades before,9 as well as to the enduring validity of arttheoretical values codified by Vasari in the previous century. Bernini’s skills extend well beyond the three arts: he is an accomplished playwright, whose comedies are distinctive for their witty dialogue — so good that connoisseurs think he is borrowing from ancient playwrights such as Plautus and Terence, whom he insists he has never read—as well



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fig. 23 Jean-Charles-François Chéron, Medal in Honor of Gianlorenzo Bernini (reverse), 1674, bronze. Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

as for their stage machinery and what we would call special effects.10 That these skills are all interrelated in Baldinucci’s mind is clear when he says that “it is no wonder at all” (non dee in alcun modo stupore arrecare) that someone skilled in the three arts whose common basis is disegno should also be good at writing plays.11 He invokes the standard notion of ut pictura poesis, the idea that “poetry is a kind of painting that speaks, painting a mute poetry,”12 but his convictions actually draw upon the more specific topos, which goes back to Alberti and Leonardo, and is espoused by Vasari as well as by other sixteenth-century theorists, that disegno is a principle extending beyond the practice of the visual arts specifically, that it is a type of rational activity, even the type of all rational activity, evident in all aspects of human life.13



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Francisco de Hollanda, writing in the 1540s, put it in terms that are worth quoting at length because they already sound very much like seventeenth-century concettismo: Indeed, I sometimes think that I can find among men but one art or science, that of drawing or painting, from which all others issue like branches. For if one considers well all that it done in this life, one will find that every man is unwittingly engaged in painting this world, both in creating and producing new forms and figures, in dressing variously, in building and filling spaces with buildings and houses, in cultivating the fields and ploughing the land into sketches and pictures, in sailing over the sea, in fighting and in ordering armed forces, and finally in deaths and funerals and in all other movements, actions, and occasions. . . . Whoever considers well and understands human works will find without doubt that they are nothing but painting, or parts of painting, and that the painter has skill to invent what was not previously known and to work at all other professions with much more cunning, charm, and style than the very men who profess them.14 The idea that an artist might know more about other subjects than specialists in those subjects simply by being an artist goes back to antiquity. Vitruvius tells of an architect, Pythius, who believed that architects possess a mastery of all arts, and that they necessarily understand them better than specialists in those arts. This idea was understood to be implicit in the very word “architect,” which means “governor” or “ruler” of workmen. Vitruvius censures Pythius for this extreme position, but his mention of it prepares the reader for the author’s own rather bold claim that the architect must master many kinds of knowledge, from geology and meteorology to medicine and mathematics.15 Writing in the first years of the seventeenth century, Federico Zuccaro, former president of the Roman Accademia di San Luca, made an even more ambitious and elaborate case than de Hollanda for the importance of disegno. For Zuccaro, disegno is the essence of thought itself, the characteristic action of the soul. Not only does it unify the three visual arts, it extends to all aspects of human activity: it is the source of all skill in art, but also of all the virtues and all the sciences. Zuccaro creates a cosmological hierarchy to explain the significance of this claim, according to which each of the planets presides over a different kind of human activity. The highest place,



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that of Saturn, goes to theology; next, below, Jupiter presides over statecraft; Mars over warfare. The fourth sphere, the middlemost, that of the Sun, presides over the arts of design. Beneath it, arranged under Venus, Mercury, and the Moon, are other disciplines, including music, philosophy, astrology, geometry (the liberal arts) as well as all lower crafts and trades. This arrangement cleverly preserves the features of the traditional hierarchy of knowledge—the highest places going to theology and statecraft, for example—while also suggesting that the arts of design, “the Sun in the soul,” occupy a uniquely important place, considerably higher than the traditional liberal arts.16 The elevation of disegno into an epistemological principle, a mode of knowing, an aptitude that superintends all forms of rational activity, was thus well-established by the time Baldinucci and Domenico Bernini wrote. While Domenico points out the importance of drawing in his father’s education,17 and has Paul V say not once but twice that the boy will become the Michelangelo of his century,18 the connection between disegno, the three arts, and Michelangelo is not made explicit. Domenico frames his case differently: “For along with a marvelous combination of the most precious gifts, each of which alone would make any man admirable and great, he also knew how to cultivate all of them [di tutte fornire il suo animo], so that the acclaim which he received for excellence in his profession was not what was of greatest worth to him. Thus did he possess in such excellence all those qualities that together can form a man of great creative imagination [idea] and virtue.”19 The very last sentence of the biography reinforces this point: “we can conclude that Cavalier Bernini was in all his actions a great man.”20 For Domenico, Bernini’s greatness is the direct expression of a unique ingegno; his text lacks Baldinucci’s sober art-historical emphasis on the intermediary role of training based on disegno and thus retains a mythical quality. He goes so far as to call Bernini a “monster genius” (mostro di ingegno).21 Bernini’s literary skills are simply one manifestation of his ingegno, evident in his conversation generally and especially in his “clever comebacks” (motti acuti).22 Artist’s wit had been celebrated at least since the days of Giotto, whose argute risposte are recorded by Boccaccio and Franco Sacchetti, and Condivi and Vasari had mentioned Michelangelo’s ability to recite and discuss Dante in a manner that impressed learned men, but Bernini’s biographers go much further. Both record how Alexander VII used to say that he was astounded by the way in which Bernini, by the force of his intellect (forza d’ingegno) alone, could achieve a level of discursive ability in any subject that others could only reach after long study.23 Such a



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remark, which echoes the claims of ancient orators about their ability to discourse confidently on all subjects—thus a kind of equivalent in the verbal realm to the claims made by the architect Pythius — also function within the textual economy of the biographies as wholes: it both supports and is supported by the fact that people think Bernini’s plays are studied from Plautus and Terence. Domenico Bernini describes how even as brilliant a man as Sforza Pallavicino (fig. 6) has been stimulated and inspired by his conversations with the artist: “he felt himself then in some measure more greatly enflamed in subtlety of [his own] conversation, stimulated by the acuity [acutezza] of [Bernini].”24 Domenico also records a saying of Cardinal Azzolino that Bernini’s every word, no less than his works, deserves to be remembered by posterity.25 Of course, the most striking example of Bernini’s wit to be found in the biographies is the anecdote regarding the portrait of Alexander VII and the fly.26 Bernini’s ingegno is also evident in the psychological insight and diplomatic skill with which he handles patrons. Even as a youth, it seems, he knew how to theatricalize the presentation of his work, incalculably magnifying its effect, as is evident in the story of how, when asked by Paul V to draw a head, he inquired “What kind of head?” Paul responded, “You know how to make them all then?”27 In Domenico Bernini’s version of this story— altogether more embellished than Baldinucci’s—the young artist actually lists the kinds of heads he might draw, displaying the sort of comprehensive understanding of human variety that was felt to be essential to the orator or poet.28 Other examples include the story of how Bernini first presented a flawed portrait bust of Scipione Borghese (figs. 20 and 21) only to delight his patron all the more by then revealing a better one,29 or the story of how he got himself back into papal favor by having a modello of the Four Rivers Fountain strategically placed where he knew Innocent X would see it,30 or even the story of how he later thrilled the pope by unexpectedly activating the finished fountain.31 The anecdote about the bust of Alexander VII (fig. 14) and the fly also exemplifies this skill at handling patrons, as well as Bernini’s wit in general. Such social calculation — the deliberate lowering of expectations in order to increase the pleasure when they are surpassed, for instance—is discussed in early modern theories of courtiership. Vasari’s Lives is full of stories about the relation of artists and patrons, clearly indicating how important the issue had become, but the Bernini biographies take care to emphasize that the master elevated the treatment of patrons to a high art in its own right. By making the reader aware of how artful his treatment of



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patrons is, moreover, they demonstrate the extension of his art into the realm of social life. His skill as an artist is made to seem like a direct and effortless extension of his skill as a courtier, a specific application of a more comprehensive understanding and mode of being. Bernini’s ability to deal with patrons leads them to recognize him as something of an equal. Popes enjoy his company and conversation and allow him to treat them as intimate friends.32 Both biographies describe how Christina of Sweden found a kind of fellowship for her own ingegno sublimissimo in Bernini’s presence, and Domenico Bernini has the queen say that whoever does not esteem Bernini is unworthy of esteem himself.33 Both biographers record Innocent X’s remark that Bernini is “a man born to associate with great princes”;34 Domenico Bernini credits Cardinal Ottoboni, the future Pope Alexander VIII, with calling the artist “a rare man, and worthy of the company of great princes.”35 The most spectacular instances of this theme involve Louis XIV. Domenico Bernini describes how, from their very first encounters, the king recognizes in Bernini “an imagination of exalted genius.”36 Louis says he understands why the pope is jealous of the artist’s company, “for truly he is a man of lofty ideas, and born with the ability to match every greatest thought of the most sublime monarch.”37 When Bernini explains to him how he makes models only to set them aside when it comes time to execute the work itself, Louis expresses amazement and says, “I have never known a man of such genius [ingegno] as you,” to which Bernini— ever the courtier—responds, “And I, Sire, have never known a genius [ingegno] as welladapted to the recognition of beauty as Your Majesty’s.”38 This suggestion of parity between artist and king on the ground of ingegno recalls a long tradition of great artists and great patrons that reaches back through Michelangelo and Julius II to the legend of Apelles and Alexander the Great.39 All these themes lead to and support the principal idea, repeatedly and pointedly expressed, and often put in the mouths of the most exalted aristocrats, that Bernini’s greatness in art points to a greatness beyond art. Baldinucci’s biography, dedicated to Queen Christina, makes this point in the dedicatory preface, describing Bernini as “a man who was not only extraordinary in sculpture, architecture, and painting, but eminent in other excellent skills.”40 Domenico Bernini elaborates upon this idea, having the queen herself say that in frequenting the master’s studio, she has discovered “a genius [ingegno] so exalted and a judgment [giudizio] so perfect, that painting, sculpture, and architecture, which he possessed to such an eminent degree, were the least part of the excellence with which that great man was furnished by God.”41 Both Baldinucci and Domenico Bernini also



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cite a letter of the Jesuit General Oliva: “Although in the glorious splendor of his art he is a prince among all, yet I believe that he possesses many other aspects of understanding and wisdom in his soul which might almost eclipse that excellence for which the world admires him.”42 This theme had been introduced with great emphasis at the beginning of Domenico’s text, when the story is told of how Pietro Bernini, having recognized in his precocious eight-year-old “a most noble imagination, capable of accomplishing any task,”43 takes him to the abbot of San Martino in Naples to have him observed. The monk reports that he finds the boy “a mine of genius so lively and fertile” that whatever subject he discusses seems to delight him, and that he speaks of each so sensibly, “that if he were to devote himself to them with study, he would have a marvelous foundation for all,” and that from the conversations the monk had had with him, he could draw no other conclusion than that the boy would become “a great man in whatever profession” he might pursue.44 That this prophecy would be fulfilled is then immediately indicated when Domenico quotes Alexander VII as saying that Bernini “would have surpassed anyone in any science if he had applied himself to it as he had to the profession to which divine will had directed him.”45 Domenico then repeats this statement of Alexander’s later in the text, varying the wording slightly: “If Bernini had perfected himself, with study and practice, in any science or profession whatever, he would have surpassed in distinction everyone else in our age.”46 Baldinucci has Alexander express himself slightly less grandly: “such was the esteem in which he held Bernini that he was in the habit of saying that nature, in order to make him altogether unique, had given him great genius [grande ingegno] and extraordinary judgment [straordinario giudizio], and that painting, sculpture, and architecture were the lesser part of his excellence.”47 Baldinucci also quotes a remark of Pallavicino’s that Domenico Bernini omits: “Cavaliere Bernini was not only the best sculptor and architect of his age, but, to put it simply, its greatest man as well. A great theologian, he said, or a great captain or a great orator might have been valued more highly, as the present age thinks such professions either more noble or more necessary, but there was no theologian who had advanced as far in his profession during that period as Bernini had advanced in his.”48 Baldinucci’s presentation of this theme is thus more restrained than Domenico’s, but succeeds at making the same essential point within the generally more restrained tone of his text as a whole. Baldinucci’s emphasis on Bernini’s three-phase creative process pointedly associates the artist with an earlier art-theoretical tradition itself derived from ancient rhetoric.49



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Bernini’s biographies also emphasize the artist’s discipline and dedication to art, and though this theme may at first seem only tangentially related to the points discussed so far, it is in fact quite central. Again, Domenico’s treatment of it, more colorful and perhaps more fanciful, is also more deeply and beautifully integrated into the text. For instance, the story, near the beginning, of how, as a young man, Bernini had worked continuously, without stopping to eat, and how he would say that the study of ancient sculpture alone was enough to nourish him and keep him going for several days,50 is poignantly echoed toward the end, when he is quoted as saying that an artist practiced in disegno need not fear the decline of old age, since the exercise of that skill alone can offset the loss of natural strength.51 The story of how, as a child, having introduced some changes into a drawing his father had given him to copy, he said that “he who follows behind someone never surpasses him”52 is echoed when Bernini explains to Louis XIV why he puts aside his models at a certain point in the working process.53 The same zeal which, in his youth, led to self-destructive patterns of behavior—his father has to sleep in the same room to prevent him from getting up to work in the middle of the night, and, even more remarkably, he burned himself in order to be able to represent the martyrdom of Saint Lawrence more accurately (fig. 28)54— later matures in such a way that erotic analogies seem more appropriate: “He used to say ‘that in working he felt so enflamed by, and so much in love with what he was doing, that he did not work the marble, but devoured it.’”55 Later in the text, the intensity of the creative process calls for terms which transcend the usual notion of “work” completely: in carving marble, Domenico says, his father’s attention “was so fixed that he seemed almost ecstatic, and about to send his spirit out through his eyes to animate the stones.”56 This intensity, which is also like erotic passion in that once it has passed, his interest in the work disappears and he has no desire even to look at it, drains him to the point that it threatens his health.57 Baldinucci also emphasizes the intensity of Bernini’s working process, how, for him, the labor of art was something both less and more than labor. He records the artist’s remarkable claim that setting to work was like taking a walk in a garden.58 He too mentions the force of Bernini’s gaze, but expresses its significance as an indicator of supernatural vitality in a characteristically different way. At the very beginning of the life he associates it with the “hidden seeds” (occulti semi) scattered and infused by nature into “spirits of a finer temper and higher calling” (negli animi di più fina tempra, e di più alto affare), associates it, that is, with creative potency.59 He



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returns to the image of seeds at the very end, in the Protesta,60 so that it becomes one of the principal unifying devices of the text. The image gives the biography a superficially natural-scientific cast, but also recalls the stoic idea of “generative principles” (logoi spermatikoi or rationes seminali).61 These indications of the importance attached to process, to art as work, help to emphasize the way in which it extends into the realm of action. Particularly significant is the claim, recorded by both authors in almost identical fashion, that Bernini had never struck an errant blow with his chisel, even in youth, something that would only be possible for someone who was “superior to art” itself.62 Bernini’s art, even in the process by which it is made, points to a surpassing of art, to the fact that art is the expression of a higher value. One aspect of the creative process and the discipline it involves is the emphasis that the biographies give to Bernini’s awareness of things both great and small. Baldinucci tells how Clement IX, grateful for relief from his insomnia to the machine, imitating the sound of flowing water, which Bernini made for him, “could not stop saying that Bernini’s genius [ingegno] expressed itself in the same way in little things as in great ones” (tanto nelle cose grandi, quanto nelle piccole riusciva sempre mai simile a se stesso).63 Domenico Bernini uses the story of Clement’s noise machine and the pope’s remark to add a further comment on his father’s working process: “in whatever work he undertook, no matter how small, he put all his effort, and as much attention of its kind into the design of a lamp as into that of the most noble building, for, as he used to say, in their perfection all works are equal, and whoever recognizes the beautiful in the few and the small can represent it again as well in the many and great.”64 This sensitivity reinforces the theme of Bernini’s spiritual kinship with Louis XIV: when the king asks him what he thinks of Versailles, the answer is, “I believed that Your Majesty was great in great things, now I know that you are most great in little things as well.”65 The anecdote of Alexander VII and the fly also involves this ability to relate great and small, and hints at its theological significance.66 Bernini’s attentiveness to the small and apparently insignificant is connected to other aspects of his thought about art. Both biographies record one of his principal precepts regarding architecture: “The greatest prize of [this] art consists in knowing how to make use of the little, the bad, and what is ill-suited to purpose in order to make beautiful things, and to turn their defects to advantage in such a way that had they not existed, they would have had to be invented.”67 This principle relates to his practice as a sculptor as well, and to the high value he places on the art of portraiture. Baldinucci has Bernini



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admit—rather remarkably—that painting is more difficult than sculpture, but that a sculpted portrait is more difficult to make than a painted one.68 The artist’s approach to portraiture, moreover, is extremely unusual: he said that in making a portrait from life, everything depends on being able to recognize that unique quality that nature gives to each person but not to all, and that in choosing some particularity one should choose a beautiful and not an ugly one. To this end, Bernini had a practice very different from the common one: he did not want the person he was depicting to remain still; rather, he wished him to move around and talk, since he said that he could thus see all his beauty and reproduce it as it was, claiming that in staying still, one was never as much himself [simile a se stesso] as when one is in motion, when those qualities which are unique appear, and give similitude to the portrait.69 The complete understanding of this principle, Baldinucci adds on his own (“dico io”), “is not a game for children.” The claim that it is in movement that what is most stable reveals itself is an intentional paradox and thus a demonstration of wit. The selection of the beautiful particular for emphasis is the opposite of caricature, at which Bernini also excels.70 Yet both caricature and portraiture involve turning the particular to advantage; they thus involve acknowledging and confirming the value of the particular. This orientation stands in some contrast to the emphasis on history painting and the ideal characteristic of emerging academic art theory. That Bernini’s approach to portraiture is consistent with his approach to art generally is suggested by another remark recorded by both biographers: “Bernini wanted his students to love that which is most beautiful in nature. He said that the whole point of art consisted in knowing how to recognize and find it and he did not accept the idea of those who claimed that Michelangelo and the ancient Greek and Roman masters had added a certain grace that is not seen in nature, for he said that nature knows how to give everything its appropriate beauty, and one must know how to recognize it when occasion arises.”71 In proof of his point, Bernini used to say that in his youth he had thought that the Medici Venus possessed a grace surpassing nature, but as he studied nature more deeply, he had changed his mind.72 This passage is also significant for the way in which it turns the tables on academic theory: instead of classical formulas substituting for nature, the study of ancient art only encourages a deeper devotion to nature.



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Bernini’s sense of the significance of the particular and of the absolute value of nature carries a distinctive moral charge: where rationalistic theories of art emphasize the universal and the ideal, the power of the mind to break down and transform everything it encounters on its way to complete possession of the world, Bernini seems to hold out for another way of knowing, a recognition of the possibility that any particular thing might have a direct, unmediated relation to the absolute, and thus a significance inaccessible to reason. While the biographies certainly stress his pursuit of the ideal, they also emphasize the ways in which his art involves a process of negotiation with the imperfect. The artist’s task is made to seem less like the forceful superimposition of ideal forms than as revealing his understanding of a hierarchy of being in which even imperfection has its place, in which no least thing is denied its possible relation to God. Bernini’s contemporary, Pascal, expressed a similar idea in such a way as to expose its origin in ancient Christian mysticism: “Nature possesses forms of perfection in order to show that it is the image of God, and imperfections to show that it is only His image.”73 The phrase “similar to himself” (simile a se stesso) is repeated with significant insistence several times in Baldinucci’s biography: as we have already seen, the story of Clement IX’s noise machine demonstrates how Bernini’s genius, whether turned to things great or small, is always simile a se stesso. The artist’s method of having the sitter for a portrait remain in motion while being scrutinized reveals those features of the personality which, despite all change, remain the same. This concern with consistency is also visible in Bernini’s mode of living, especially the way in which he faces adversity: he continues to make beautiful works of art despite the invidious machinations of his enemies, “all the while remaining similar to himself ” (andavasi tuttavia dimostrando simile a se stesso).74 Again, he demonstrates the extension of his art into the realm of action. The phrase occurs once more in the very last paragraph of Baldinucci’s protesta, making the interrelation of the values with which it is associated into one of the principal themes of the biography as a whole.75 That consistency of character is both the content of portraiture as Bernini conceives it—the object, that is, of the most difficult challenge art can face—and, at the same time, his own conspicuous virtue, shows how his art is grounded in his moral life. Consistency had been recommended in the literature of courtiership,76 but was also one of the preoccupations of ancient moral philosophy and especially important in stoicism. Baldinucci’s discussion of the equanimity with which the artist endured his professional



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tribulations is loaded with stoic terms: Bernini’s behavior reveals the “imperturbabilità della sua mente,” his “gran costanza,” and the “assoluto dominio de’ suoi affetti.”77 If Baldinucci’s biography stresses the artist’s stoic composure, Domenico Bernini’s emphasizes the volatility and violence of his creative energy, and the way in which it could only be held in check by strenuous efforts of the will. This theme is restated in the most emphatic terms at the very end. Bernini’s energy is evident even in extreme old age, in his “indifessa applicazione”: Sforza Pallavicino is quoted as saying that the artist was “furnished by nature with an extraordinary [capacity for] activity, with which he wonderfully compensated for the limitations of time.”78 In truth, Domenico adds, “he was always working” (era continuo il suo lavoro). Beneath the exemplary self-discipline is an extremely unstable, even self-destructive temperament: he was never satisfied with his work; indeed, “if it were up to him he would have smashed into little pieces everything he had made.”79 The point is not simply that Bernini is relentlessly self-critical, but that he understands art itself to depend in some fundamental way upon a kind of negation. His desire to destroy his works seems to contradict the claim made near the beginning of the biography that he had never struck an errant blow with his chisel, yet it succeeds in reinforcing the idea that he is “superior to art”: it suggests an awareness that all signs are ultimately provisional, that it is because they are provisional that art is necessary, and that art must thus involve the creation of signs that somehow turn against their own power, liberating the viewer from too great a dependence on them. If Pascal’s belief that nature’s imperfections are there to remind us that the world is only the image of God can be said to suggest a critical function for art — turning our susceptibility to images against our susceptibility to images—Bernini’s intuition that art fulfills itself in negation reveals both his supreme greatness as an artist and how that greatness ultimately depends upon his spiritual insight. The themes of the biographies relate to earlier art theory, but also, as was said at the beginning, to that aspect of seventeenth-century thought known as concettismo. This fact and its usefulness as a key to the interpretation of Bernini’s works has been treated by different scholars in different ways. Some have seen the stylistic brilliance of Bernini’s early works in relation to the conspicuous brilliance of Marino’s poetry.80 The emphasis on acutezza and ingegno in the biographies relate in a general way to the ideas shared by almost all the concettisti, as well as to later expressions of those



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ideas, such as Samuel Johnson’s definition of true genius as “a mind of large general powers, accidentally determined to some particular direction.”81 The skill at handling patrons and the vicissitudes of court life are very like the worldly wisdom of Balthasar Gracian; the deeper and more comprehensive understanding of the potential of the imagination and its relation to truth comes closer to Emanuele Tesauro.82 Some scholars have seen a close connection between Bernini and Sforza Pallavicino, with whom he was directly acquainted.83 In this context, it may be enough to point out the significance of the fact that the biographies insist upon the complementarity of artist’s ingegno and giudizio. Christina of Sweden said that she had found Bernini a man of grande ingegno e straordinario giudizio and Domenico Bernini, in the very last paragraph of his biography, emphasizes this same pairing, “un perfetto giudizio, e profondo ingegno.”84 The interrelation between the freedom of the imagination, signified by ingegno, and the mind’s responsibility to the truth, signified by giudizio, is a preoccupation of much concettismo. The challenge of art consists in exploring the infinite potential of the imagination, the infinite worlds of possible meaning it can create, but also discerning in the midst of those possibilities the best possible course. Art involves an active engagement with the possibilities of the imagination, but also a critical evaluation and hierarchical configuration of them; more than an instrument of illusion, it is thus an instrument of truth. Although the two biographies articulate this complementarity in slightly different ways, they agree in their assumption that it lay at the foundation of Bernini’s achievement. One last point concerns the relation of these two texts to Bellori and French academic theory. In the mid-1670s, when the biography project got underway in earnest, Bernini had not only lost his wife and was out of favor at the papal court, he had recently been left out of Bellori’s Le vite de’ pittori, scultori e architetti moderni, published in 1672, a book which had ambitiously sought to present a new interpretation of the history of contemporary art. An indication that both Baldinucci and Domenico Bernini are responding to Bellori is their emphasis on the artist’s love of ancient art and understanding of the ideal: in the very last paragraph of his biography, Domenico repeats the claim that his father possessed “a clear understanding of the beautiful and the perfect.”85 If Bernini understands the ideal as well as any dogmatic classicist, however, the biographies also suggest that his approach to art offers an alternative, that it embraces classicism within a more comprehensive understanding of the nature and purpose of art. Just as he holds together great and small, perfect and imperfect, ingegno and giudizio, so he



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manages to combine the rational idealism of the academies with his own form of what might be called mystical naturalism. In the way that they describe this reconciliation of opposites, the biographies suggest something of the heroic cultural work Bernini was felt to have performed. notes 1. This formula is documented by the questionnaire Baldinucci sent to those from whom he sought information for his other biographies; the model is the sheet reproduced in Goldberg, After Vasari, ill. 20. 2. See the Prolegomena in this volume. 3. Stolpe, Christina of Sweden, sees Christina as gradually abandoning her youthful dedication to stoicism (esp. 58, 158, 247– 48, 263– 64, 266 – 67); Åkerman, Queen Christina, emphasizes her involvement with occultism. Christina’s reputation as an advocate of stoicism was widespread, however; attestations such as the impressive dedicatory letter prefixed by Fredericus Gronovius to his edition of Seneca (1649) would have been known to literary men like Baldinucci, and, as is shown below (n. 77), she retained at least some interest in issues of concern to stoics until the end of her life. 4. FB, 3; FB-1948, 72 –73; FB-1966/2006, 7– 8. 5. FB, 4–5; FB-1948, 75; FB-1966/2006, 9 –10. 6. FB, 66; FB-1948, 140; FB-1966/2006, 73: “Potiamo primieramente con ogni ragione affermare, che il Cavalier Bernino sia stato nell’arti sue singolarissimo; conciossiacosache egli abbia posseduto in eminente grado l’arte del disegno, ciò, che dimostrano assai chiaro l’opere, che egli ha condotto in Scultura, Pittura, e Architettura, e gl’infiniti disegni di Figure di Corpi umani, che si vedono di sua mano.” On Bernini’s early studies of ancient sculpture in the Vatican, FB, 4; FB-1948, 74; FB-1966/2006, 8 –9. 7. On the bel composto and the accoppiare insieme, FB, 67; FB-1948, 140– 41; FB-1966/ 2006, 74–75; Domenico (DB, 33), also says that Bernini is reputed to be among the first artists “che habbia saputo in modo unire assieme le belle Arti della Scultura, Pittura, & Architettura, che di tutte ne habbia fatte in se un maraviglioso composto.” His mention of the accoppiare insieme, 149, occurs in specific relation to the equestrian monument of Louis XIV. 8. FB, 53; FB-1948, 127; FB-1966/2006, 61; DB, 147. 9. Both biographies emphasize that Bernini’s study of painting and architecture was undertaken at the urging of Maffeo Barberini, who had been charged by Paul V with supervising the artist’s education, and thus with seeing that he did indeed become a second Michelangelo. FB, 4–5; FB-1948, 74–75; FB-1966/2006, 9 –10; DB, 26. 10. FB, 75–78; FB-1948, 149 –51; FB-1966/2006, 82 – 85; DB, 54. 11. FB, 75; FB-1948, 149; FB-1966/2006, 83. 12. FB, 75; FB-1948, 149; FB-1966/2006, 82. 13. For a discussion of this theme in Renaissance art theory, see Williams, Art, Theory, and Culture. 14. Dialogues of Francisco de Hollanda, 36. 15. Vitruvius, Ten Books on Architecture, I,1; for an influential Renaissance commentary on the passage, see Barbaro, I dieci libri, 6 –7. 16. Zuccari, “Idea dei Pittori.” For a discussion of the treatise, see Williams, Art, Theory, and Culture, 135–50. 17. DB, 14, on Bernini’s three years of study in the Vatican and how he made more drawings during that time than most artists do in a lifetime.



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18. DB, 9, 11–12. 19. “Poiche egli con un maraviglioso composto di pregiatissime doti, ciascuna delle quali in se stessa poteva rendere ammirabile e grande ogni uomo, seppe così ben di tutte fornire il suo animo, che non fù il maggior pregio in lui l’essere acclamato per eccellente nella professione che fece: Tanto in se hebbe con eccellenza ancora tutte quelle parti, che posson formare un’uomo d’idea grande, e virtuoso.” DB, 2. 20. DB, 180 (emphasis mine). 21. DB, 19. The word mostro had been used in the sixteenth century to describe Michelangelo: one of the first to do so seems to have been Bartoli, Ragionamenti accademici, 278. 22. FB, 18, 74–75; FB-1948, 88, 148 – 49; FB-1966/2006, 22 –23, 81– 82; DB, 57. 23. FB, 37; FB-1948, 108; FB-1966/2006, 42; DB, 95: “solito dire del Bernino, Rimaner stupito, come a sola forza d’ingegno potesse in qualunque materia di discorso giungere, dove altri con lungo studio appena erano pervenuti.” 24. “Nel trattar col Cavaliere non solamente rimaneva sodisfatto, e pago, mà che si sentiva allora in un certo modo come maggiormente infiammato nella sottigliezza de’ discorsi, stimolato eziamdio dall’acutezza de’suoi.” DB, 97. 25. DB, 99. 26. DB, 96. Delbeke, “The Pope, the Bust.” 27. FB, 4; FB-1948, 74; FB-1966/2006, 9. 28. DB, 9. 29. FB, 7; FB-1948, 76 –77; FB-1966/2006, 11–12; DB, 10. 30. FB, 30 –31; FB-1948, 101–2; FB-1966/2006, 36 –37; DB, 87. 31. FB, 34; FB-1948, 105; FB-1966/2006, 39; DB, 87. 32. On Bernini’s familiarity with Urban VIII, for example, FB, 22 –23; FB-1948, 93–94; FB-1966/2006, 27–28; DB, 24, 27–28. 33. DB, 103. 34. FB, 31; FB-1948, 102 –3; FB-1966/2006, 37; DB, 87: “era uomo nato per trattar con Principi grandi.” 35. DB, 99: “Huomo raro, e degno della conversazione de’ gran Principi.” 36. DB, 130: “un’Idea d’ingegno elevata.” 37. DB, 129: “Veramente egli era un’Huomo di alte Idee, e nato con capacita di corrispondere ad ogni più vasto pensiere di sublime Monarca.” 38. DB, 134. 39. Domenico further suggests the kinship between the two, recounting the story (DB, 127), omitted by Baldinucci, of how Bernini identified Louis for the first time without having had him pointed out. It is perhaps worth mentioning that Benvenuto Cellini had also claimed spiritual kinship with a King of France, describing how Francis I tells his ministers that the artist is “uno uomo sicondo il cuor mio” (Cellini, Vita, 531). Bernini’s biographers may not have known Cellini’s text, since it had not yet been published, but they might have known the story from oral tradition. Cellini’s wording evokes the Old Testament account of King David as a man after the Lord’s own heart (I Samuel, 13:14; virum iuxta cor suum). 40. FB, “Sacra Reale Maestà,” n.p.; FB-1948, 68; FB-1966/2006, 4: “non solo nella Scultura, Architettura, e Pittura singolare, ma in altre belle facoltà eminente.” 41. DB, 104: “l‘haveva scoperto di un’ingegno così elevato, e di un giudizio così perfetto, che la Pittura, Scultura, & Architettura possedute da lui in eminenza, erano le minor parti di eccellenza, di cui quel grand’Huomo era stato dotato da Dio.” 42. FB, 48; FB-1948, 121; FB-1966/2006, 55; DB, 142: “E quantunque nello splendore delle sue arti gloriose sia egli principe fra tutti, giudico nondimeno nell’anima di lui risedere tant’ altre parti d’intendimento, e di saviezza, che quasi eclissino quella eccellenza, per cui il mondo l’ammira.” 43. DB, 3: “un’idea nobilissima, e capace di ogni qualunque esercizio.”



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44. DB, 4: “Poiche giurò al Padre haver in lui ravvisata una miniera d’ingegno così vivace, e feconda, che di qualunque materia gli havesse discorso, di ciascuna si mostrava invaghito, e di ciascuna ne parlava con tanta sodezza, che se in ciascuna fosse stato raffinato con lo studio, egli haveva un maraviglioso fondamento per tutte, e non potè altro ritrarre da spessi congressi con lui tenuti, se non che sarebbe riuscito un grand’huomo in qualunque professione, alla quale fosse stato applicato.” 45. DB, 4: “il Cavalier Bernino sarebbe stato superiore ad ogni altro in ogni scienza, se havesse applicato a qualche una di queste, come poi applicò per voler Divino alla professione, che fece.” 46. DB, 97: “Se si fosse il Bernino in qualunque scienza ò professione raffinato collo studio, e coll’esercizio, haverebbe in tutte avantaggiato ogni altro di questo Secolo per illustre, che fosse.” 47. FB, 54; FB-1948, 127; FB-1966/2006, 61: “era tale la stima, ch’e’ faceva di lui, ch’e’ soleva dire, che la natura per renderlo del tutto singolare avealo dotato di grande ingegno, e di straordinario giudizio, e che la Pittura, la Scultura, e l’Architettura erano le minor parti d’eccellenza, ch’egli avesse.” 48. FB, 78; FB-1948, 151–52; FB-1966/2006, 85: “che il Cavalier Bernino non solo era il migliore Scultore; e Architetto del suo secolo, ma anche (semplicissimamente parlando) il maggior uomo; perchè (diceva egli) quantunque più apprezzabile cosa fusse stata l’esser un gran Teologo, un gran Capitano, un grande Oratore, come nel secolo presente tali professioni siano stimate o più nobil, ‘o più necessarie, tuttavia non v’era nessun Teologo, Capitano, o Oratore, che al suo tempo si fusse tanto nella sua professione avanzato, quanto il Bernino nelle proprie.” 49. FB, 71; FB-1948, 145; FB-1966/2006, 78: “Nel prepararsi all’opere usava di pensare ad una cosa per volta, e davalo per precetto a’suoi Discepoli, cioè prima all’invenzione, e poi rifletteva all’ordinazione delle parti, finalmente a dar loro perfezione di grazia, e tenerezza. Portava in ciò l’esempio dell’Oratore, il quale prima inventa, poi ordina, veste, e adorna, perchè diceva, che ciascheduna di quelle operazioni ricercava tutto l’uomo, e il darsi tutto a più cose in un tempo stesso non era possibile.” 50. DB, 12 –13. 51. DB, 167. Baldinucci reports this last remark in specific relation to Bernini’s work in carving his half-length figure of Christ. 52. DB, 5: “s’egli doveva sempre andar dietro altrui, non sarebbe giammai arrivato a passar facilmente avanti ad alcuno.” A common artist’s aphorism, also attributed to Michelangelo. See Milanesi, Opere di Giorgio Vasari, 7:280. A possible ancient source is Quintilian, Institutio oratoria, 10. 2. 10. 53. DB, 133–34. 54. DB, 15. 55. DB, 18: “Che nel operare si sentiva tanto infiammato, e tanto innamorato di ciò, che faceva, che divorava, non lavorava il Marmo.” Also DB, 179: “Nel rimanente era sempre tanto fisso nelle sue occupazioni, che a chi distoglier lo voleva per invitarlo al riposo, rispondeva tutto anzioso, Lasciatemi star quì, che io sono innamorato.” 56. DB, 48: “era così fisso, che sembrava anzi estatico, & in atto di mandar per gli occhi lo spirito per render vivi li Sassi.” Similar wording occurs again on p.180. 57. DB, 48, 179; also FB, 65; FB-1948, 139; FB-1966/2006, 72 – 73. The analogy between lovemaking and artistic creation is of ancient origin and recurs in the Renaissance: it was used, for instance, to describe Titian’s working process. See Hope, Titian, 169 –70. 58. FB, 69; FB-1948, 142; FB-1966/2006, 76: “Quanto fusse nel Bernino l’amore, ch’ei portò all’Arte non è facile il raccontare; diceva, che il portarsi a operare era a lui uno andare a deliziarsi al Giardino.” 59. FB, 1; FB-1948, 71; FB-1966/2006, 6. 60. FB, 109; FB-1948, 183; FB-1966/2006, 109.



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61. The idea of logoi spermatikoi, found in the earliest stoic fragments, had been discussed, in suggestive relation to the idea of “creative fire” (ignis artificiosus), by Cicero (De Natura deorum, II, 57–58) as well as by neostoics such as Justus Lipsius. See Morford, Stoics and Neostoics, 169 –70; see also Åkerman, Queen Christina, 89. Another natural-scientific theme in Baldinucci’s text, not specifically neostoic, that suggests an intention to identify Bernini with Queen Christina on a more intimate level, is the discussion (FB, 65; FB-1948, 138; FB-1966/2006, 72) of the artist’s fiery disposition and eccedente calore, which abated somewhat in middle age and allowed him a more regular mode of life. Stolpe (Christina of Sweden, 42) records a remark of Cardinal Azzolino’s regarding the “excessive heat” of Christina’s temperament, which may have made it impossible for her to bear children in her youth, but which has also abated in maturity. 62. FB, 8; FB-1948, 78; FB-1966/2006, 13; DB, 18. 63. FB, 55; FB-1948, 128; FB-1966/2006, 62; DB, 157. 64. DB, 158: “In ogni qualunque Opera, che imposta gli fosse, per piccola che si fosse, ei vi metteva tutta la sua applicazione, e nel suo genere tanto studio poneva nel disegno di una lampada, quanto in quello di una nobilissima fabbrica, perche soggiungeva, che nella perfezione tutte l’Opere sono uguali; e che chi conosceva il bello nel poco e nel piccolo, lo raffigurava ugualmente ancora nel molto, e nel grande.” 65. FB, 55; FB-1948, 148; FB-1966/2006, 62; DB, 130 –31. 66. On the way in which the perfection of small things was seen as proof of God’s existence and providential “design,” see Levy, “Ottaviano Jannella.” Anticipations of this idea can also be found in earlier art theory. Francisco de Hollanda, for example (Dialogues of Francisco de Hollanda, 70) had Michelangelo claim that the bodies of animals, even the humblest ones have “the same excellence and beauty of proportion as the figure of a man, and indeed, of the whole world with all its cities.” Another expression of the idea is found in Galilei, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, 102: “May we not rightly say that the making of a statue yields by an infinite amount to the formation of a living man, even to the formation of the lowest worm?” The possibility that Bernini may have intended his remark to be recognized as an allusion to Galileo’s notorious text is interesting to contemplate. 67. FB, 73; FB-1948, 146; FB-1966/2006, 80; DB, 32: “il sommo pregio dell’Arte consistere in sapersi servire del poco, e del cattivo, e del male atto al bisogno, per far cose belle, e far sì, che sia utile ciò, che fù difetto, e che se non fusse, bisognerebbe farlo.” 68. FB, 72; FB-1948, 145– 46; FB-1966/2006, 79. Domenico does not attribute to his father the belief that painting is superior to sculpture. DB, 29 –30. 69. FB, 70 (with minor changes); FB-1948, 144; FB-1966/2006, 77– 78: “Diceva egli, che nel ritrarre alcuno al naturale consisteva il tutto in saper conoscere quella qualità, che ciascheduno ha di proprio, e che non ha la Natura dato ad altri, che a lui, ma che bisognava pigliare qualche particolarità non brutta, ma bella. A quest’effetto tenne un costume dal comune modo assai diverso, e fu: che nel ritrarre alcuno non voleva ch’egli stesse fermo, ma ch’e’ si movesse, e ch’e’ parlasse; perchè in tal modo, diceva egli, ch’e’ vedeva tutto il suo bello, e lo contraffaceva com’egli era; asserendo, che nello starsi al naturale immobilmente fermo, egli non è mai tanto simile a se stesso, quanto egli è nel moto, in cui quelle qualità consistono, che sono tutte sue, e non d’altri, e che danno la somiglianza al ritratto; ma l’intero conoscer ciò (dico io) non è giuoco da fanciulli.” 70. FB, 66 – 67; FB-1948, 140; FB-1966/2006, 74; DB, 28. 71. DB, 30 (with minor changes); FB, 69 – 70; FB-1948, 143; FB-1966/2006, 76 –77: “Voleva, che i suoi Scolari s’innamorassero del più bello della Natura, consistendo, com’ ei diceva, tutto il punto dell’arte in saperlo conoscere, e trovare; onde non ammetteva il concetto di quei tali, che affermarono, che Michelagnolo, e gli antichissimi Maestri Greci, e Romani avessero nell’opere loro aggiunto una certa grazia, che nel naturale non si vede; perchè diceva egli, che la Natura sa dare a’ suoi parti tutto il bello, che loro abbisogna,



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ma che il fatto sta in saperlo conoscere all’occasione; e in tal proposito era solito raccontare, che nello studiare la Venere de’Medici, osservando il graziosissimo gesto, ch’ella fa, s’era una volta anch’egli lasciato portare da simil credenza: ma nel far poi grandissimi studi sopra il naturale, aveva tal grazia di gesto in varie occasioni molto chiaramente osservato.” 72. FB, 70; FB-1948, 143; FB-1966/2006, 77. 73. Pascal, Pensées de Pascal, 205 (no. 580): “La nature a des perfections pour montrer qu’elle est l’image de Dieu, et des défauts, pour montrer qu’elle n’en est que l’image.” 74. FB, 59; FB-1948, 133; FB-1966/2006, 67. 75. FB, 111; FB-1948, 185; FB-1966/2006, 111: “questo virtuoso, di grandezza sempre simile a se stesso.” 76. See, for instance, Castiglione, Cortegiano, esp. 105– 6, 198 –99, 447– 48. 77. FB, 30; FB-1948, 100 –101; FB-1966/2006, 35. An indication of Queen Christina’s continued interest in the stoic notion of constantia is her enthusiastic response, noted by Stolpe (Christina of Sweden, 267), to the observation of LaRochefoucauld that “people are as much unlike themselves, at times, as they are unlike one another.” 78. DB, 178. 79. DB, 180: “Se in sua balìa rimanesse, quanto fatto haveva, tutto lo ridurrebbe in minutissimi pezzi.” 80. Blunt, “Gianlorenzo Bernini: Illusionism and Mysticism.” 81. Lives of the English Poets, 1:2. 82. Tesauro, Cannocchiale aristotelico; Zanardi, “Genesi del ‘Cannocchiale’”; Mazzocchi, “Riflessione secentesca”; Aricò, “Prudenza e ingegno.” For an overview of seventeenth-century rhetorical theory, see Fumaroli, L’Age de l’éloquence; for the relation between language and the visual arts in seventeenth-century Rome, see Fumaroli, L’École du silence. 83. Blunt, “Gianlorenzo Bernini: Illusionism and Mysticism,” 69 – 70; Delbeke, “The Pope, the Bust”; Montanari, “Fortuna poetica di Bernini.” 84. DB, 180. 85. Ibid.



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SIX bernini portraits, stolen and nonstolen, in chantelou’s journal and the bernini vite Rudolf Preimesberger

the portraits of louis xiv According to his own words, Gianlorenzo Bernini planned two portraits of the twenty-seven-year-old Louis XIV during his stay in France in 1665: one a large, even gigantic portrait of the king’s soul and spirit in the building of the new Louvre on a sublime base of rocks (fig. 24),1 the other only life-size, a likeness of his physical traits in the limited and fragmentary medium of the portrait bust (fig. 25).2 Paul Fréart de Chantelou,3 the “chevalier d’ honneur” assigned to Bernini in Paris, records a conversation in the entry in his Journal4 dated 8 October 1665. Bernini, on the one hand, emphasizes that the king of France, in the “grandezza” and “magnificenza” of his buildings, must necessarily surpass all others, in keeping with the well-established correspondence between a great work and its equally great creator.5 This traditional idea, however, is given an oddly concrete form. In the broad category of “likeness”— for which Latin offers the ambiguous term “similitude,” denoting the correlation of resemblance as well as its product in art, the portrait itself—Bernini emphasizes the correspondence between the work and its princely “auctor” with the statement, rendered in Italian in the diary, that “buildings are the portraits of the soul of princes.” “When he came down,” Chantelou writes, “we walked to and fro in the room for a little while, and I brought up again the need we had of him in France to carry out the great schemes of the king; what had been done so far did not express his magnificence at all; in fact, it might even be said that it had been better left undone.”6 “‘True it is,’ Bernini responded, ‘that buildings are Translated by Hella Preimesberger

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fig. 24 Jean Marot, after Gianlorenzo Bernini, Third Project for the Louvre (east façade elevation), 1665, engraving. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Rogers Fund, 1952.

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fig. 25 Gianlorenzo Bernini, Louis XIV, 1665, marble. Chateaux de Versailles et de Trianon, Versailles.

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the portraits of the soul of princes.’ It was better to do nothing than something that lacked grandeur.”7 Bernini’s statement, “that buildings are the portraits of the soul of princes” (che le fabbriche sono i ritratti dell’ animo dei principi) seems a paradox only at first. If one searches for its origin, the statement can be situated in a broad historical framework. When Bernini identifies—in an inversion dependent on his personal situation at the end of his stay in France — not his already finished marble bust of Louis, but the Louvre project (which will ultimately fail) as a “portrait of the king’s soul,” he opens an antithesis between the portrait bust as limited to exterior likeness on the one hand and the much greater “portrait of the soul” in the “grand schemes of the king” (les grands et vastes desseins que forme le Roy) on the other. In this antithesis there seems to emerge nothing other than the eternal dilemma, articulated since antiquity, of portraiture’s ability to show only the body of its model, not, though, its soul. Bernini’s antithesis—albeit not overtly, but unmistakably—follows up on this basic idea of the portrait’s inability to express the moral and the spiritual soul of the portrayed, a complaint neatly captured in Martial’s epigram: “Would that art could portray his/her character and mind! / No painting in the world would be more beautiful!”8 It is a complaint connected to the idea that the artist is able to render only the mortal traits, while the true and lasting portrait is created by the portrayed himself—not the portrait made by the hand of the artist, but the deeds and works of the immortal soul “show the greater man.”9 Bernini’s statement, too, is based on the commonly held notion, often repeated since antiquity, that a person’s spiritual portrait is superior to his corporeal likeness. Considered within the history of the portrait and its historically associated concepts, the claim “that buildings are the portraits of the soul of princes” in reality reflects a skepticism and criticism of the portrait and image. Needless to say, Bernini here adopts an ironic pose, contradicted not only by his own artistic praxis in general but also by the theoretically and historically sanctioned concept of the artist as being capable of expressing the inner self of man by representing his external features. The contemporary theoretical discussion10 could refer to antiquity, namely to the claims made by Aristotle and Pliny that Polygnotos, Aristides, and Zeuxis already gave their figures “mores et sensus” (morals and character).11 As is well known, Bernini was totally denied the chance to realize the first—architectural—portrait of the king. However, the second one, too— incomparably smaller —was left a fragment, because he completed only



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the bust and not its “speaking” socle, a globe to be inscribed “picciola base.”12 This “little base” was a concetto par excellence, rooted in the double meaning of the Italian word base, which could be understood factually as well as metaphorically. The bust on its base was, in other words, conceived as a classical impresa consisting of two components: the anima and corpus, the “soul” of the words and the “body” of the image. Both projects are —be it by chance or not, with respect to the king — strangely connected with respect to their timing. On 20 June 1665 Bernini had presented his Louvre project in Saint Germain.13 On the very same occasion, when the king apparently had agreed to the “pensée toute nouvelle” (entirely novel idea) of the bold project of the Louvre raised on a rocky foundation—when the delivering of the plans seemed to end in the “longedfor moment of harmony and agreement between patron and architect”14 and the possible realization of an architect’s great dream in the near future— Louis stated his wish to be portrayed in a marble bust by the same artist. The consequences are soon to be seen. Only a week later, on 28 June, when Louis first “sat” for his portrait—a very special sitting with the undeniable characteristics of a performance—Bernini had a chance to observe the king and make a series of studies after the living model in motion. On this occasion, which occurred during Conseil, they happened to have a short exchange of words in Italian. Chantelou reports: “He continued to work at the model. The next day we went to Saint-Germain. There he drew the King from the life during the meeting of the council, without His Majesty being forced to remain still in one place. The Cavaliere used his time to best advantage. Now and then when the King was looking at him, he said, ‘I am stealing’ [Sto rubando]. Once the King even rejoined in Italian, ‘Yes, but it is only to give it back’ [Si, ma è per restituire].”15 And then, immediately following this exchange, comes the carefully prepared final point in Bernini’s grand compliment to the king: “He replied to His Majesty: ‘However to give back less than I have stolen’ [Però per restituir meno del rubato].”16 A few observations are in order. The dialogue is by no means spontaneous; it is staged with Bernini playing the part of initiator. The exchange of sentences obviously follows a conventional pattern. The king himself knows his line and the response. And all of this is arranged in the course of a portraying session, where the social distance between the high-ranking model and the artist is—by necessity—particularly conspicuous. By what means does Bernini bridge the gulf between himself and the king of France? What are the means of style, of “decorum,” and of violating it? What kind of calculated breaking of the rules is taking place? “I am stealing,”



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the artist explains. “Yes,” the king responds, “but it is only to give it back.” And the solution: “However to give back less than I have stolen.” The issue of the dialogue is clear. Discursively, even polemically, two values are opposed: the value of the portrayed person against the value of the oncoming portrait, the value of the human prototype against the image of art, the king himself against his future portrait by the hand of the artist. That two kinds of images are discussed is the tacit condition structuring this exchange: the living imago created by the hand of God or nature and formed in the sequence of generations since Adam and Eve on one side,17 and on the other, the lifeless image of the living imago by the hand of the artist. The basically ironic character of the discourse on the socially lower (i.e., the artist’s) side is self-evident. Bernini pretends to belittle radically the value of his own doing and his art. Systematically playing the negative metaphor of what the artist does, he robs or steals the king’s living imago and turns it to lifeless stone, albeit one more enduring than its human model. Strongly emphasizing the worthlessness of mere imagery against reality— or, if one prefers, the ontological nothingness of his imitated counterfeit against the living model—Bernini maintains that he can render less than he has robbed. In feigning modesty to the point of self-damnation, Bernini is following the well-established rule of self-irony.18 Indeed, his version of the exchange of images follows the classical method of understating oneself and one’s side of the cause to be pleaded. In understating, he displays himself as receiving without merit, even as a robber and stealer. He receives something grand and renders something humble. The sovereign, though, in the role of the magnanimous one, stresses the positive side of the exchange. He agrees that his image is indeed robbed, but counters that it is so merely to be rendered. It happens with his consent and as an exchange only. Of course the king does not touch upon the question of the relative value of the two images. He is not and cannot be ironic. Naturally he does not belittle himself, his image, or even the value of his image. “I am stealing.” How could Bernini present the act of portraying as robbing or stealing? Here seem to emerge old — probably extremely old — ideas of a loss or a diminution of the self by being portrayed, of stealing part of the individual by the act of counterfeiting, even of a loss of the prototype’s being in the act of portrayal— or, legally speaking, the notion that counterfeiting implies a crime against the portrayed and, conversely, that the portrayed is entitled to his own counterfeit of which he is robbed. On the other hand, however, another idea comes into view behind the king’s response that his image was robbed or stolen only to be rendered



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back to him: the idea of restitutio (restitution). The clearly recognizable metaphorical exchange of two different values in the dialogue seems to intimate or maybe even impose that the image, stolen or taken, should return to the portrayed, that it be lasting, and that the portrayed should gain something with his image, and even that the human prototype should increase in being precisely because of the counterfeit’s existence. A wellknown argument formulated, for example, by Hans-Georg Gadamer comes to mind,19 with the dialogue of 28 June 1665 serving as a historic example. Regarding our more modest problem, the following may be presumed: the metaphor of robbery and restitution, of the robbed and rendered image, and the associative meanings could lay bare something of the essence of imagery and mimesis in the broader sense. Tentatively might be brought to mind the linguistic and notional roots of protrahere (to reveal, to bring out) and retrahere (to bring to light again), and the vernacular derivations protraicture/portraiture and ritrarre.20 In a literal sense, all of these terms circle around the semantics of drawing forth or out, even tearing forth or subtracting/taking the traits from the prototype. Could it be imagined that the rubare of the facial traits has part of its precursory conditions here, and that the metaphor used by Bernini is in fact the pointed and super-astute version of ritrarre? Until now it has been scarcely if at all noticed that the words “sto rubando” spoken in the act of portraying reflects a direct relation to a special kind of portrait fully current in the seventeenth century at the latest, the so called ritratto rubato, a “stolen” or “robbed” portrait. The first time it is mentioned, as far as I know, is late. Carlo Cesare Malvasia, however, in the vita of the painter Alessandro Tiarini (1577–1668) obviously draws upon an already established notion of such a portrait when he reports that the painter had made “robbed or stolen portraits of certain private ladies” (ritratti rubati di certe dame private)21 for Mario Farnese (1548?–1619) during his stay in Ferrara while “working on fortifications.”22 The historical meaning of dame private as well as the metaphor inherent in the choice of the word “rubare” point to the erotic aspect —“di carattere galante”— of the genre. And as far as I am able to determine, in the literary tradition the metaphor of ritratto rubato is used exclusively to refer to portraits of beautiful ladies. If this might be confirmed historically and empirically as being structural—and there is good reason to expect so—the thing itself and its notion engage the relation between genders. Here it is neither the paradigm of an exchange of images nor that of loss and winning back that becomes manifest, but the shadowy outlines of something very different: the



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robbing and stealing of a lady’s image, of women in effigie, in other words, the outline of a paradigm of sexuality that is more or less sublimated. Robbed or stolen? Robbed with violence or merely stolen? Contrary to English or German, which make a clear distinction between open robbing and secretive stealing, the Italian language does not indicate the difference, employing the word “rubare” for both. A ritratto rubato in early modern times, however, as a typical example of its kind, is a “stolen” image in the literal sense of the word, because, contrary to the open and violent robbery, it is—at least theoretically—made secretly without the portrayed person’s permission and awareness. There is no doubt that for the painter to take the image of a person’s facial traits without her consent constitutes a form of violence, an injury to a personal right. That the stolen image passes into the hands of the painter, then into those of the lover, who buys it from the painter and thus becomes the illegal possessor of the prey, that the lady in effigie is rendered into the possession of a person other than her husband or her parents, is an enduring violation of her rights. Most of these components of the genre are still to be recognized in Wilhelm Heinse’s famous novel Ardinghello of 1787, in which the protagonist, the painter Prospero Frescobaldi, recounts his love story with a noble Venetian lady. “We got to know each other by mere chance” he says, “since I had already drawn her by robbing [auf den Raub], as she had the most beautiful female countenance to be seen in the churches of Venice, and I had seen her several times socially.”23 Striking beauty of the face, an image taken furtively and repeatedly in churches without the portrayed person being aware of it, and stolen by the painter like a thief, painter, and lover of the stolen image—in this case these are one and the same. The robbing of the image is followed by the robbing of the portrayed lady, who is already spoken for and married to another. “By robbing” (auf den Raub) seems to be the literal translation of the Italian al rubato. And in Heinse’s literary fiction, the speaker is an Italian Renaissance painter. Evident as it may be as an ideal type, we do not know much about the social circumstances of this genre. Malvasia’s choice of words “portraits of certain private ladies” (ritratti di certe dame private) shows that the patron sojourning only temporarily in another town was interested in a series, presumably in the style of a gallery of beauties. But we do not have any knowledge of its clandestine, private, half-public, or even public status, the same as of the dame private and their role: unaware, conscious, agreeing, declining, or all of these at once.



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A socially complex “vorrei e non vorrei” (I would like and I refuse) seems to characterize also the relations in Jacopo Zucchi’s Treasures of the Sea (fig. 26), which comes from the private studiolo of Cardinal Ferdinando de’ Medici in the gardens of the Villa Medici in Rome.24 Here, for the delectation of the painting’s owner, appear, “many naked women . . . among which are many portraits of different Roman noblewomen of the time, very beautiful, and worth looking at.”25 The erotic aspect is indeed more than evident, evident as a main characteristic of the genre. However, not all of the inserted portraits of noblewomen in Zucchi’s painting are ritratti rubati. The reigning lady of the painting in the role of Amphitrite is the cardinal’s favorite, Clelia Farnese, Alessandro’s beautiful daughter,26 from whom there was (almost) nothing left to steal. With her Ferdinando de’ Medici probably fathered a figlio naturale (natural son), and this connection with a woman from a noble family had a very calculated dynastic motivation. Standing in line for the succession to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany and facing the imminent claim of Don Antonio de’ Medici, the natural but legitimate son of the reigning grand duke Francesco and his unpopular favorite Bianca Capello, Cardinal Prince Ferdinando hoped to secure his own right of succession by noble male descendants who would, if necessary, be easy to legitimate.27 Bernini’s marble bust of the young Louis XIV, the “most public person” in France, whose face, so to speak, belongs to all, is, of course, not a ritratto rubato. Nonetheless, both the performative method of its preparation and the verbal exchange with the king that accompanied it point to the fact that Bernini programmatically and demonstratively assimilated its creation to the making of a ritratto rubato. It should be stressed again how Bernini —by renouncing traditional portrait sessions, by opposing a single static pose taken by the portrayed, and by turning him into the co-creator of his portrait— created a totally different method of spying on the portrayed. In so doing, he effectively undermined his control, up to the point of the carefully constructed fiction that the king thinks himself unobserved in his natural and proper surroundings (in the Conseil), where, as it were, he is most similar to himself and entirely himself in his movements.28 There is good reason to believe that in his carefully prepared violation of the rules for the making of a king’s portrait, Bernini simulated characteristic features of creating a ritratto rubato. In a paradoxical turn—following the paradoxon schema of rhetoric—he charged it with the method and the notions of a stolen portrait of a lady. Significantly, the erotic connotations in



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fig. 26 Jacopo Zucchi, Treasures of the Sea, ca. 1585, oil on copper. Villa Borghese, Rome.

nuce are maintained, for Bernini will tell the king explicitly after completing the bust that he had made it “with love.”29 Performative features in the beginning, performative features at the end. Not only was his first audience with the king on the morning of 4 June 1665 carefully staged, but his farewell on 5 October as well.30 “His Majesty . . . placed Himself in the usual position and asked if work was being done on the pedestal. The Cavaliere replied that it was not being worked on yet, and leading the prince de Marsillac,31 who stood near him.”32 Where and why



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was the prince moved? The answer: “to a place where the king could turn his eyes on him to mark the pupils on the bust which he had done before in charcoal only.”33 “That done, he said to His Majesty that the work was finished and he wished that it had been more perfect; he had worked at it with so much love”34—since Chantelou is translating from the Italian, Bernini must have said that he had worked “con tanto amore”—“that it was the least bad portrait he had done,”35 a phrase he had already used in connection with the bust on 29 June and with the group of Saint Teresa.36 Here, too, a number of topoi appear, several of which are remarkable. First, Bernini connects even the last moment of finishing his work with the paradigm of imitation bound to the emphatic correlation of his sculpture to reality and truth. To show publicly that he is reproducing nothing but the king’s real glance in sculpture is his aim when using a prince of the blood to attract the king’s eye. Second, it is a bold action, but only at first glance, for it is soon recognized as a compliment to the king. The apparent violation of the artist’s social decorum creates, in fact, a decorum of higher rank, the king’s own decorum. Only on a nobleman shall the king’s glance fall; only a prince of the blood should attract his eye. Once more, it is a skillful violation of the rules, one of the kind that Chantelou had called an “honnête hardiesse” (perfect assurance) on the morning of 4 June 1665, when Bernini had his first audience with the king.37 Third, in representing his glance, Bernini completes the king’s portrait. Only in the very act of representing his glance—not fixed until this very last moment—the previously “dead” portrait comes to life because through the eyes the soul most strongly emanates.38 Fourth, it is the demonstrative animation of the previously “dead” marble by the demiurgic sculptor who, even in the image of the sovereign, is honoring his old title magister lapidum viventium (master of living stones). Fifth, all it takes is a few strokes of his chisel: it’s a demonstration of facilità.39 Its opposites, difficoltà and fatica of the previous sculptural working process40 rest in the dark. Sixth, all of this takes place before the eyes of the king and the public of the court. In short, the spectacular bust is about arte, and the considerable effort in staging it is intended “per mostrare l’arte” (to demonstrate art).

the bust of monsignor montoya In his Journal in the entry dated 17 August 1665, Chantelou records Gianlorenzo Bernini’s recollections about an early triumphal success of his art



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fig. 27 Gianlorenzo Bernini, Pedro de Foix Montoya, ca. 1622, marble. Monastery of Santa Maria di Monserrato, Rome.

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in the field of portraiture, the bust of Monsignor Montoya, then in the Roman church of San Giacomo degli Spagnuoli (fig. 27).41 In his own words —which Chantelou presents in French —Bernini claims the bust was a triumph of mimetic likeness and of even more than that. The story can be seen as an authentic part of what Cesare D’Onofrio called the “automitografia” of the aging Bernini; its status as historical source, however, is precarious. When the story originated is unknown and equally unknown is how and in which form Bernini’s biographers gained knowledge of it. One thing is certain: the story of the bust emerges in Domenico Bernini’s Vita as well as in Filippo Baldinucci’s, but in both cases, significantly, without the epilogue provided by Chantelou. The changes in the telling of the story show very clearly the extent to which biographies are problematic as historical sources.42 But the same, indeed, is true of Bernini’s account in Chantelou’s Journal. In its main features — its basic elements and its structure — it closely adheres to the genre of a classical anecdote: a short narrative of a more or less historical episode having minor effect but great significance.43 Its effect lies in the representative and the factual of the episode being bound together. It is thoughtful and it ends in a linguistic point. It is structured in three parts and consists of, first, an introduction or occasio, second, a transition or provocatio, and, third, a point in the form of a dictum or factum. The introductory occasio in Chantelou’s text reads: “The Cavaliere told us that one of the first portraits he did was of a Spanish prelate called Montoya. Urban VIII, then still a cardinal, came to see it, accompanied by various prelates who all thought it was a marvelous likeness” (ressemblance).44 The transitional provocatio consists of the provocative remark by an anonymous prelate: “each outdoing the other in praising it and saying something different about it; one remarked, ‘It seems to me Monsignor Montoya turned to stone’ [Mi pare monsignor Montoya petrificato].”45 The final point, or dictum, however, is attributed to the future Pope Urban VIII, then still Cardinal Maffeo Barberini, proving here, as always, his decisive role in Bernini’s life and career: “whereupon Cardinal Barberini said with great gallantry [fort gallament], ‘It seems to me that Monsignor Montoya resembles his portrait’ [Mi pare che monsignor Montoya rassomiglia al suo ritratto].”46 Three concepts are to be seen in this anecdote. In the introduction or occasio, all the persons involved admire the “marvelous likeness” of the portrait (merveilleusement ressemblant).47 In the transition or provocatio, this concept of likeness is surpassed, the provocative statement being, “It



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seems to me Monsignor Montoya turned to stone”—a proclamation that suspends the substantial difference between the human prototype and its imitation. Generally speaking, it seems to follow the archetypical figure of a deceptive likeness by maintaining a corporal identity between the portrayed and its portrait. “Mi pare monsignor Montoya petrificato” merges the prototype with his counterfeit. Montoya himself is contained in his portrait, yet immobile and lifeless. Just as Niobe in her grief, or as living persons who have looked at the Gorgon Medusa, Montoya has turned to stone: he is petrified in the literal sense of the word.48 The final statement in Chantelou’s text, and the final point of the anecdote, assumes the form of a witty dictum—which follows another rhetorical figure, that of a paradoxon schema.49 And following Bernini’s own autobiographical logic, it is made to come from the future pope Barberini: “It seems to me that Monsignor Montoya resembles his portrait” does not suspend the relationship of likeness between the human prototype and its imitation in marble, but, on the contrary, stresses their differences. The living Montoya on one side and his bust on the other are shown as opposites. Their natural and normal relation, however, is reversed, for the sentence “Mi pare che monsignor Montoya rassomiglia al suo ritratto” is a classical paradox. Maffeo Barberini’s inversion of the hierarchical relation of value between life and stone, between Montoya and his image, is contrary to reality and contrary to reason: the real Montoya modeled by nature is only the imperfect counterfeit of his portrait in marble made by the demiurgic artist. The rhetorical paradox of the counterfeit surpassing the human prototype reflects the fundamental and decisive idea of sculptural liveliness or vivacità.50 It was under this theoretical perspective of sculptural vivacità, the semblance of life in the portrait, that Domenico Bernini and Filippo Baldinucci included the story of the Montoya bust in their respective biographies of Bernini.51 Yet there are two important differences. First, in contrast to Chantelou’s account, Domenico preceded the anecdote with a short theoretical proem, thus preparing its final point of the counterfeit surpassing its human prototype. Second, Domenico and Baldinucci both transform the anecdote into a drama with acting figures and with a peripeteia. Domenico’s account starts with the historical information: “he made the portrait of Monsignor Giacomo [sic] Montoya in marble, which was to be positioned, as later occurred, on the tomb of this prelate in the Church of San Giacomo degli Spagnuoli.”52 Then follows the theoretical part of the proem: “And he completed the work with so much spirit and likeness [con tale spirito, e somiglianza], that whoever wished to have the delight of



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describing with attention the original and the copy [diletto di raffigurare attentamente l’ Originale, e la Copia], would be forced to say that either both were feigned or both were real, since he had represented him so much as himself [rappresentòllo così desso] that this Statue was not in need of a soul to appear alive [per parer viva].”53 This sentence is both close to and significantly different from Chantelou’s text. To establish the work’s fame Domenico Bernini also makes use of the criterion of “likeness,” for which he employs the Italian equivalent somiglianza to Chantelou’s ressemblance.54 The theoretical point of departure in his narrative, however, differs from that in Chantelou’s text, for the criterion of “likeness” (somiglianza), denoting the exterior correspondence between the portrait and its model, comes second in his esteem. It is preceded by another one, which is “spirit.” Bernini finished the bust “with so much spirit and likeness,” Domenico writes. Is it correct to understand this as a hierarchic correlation, with “spirit” not only taking precedence over “likeness” but surpassing it? What is the meaning of “spirit”? The semantics of the term here seem to be twofold. By invoking it, Domenico on the one hand denotes a quality of the work: the feigned mobility, the as-if-alive pose, the as-if-alive mimicry, in a word, the spiritual presence of the portrait. On the other hand, the same term simultaneously points to the artist’s capacity for invention (invenzione),55 enabling him to transcend mere exterior likeness (somiglianza) in the portrait and to endow it with its own spirit.56 There is no doubt, looking at the objective of the proem, that the author here is dealing with the decisive quality of the portrait. The last words of the anecdote, as he recounts it, are “per parer viva” (to appear alive), which is synonymous with the fundamental contemporary category of liveliness or vivacità.57 To establish the hierarchy between “spirit” and “likeness” Domenico Bernini invents an ideal viewer of the bust who finds his aesthetic delight (diletto)—a much discussed category in post-Tridentine Italy58—in a careful comparison between real person and portrait, the “delight of describing with attention the original and the copy” (prendersi diletto di raffigurare attentamente l’Originale, e la Copia). Here “delight in imitation,” one of the main topics of the Aristotelian debate of the preceding century, was adapted to the genre of portraiture. And not by chance. Aristotle himself had laid the foundation in one of the most famous quotations of his Poetics, declaring that delight was greater, even doubled, when “recognizing” in a painting a person already known from real life, prompting the widely-read commentator Lodovico



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Castelvetro to go so far so to elevate the portrait to a higher rank within the hierarchy of the arts.59 Domenico Bernini’s phrasing, “describing with attention the original and the copy,” shows that he is speaking about a thoughtful viewer who treats the relationship between the real-life Montoya and the bust on the level of judgment (giudizio).60 In Domenico’s fictitious setting, the bust, however, transcends this level of judgment. It negates a reception in the wake of Aristotelian aesthetics of imitation. It is executed with so much spirit (spirito) and so much likeness (somiglianza) that it suspends the viewer’s capacity to judge and to distinguish the difference between “the original and the copy,” the real-life Montoya and the feigned one in the bust. Concrete reality is in its effect so persuasively equaled by the reality of art in the bust that Domenico’s fictitious viewer seems to confront an aporia. In response to the irresolvable contradiction he either has to declare both Montoya and the bust to be images or both to be real. Towards the end of his argument Domenico Bernini deploys yet another paradox: “To appear alive” (per parer viva), Montoya’s bust does not even need a “soul” (anima). This paradox is easily explained. While artists and art critics of the seventeenth century used the term anima metaphorically when they wanted to express the spiritual intensity of a work of art,61 Domenico seems to use it here literally rather than metaphorically: soul as opposed to body! His provocative idea seems to be that although Montoya’s bust consists of lifeless stone, it has no need of a soul to appear as if alive. Why? Because his father had portrayed the Monsignore “so much as himself” (così desso) that the special mode and force of the representation in itself already produced the “appearance of life” in the bust. Bernini’s art alone generated its vivacità. Only after that proem does Domenico allow the anecdote to begin, and he transforms it into a drama. In contrast to what we find in Chantelou’s text, Domenico’s telling of the story has a stage, and, significantly, this stage is a public location, the above-mentioned church of San Giacomo degli Spagnuoli, where in his fictitious staging the bust is already in place on Montoya’s future epitaph. Cardinal Maffeo Barberini, the future Pope Urban VIII, enters the stage first. There he meets his antagonist, who is first to act: “And of this opinion was Cardinal Maffeo Barberini who was among the persons who came to the Church to see this portrait and heard somebody, I don’t know who it was, who said, ‘This is Montoya, who became stone’ [Questo è il Montoya diventato sasso].”62



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The structure of the fictitious action follows the pattern of classical tragedy, since now that it has been set into motion, there follows a peripeteia probably invented by Domenico: Montoya himself enters the stage: “and while this was spoken, Monsignor Montoya himself chanced to appear.”63 It is through this trick that the dramatic conflict — absent in Chantelou’s version, with its simple opposition of opinions—is generated in Domenico’s: namely, the direct confrontation of the person and his image, the portrayed meeting his portrait, the original the copy! Precisely then, when the living human prototype and his image are shown as two counterparts, the anonymous prelate’s words—“This is Montoya, who became stone”—which suspended the substantial difference between the human prototype and its imitation—are dramatically refuted. The identity between the portrayed and his portrait maintained by Barberini’s antagonist is shown to be impossible. In Domenico’s account, the conflict necessarily and urgently presses toward a solution, as it does in tragedy. And it originates logically and immediately out of the peripeteia, for only this—that is, the sudden appearance of Montoya — creates the circumstance for comparison and judgment (giudizio). Maffeo Barberini, the secret hero of the drama, compares the real Montoya with the Montoya in art. His final sentence on the correlation between prototype and counterfeit, the immediate result of the peripety, offers the solution (lysis) of the conflict and the completion of the dramatic action: “The Cardinal gracefully [graziosamente] walked up to him, touched him [toccatolo] and said: ‘This is Monsignor Montoya’s portrait,’ [Questo è il Ritratto di Monsignor Montoya] and then, turning to the statue, added: ‘And this is Monsignor Montoya’ [E questo è Monsignor Montoya].”64 Domenico Bernini had no choice regarding the contents of the solution—that is, the final point of the anecdote in Chantelou. To get the measure of his remodeling of the story in his drama its exact wording (in Chantelou’s text) should be remembered: “whereupon Cardinal Barberini said with great gallantry [fort gallament], ‘It seems to me that Monsignor Montoya resembles his portrait’ [Mi pare che monsignor Montoya rassomiglia al suo ritratto].”65 A comparison of the two texts shows that Domenico, without any doubt, not only preserved the paradox of the original statement “[the real] Montoya resembles his portrait” (and not the other way round), but strengthened it. In his version the paradoxical inversion of the hierarchy regarding the evaluation of life versus stone, the human prototype versus its representation, is incomparably more impressive. And it is easy to see why. The



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former final point of the anecdote, a mere play of words, is transformed into a corporeal interaction and is thereby newly defined. Since in Domenico’s fictitious action Montoya is bodily present, Cardinal Barberini can be made “to walk up to him,” “to touch him” and to tell him that he is only his own portrait, and then to turn around to the bust and explain to it that it is Monsignor Montoya. In this context the close connection between bodily interaction and verbal expression seems especially interesting. It is significant and to the point that Barberini touches Montoya’s body as if it were a mere sculpture, while on the other hand he only turns toward the bust, keeping his distance, treating it as if it were Montoya himself in real life. There are many correspondences with the respective paragraph in Filippo Baldinucci’s Vita, which point to the intimate connection between the two biographies.66 In comparison to other instances, Baldinucci’s text might be said to be a variant reduction of Domenico’s wording.67 But however much is alike, there is also an essential difference with respect to Baldinucci’s assessment of Gianlorenzo Bernini. Significantly, he reiterates the action of the anecdote exactly in the form Domenico has given to it, but his proem differs conspicuously. His praise of the Montoya bust seems short, restrained and strangely reductive by comparison: “He executed a portrait so very lifelike [così al vivo] that in our time there was no one who would not have been stupefied by it [che non ne stupisse].”68 Although Baldinucci also makes use of the criterion of “vivacità,” he reduces it to the simplistic “lifelike” (al vivo)—terminology also used in the seventeenth century to express the life-size scale of a work.69 Only the wording “so very lifelike” (così al vivo) and the reaction of “stupore” on the part of the audience show that in reality it is a criterion of evaluation. Here, too, historical distance and the restraint typical of Baldinucci in his estimation of Bernini’s historical ranking are in evidence.70 However, neither Domenico Bernini nor Filippo Baldinucci report the concluding point recorded in Chantelou’s text alone, which is added to the anecdote as an epilogue: “This Spaniard [Montoya] paid him extremely well, but left his portrait in his studio for a long time without sending for it. He was rather surprised and spoke to several people about it, who explained to him that, as many cardinals and prelates saw the portrait in the studio, this did honor to Monsignor Montoya, for these same cardinals, ambassadors, and prelates stopped their carriages when they saw him in the street to talk to him about it, which pleased and flattered him, as before he had been remarkable in nothing.”71



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Here, in this final pun, several points come into focus. First: Gianlorenzo Bernini’s workshop, then in the neighborhood of Santa Maria Maggiore, as a public space, as a location for exhibitions. Second: Montoya’s redoubled memoria. His bust is part of his epitaph and is destined as such for San Giacomo degli Spagnuoli, the Spanish national church in Rome. It is an integral part of his provision for his own redemption. Just as he will be commemorated by the masses recited for his soul, his portrait, too, serves to memorialize him. It guarantees his, the deceased’s, continued life in the midst of the living. The success of the bust in Bernini’s workshop, however, serves another memoria: it produces a memoria for a living person. The exhibition in Bernini’s studio where Montoya leaves his bust for as long as possible is a means by which the monsignor gains a place in Roman public life, at least in effigie. Montoya, a nondescript member of a foreign nation in Rome, changes from a private person into a public one. In other words, the prototype gains public significance only in his counterfeit. Once again, we see evidence of the theorem mentioned above, according to which being is increased by the image!72

notes 1. Gould, Bernini in France, 11–13, 16 –18, 37– 40, 66, 98; Del Pesco, Louvre; Berger, Palace of the Sun; Gargiani, Idea e costruzione del Louvre, 71– 98; Montanari, “Bernini e Cristina di Svezia,” 375– 83; Preimesberger, “Avec une honnête hardiesse”; Milovan Stanic´, introduction to Chantelou/Stanic´, 15–27; Frommel, “Projets du Bernin pour le Louvre,” esp. 61–76. 2. Wittkower, Bernini’s Bust; Wittkower, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, 1981, 286 – 87, cat. note 70; Gould, Bernini in France, 35, 41, 45– 49, 51, 80 – 83; Lavin, “Bernin et son image du Roi-soleil”; Tratz, “Werkstatt und Arbeitsweise Berninis,” esp. 466 –71, 474–78; Scribner, Gianlorenzo Bernini, 108 – 9; Lavin, “Bernini’s Image of the Sun King,” in Lavin, PastPresent; Prater, “Vermittelte Person,” esp. 189; Avery, Bernini, 242 – 45; Pommier, Théories du portrait, 213–17; Lavin, Bernini e l’immagine, 15–33, esp. 18 –22; Delbeke, “The Pope, the Bust,” esp. 216 –17; Preimesberger, “Avec une honnête hardiesse,” 149 – 65; Stanic´, introduction to Chantelou/Stanic´, 17–19; Zitzlsperger, Gianlorenzo Bernini, 137–38, 174–75. 3. Pantini, Les Fréart de Chantelou. 4. In addition to Chantelou/Stanic´, I have used Chantelou/Blunt. The Journal was published for the first time and edited by Ludovic Lalanne in a series in the Gazette des Beaux-Art: Lalanne, “Journal de voyage.” Further, see Schlosser, Letteratura artistica, 469; Stanic´, “Génie de Gianlorenzo Bernini,” 109 –18; Montanari, “Bernini e Cristina di Svezia,” 375– 83; Montanari, “Fortuna poetica di Bernini,” esp. 129 –30 nn. 5, 7, 132 n. 11; Montanari, “Pierre Cureau de La Chambre”; Preimesberger, “Avec une honnête hardiesse,” 149 –50; Milovan Stanic´, introduction to Chantelou/Stanic´, 27–32; Del Pesco, “Genèse du Journal.” 5. For the correspondence between the work and its creator, see Fraser Jenkins, “Cosimo de’ Medici’s Patronage”; Chantelou/Blunt, 270 n. 74 with references to older literature;



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Lavin, “Bernin et son image du Roi-soleil,” 441– 42; Montanari, “Bernini e Cristina di Svezia,” 365; Preimesberger, “Avec une honnête hardiesse,” 159 – 61; Stanic´, introduction to Chantelou/Stanic´, 336. 6. Chantelou/Stanic´, 236 –37: “Quand il est redescendu, nous avons fait quelques tours de salle ensemble, pendant quoi je l’ai remis sur la nécessité qu’on avait ici de lui aux grands et vastes desseins que forme le Roi, pour ce que les ouvrages qu’on a faits jusqu’ ici ne correspondent pas à la grandeur de notre prince, et qu’il serait même à désirer qu’ils n’eussent point été faits.” Chantelou/Blunt, 270. 7. Chantelou/Stanic´, 237: “È ben vero, a-t-il dit, che le fabriche sono i ritratti dell’ animo dei principi; que pour cela ils ne doivent rien faire, ou faire quelque chose de grand et de magnifique.” Cf. the translations in: Lalanne, “Journal de voyage,” 272: “Il est bien vrai que les bâtiments sont l’ image de l’esprit des princes”; Chantelou/Blunt, 270: “He agreed, ‘True it is that buildings are the mirror of Princes. It was better to do nothing than something that lacked grandeur.’” Cf. Lavin, “Bernin et son image du Roi-soleil,” 441– 42; Montanari, “Bernini e Cristina di Svezia,” 365; Preimesberger, “Avec une honnête hardiesse,” 159 – 61. 8. Quoted in Campbell, Renaissance Portraits, 39: “Ars utinam mores animumque effingere posset, / pulchrior in terris nulla tabella foret.” Cf. Rudolf Preimesberger in Preimesberger, Baader, and Suthor, Porträt, 221–22; Delbeke, “The Pope, the Bust,” 205. 9. Rudolf Preimesberger in Preimesberger, Baader, and Suthor, Porträt, 220 –27, 228 –38. 10. Delbeke, “The Pope, the Bust,” for the expression of the “interno affetto,” 205– 6. 11. Ibid., 205 and note 76 for the problem in the cinque- and seicento. 12. Chantelou/Stanic´, 171–72; Chantelou/Blunt, 186 – 87. On the base, see Lavin, “Bernini’s Death,” 177– 81; Lavin, “Afterthoughts on Bernini’s Death,” 334 – 36; Gould, Bernini in France, 83. For the significance of the motto “nec pluribus impar,” see Néraudeau, L’ Olympe du Roi Soleil, 30 –35; Avery, Bernini, 244– 45. For a solar and christomimetic interpretation, see Zitzlsperger, Gianlorenzo Bernini, 138 –50. 13. Chantelou/Stanic´, 61– 62; Chantelou/Blunt, 37– 38 n. 115; cf. Preimesberger, “Avec une honnête hardiesse,” 154–56. 14. Oechslin, “Dinokrates,” 7. 15. Chantelou/Stanic´, 65: “Le 27e, Il a continué à travailler à son modèle, et le lendemain nous sommes allés à Saint-Germain. Là, dans le Conseil, il a dessiné d’après le Roi, sans que S. M. ait été assujettie de demeurer en une place. Le Cavalier prenait son temps au mieux qu’il pouvait; aussi disait-il de temps à autre, quand le Roi le regardait: Sto rubando. Une fois le Roi lui repartit, et en italien même: Si, ma è per restituire.” Cf. the translation in Chantelou/Blunt, 43– 44: ‘I am taking something from you.’ Once the king rejoined in Italian, ‘Yes, but it is only to give it back.’” 16. Chantelou/Stanic´, 65: “Il répliqua alors à Sa Majesté: Però per restituir meno del rubato.” Cf. the translation in Chantelou/Blunt, 44: “I give back less than I take.” Cf. Gould, Bernini in France, 47; Pommier, Théories du portrait, 216; Chantelou/Blunt, 44 n. 130, referring to DB, 133–34. 17. Rudolf Preimesberger, in Preimesberger, Baader, and Suthor, Porträt, 76 –79, 247–53. 18. Lausberg, Handbuch der literarischen Rhetorik, 3d ed., s.v. “Ironia”; Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie, s.v. “Ironie,” esp. col. 577; Müller, “Ironie, Lüge, Dissimulation,” 189ff.; Historisches Wörterbuch der Rhetorik, s.v. “Dissimulatio” and “Ironie.” 19. Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode, 128 –37: “Zunahme an Sein durch das Bild.” 20. Boehm, Bildnis und Individuum, 45–50, 266 n. 3, with reference to sources and older literature; Enciclopedia universale dell’Arte s.v. “ritratto”; Rudolf Preimesberger, in Preimesberger, Baader, and Suthor, Porträt, 280 – 83.



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21. Malvasia, Felsina pittrice, 2:130: “Al secondo (i. e. Mario Farnese), che trattenevasi a Ferrara per le fortificazioni, i ritratti rubati di certe dame private”; Dizionario dei termini artistici, s.v. “Ritratto.” For Alessandro Tiarini, see Benati, Alessandro Tiarini; Daniele Benati, “Itinerario di Alessandro Tiarini,” in Benati and Mazza, Alessandro Tiarini; for Malvasia’s sources, see 31 n. 3; female portraits by Tiarini: 148 –51, cat. no. 47; 180 – 81, cat. no. 68. For Malvasia, see Perini, “Central Issues and Peripheral Debates.” 22. On Mario Farnese, see Dizionario biografico degli italiani, s.v. “Farnese, Mario,” esp. 110 –11. Mario Farnese was in Ferrara from December 1597 and from 1603 as “luogotenente generale” of the papal troops. 23. Heinse, Ardinghello und die glückseligen Inseln, 48: “‘Wir wurden durch einen bloßen Zufall näher bekannt,’ fuhr er fort; ‘denn schon vorher hatte ich sie als den schönsten weiblichen Kopf in Venedig einige Male in Kirchen auf den Raub abgezeichnet und ein paar Mal in Gesellschaft gesehen.’” 24. Philippe Morel in Hochmann, Villa Medici, 300 –303, cat. nos. 85– 86. 25. Baglione, Vite, 1:45: “molte Donne ignude, ma piccole, tra le quali sono molti ritratti di varie Dame Romane di quei tempi assai belle, e degne come di vista.” 26. Philippe Morel in Hochmann, Villa Medici, 304–5, cat. no. 87. 27. Ibid., 304. 28. Cf. DB, 133–34: “Tenne un costume il Cavaliere, ben dal commune modo assai diverso, nel ritrarre altrui ò nel Marmo, ò nel Disegno: Non voleva che il figurato stasse fermo, ma ch’ei colla sua solita naturalezza si movesse, e parlasse, perche in tal modo, diceva, ch’ei vedeva tutto il suo bello, e’l contrafaceva, com’ egli era, asserendo, che nello starsi al naturale immobilmente fermo, egli non è mai tanto simile a sè stesso, quanto è nel moto, in cui consistono tutte quelle qualità, che sono sue, e non d’ altri, e che danno la Somiglianza al Ritratto;” and FB, 70 – 71; FB-1948, 144; FB-1966/2006, 78. See also, Dizionario dei termini artistici, s.v. “Ritratto”; Lavin, Bernini e l’immagine, 18 –22, and Delbeke, “The Pope, the Bust,” 216 and note 122. 29. Chantelou/Stanic´, 223–24; Chantelou/Blunt, 254. Cf. the reference to “ritratti amorevoli e affezionati” by Ottavio Lione in Baglione, Vite, 1:322, and Dizionario dei termini artistici, s.v. “Ritratto.” 30. Preimesberger, “Avec une honnête hardiesse,” 149 – 65; for the farewell, see Chantelou/Stanic´, 223–24; Chantelou/Blunt, 254; cf. Gould, Bernini in France, 83; Avery, Bernini, 244. 31. Francois VII de la Rochefoucauld (1634–1714); see Chantelou/Blunt, 254 n. 39. 32. Chantelou/Blunt, 254; Chantelou/Stanic´, 223: “Sa Majesté s’étant mise après dans la même place où Elle se met d’ordinaire, a demandé si l’on travaillait au piédestal. Le Cavalier a répondu que l’on n’y travaillait pas encore, et a pris le prince de Marsillac, qui était tout proche de lui.” 33. Chantelou/Stanic´, 223–24: “et l’a mis en lieu que le Roi tournait les yeux sur lui, afin de bien marquer les prunelles de son buste, ce qu’ayant fait avec du charbon seulement.” Cf. the translation in Chantelou/Blunt, 254: “to a place where the king could turn his eyes on him, he took a piece of charcoal.” 34. Chantelou/Blunt, 254; Chantelou/Stanic´, 224: “il a dit à Sa Majesté que l’ouvrage était achevé, qu’il souhaiterait qu’il fût d’une plus grande excellence; qu’il y avait travaillé avec tant d’amour.” 35. Chantelou/Blunt, 254; Chantelou/Stanic´, 224: “qu’il croyait qu’il était le moins mauvais portrait qui fût sorti de ses mains.” 36. Chantelou/Blunt, 89; Chantelou/Stanic´, 96; DB, 83; cf. Chantelou/Blunt, 254 n. 40. 37. Preimesberger, “Avec une honnête hardiesse,” 149 – 65. 38. Chantelou/Blunt, 115: “M. de Lionne asked what were the black marks in the eyes. The Cavaliere told him that when the work was finished he would make a tap or



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two where the black was and the shadow of the cavity would represent the pupil of the eye”; Chantelou/Stanic´, 115: “M. de Lionne a demandé ce que c’était que le noir qu’il voyait marqué aux yeux. Le Cavalier a dit que quand l’ouvrage serait fini, il donnerait en la place de ce noir quelques coups, dont l’ombre représenterait la prunelle de l’oeil marquée par ce noir.” 39. Dizionario dei termini artistici, s.v. “Facilità.” 40. Tratz, “Werkstatt und Arbeitsweise Berninis,” 466 – 71, 474 – 78; Summers, Michelangelo, 177– 85; Dizionario dei termini artistici, s.v. “Difficoltà.” 41. Chantelou/Blunt, 125–26; Chantelou/Stanic´, 123–24. On the Montoya bust, see Wittkower, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, 1981, 237–38, cat. no. 13; Lavin, “Five New Youthful Sculptures,” 240; Scribner, Gianlorenzo Bernini, 62 – 63; Lavin, “Bernini’s Portraits of NoBody,” in Lavin, Past-Present, 101, 125–29; Avery, Bernini, 83. 42. On this issue, see the Prolegomena in this volume. 43. Historisches Wörterbuch der Rhetorik, s.v. “Anekdote”; Kris and Kurz, Legend, Myth, and Magic; Soussloff, Absolute Artist, 112 –58. 44. Chantelou/Blunt, 125; Chantelou/Stanic´, 123–24: “Le Cavalier a conté qu’un des premiers portraits qu’il ait faits était le portrait d’un prélat espagnol nommé Montoya; qu’Urbain VIII, n’étant encore que cardinal, l’étant venu voir avec divers prélats, ils le trouvèrent tous merveilleusement ressemblant.” 45. Chantelou/Blunt, 125; Chantelou/Stanic´, 123: “et se mirent à louer cette ressemblance à l’envi les uns des autres, disant sur ce sujet chacun une pensée différente; qu’il y en eut un qui dit: Mi pare monsignor Montoya petrificato.” 46. Chantelou/Blunt, 125; Chantelou/Stanic´, 123: “qu’il se souvient que le cardinal Barberini dit fort galamment: Mi pare che monsignor Montoya rassomiglia al suo ritratto.” 47. Chantelou is translating the Italian notions of “somiglianza” and “meraviglia/ meraviglioso.” On these terms, see Dizionario dei termini artistici, s.v. “Somiglianza,” and s.v. “Meraviglia.” 48. For the Medusa-effect, see Shearman, Only Connect, 44 – 58; Freccero, “Medusa”; Hertz, “Medusa’s Head”; Cropper, “The Petrifying Art.” 49. Lausberg, Handbuch der literarischen Rhetorik, 3d ed., 56 – 60, § 63, 64; Historisches Wörterbuch der Rhetorik, s.v. “Paradoxe, das”; ibid., s.v. “Paradoxon”; Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie, s.v. “Paradox, das Paradox(e), Paradoxie.” 50. Delbeke, “The Pope, the Bust,” especially his discussion on “vivacità and the prima apprensione,” 198 –204. 51. On the history, genesis, and interrelationship of the two Bernini biographies, see the Prolegomena to this volume. 52. “fece di marmo il Ritratto di Monsignor Giacomo [sic] Montoya, che doveva poi collocarsi, come seguì, sopra la sepoltura di detto Prelato dentro la Chiesa di S. Giacomo degli Spagnuoli.” DB, 16. 53. “E condusse a fine il lavoro con tale spirito, e somiglianza, che chi volea prendersi diletto di raffigurare attentamente l’ Originale, e la Copia, gli era d’ vuopo di dire, ò che ambedue fosser finti, ò ambedue veri, essendo che rappresentòllo cosi desso, che quella Statua non havea bisogno d’ anima per parer viva.” Ibid. 54. Dizionario dei termini artistici, s.v. “Somiglianza.” 55. See Delbeke, “The Pope, the Bust,” 203 on the role of “invenzione.” 56. Dizionario dei termini artistici, s.v. “Spirito, spiritoso.” 57. Delbeke, “The Pope, the Bust”; cf. Dizionario dei termini artistici, s.v. “Vivacità, Vivezza.” 58. Ibid., s.v. “Diletto”; for the concept of the Aristotelian “diletto” in portraiture in Lodovico Castelvetro, see Rudolf Preimesberger, in Preimesberger, Baader, and Suthor, Porträt, 292 –93.



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59. Lodovico Castelvetro, “Poetica d’Aristotele vulgarizzata et sposta per L. C,” in Barocchi, Scritti d’arte del Cinquecento, 3:2712: “Ora quando la pittura rassomiglia uno uomo certo e conosciuto, come Filippo d’Austria re di Spagna, diletta molto più di gran lunga, che non fa quando rassomiglia uno uomo incerto, sconosciuto et in generale.” (If the art of painting portrays a certain and known man like Philip of Austria, king of Spain, she pleases infinitely more than representing an indefinite and unknown man and in a general way.) Cf. Rudolf Preimesberger, in Preimesberger, Baader, and Suthor Porträt, 289. 60. Summers, Michelangelo, 332 – 46, 368 – 79; Dizionario dei termini artistici, s.v. “Giudizio.” 61. Cf. Baldinucci, Vocabolario, s.v. “Anima”: “Pigliasi questa voce da’ nostri artefici per quello spirito, che rende le figure dipinte quasi vive, e animate.” Cf. Dizionario dei termini artistici, s.v. “Anima.” 62. DB, 16: “Edi questo sentimento fù il Cardinal Maffeo Barberino, che trà i Concorrenti nella Chiesa a veder questo Ritratto, ritrovandosi anch’ esso, intese un non sò chi, che disse, Questo è il Montoya diventato sasso.” Cf. Chantelou/Blunt, 125; Chantelou/Stanic´, 123–24: “Mi pare monsignor Montoya petrificato.” 63. DB, 16: “& in così dire sopravenne veramente Monsignor Montoya.” 64. Ibid.: “onde a lui accostatosi graziosamente il Cardinale, e toccatolo disse: Questo è il Ritratto di Monsignor Montoya, e rivolto alla Statua soggiunse, E questo è Monsignor Montoya.” 65. Chantelou/Blunt, 125; Chantelou/Stanic´, 123–24. 66. FB, 6; FB-1948, 76 (and see 198 n. 33), FB-1966/2006, 11; Montanari, “Bernini e Cristina di Svezia,” 416 –25. 67. See D’Onofrio, “Note berniniane 2: Priorità,” 201– 8, and the Prolegomena to this volume. 68. FB, 6; FB-1948, 76; FB-1966/2006, 11: “Condusse questi un ritratto così al vivo, che non fu mai occhio fino a questi nostri tempi, che non ne stupisse; e avevalo già nel suo luogo collocato, quando assai Cardinali, e altri Prelati vi si portarono apposta per veder sì bell’ opera; tra questi uno ve ne fu, che disse: Questo è il Montoia pietrificato; nè ebbe egli appena proferite queste parole, che quivi sopraggiunse lo stesso Montoia. Il Cardin. Maffeo Barberino, poi Urbano Ottavo, che pure anch’ esso era con quei Cardinali, si portò ad incontrarlo, e toccandolo disse: Questo è il ritratto di Monsig. Montoia, (e voltosi alla Statua) e questo è Monsignor Montoia.” 69. Lavin, “Bernini’s Portraits of No-Body,” in Lavin, Past-Present, 101. 70. D’Onofrio, “Note berniniane 2: Priorità,” 201– 8; cf. Preimesberger, “Berninis Cappella Cornaro,” 192 –93. 71. Chantelou/Blunt, 125-26; Chantelou/Stanic´, 123–24, 17: “Il a conté après que cet Espagnol le paya fort bien, mais qu’il laissa son portrait fort longtemps chez lui, sans l’envoyer quérir ; de quoi s’étonnant et en parlant à quelques-uns, ils lui dirent que comme beaucoup de cardinaux et prélats voyaient ce portrait dans son atelier, cela faisait honneur à monsignor Montoya, et que ces mêmes cardinaux, ambassadeurs et prélats le rencontrant dans les rues faisaient arrêter leur carosse pour lui parler de son portrait; que cela lui plaisait et le flattait pour ce qu’il n’était signalé en rien auparavant.” 72. Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode, 128 –37.



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SEVEN gianlorenzo on the grill: the birth of the artist in his “primo parto di divozione” Heiko Damm Nec incendit nisi ignis [Nothing but fire can inflame] —Quintilian, Inst. Orat., VI.2.28 Unceasingly occupied with thoughts of Rome and Athens, living as it were amongst their great men, myself by birth the citizen of a republic and the son of a father whose patriotism was his strongest passion, I was fired by his example; I believed myself a Greek or Roman. I lost my identity in that of the individual whose life I was reading; the recitals of the qualities of endurance and intrepidity which arrested my attention made my eyes glisten and strengthened my voice. One day, while I was relating the history of Scaevola at table, those present were alarmed to see me come forward and hold my hand over a chafing-dish, to illustrate his action. —J. J. Rousseau, Confessions, 1.1

“per divozione del santo” On 10 August 1665, the feast of San Lorenzo, Gianlorenzo Bernini, on an official mission abroad in Paris, declares that this is his name day. While talking with his attendant, Paul Fréart de Chantelou, he points out: “Before I had seen the light of day, my father had six female and no male The present text is based on part of my unpublished MA thesis (Freie Universität Berlin, 2000). I was originally inspired to write about the topic during an excursion to Rome led by Rudolf Preimesberger, who also kindly consented to supervise my work. To him I wish to express my sincere gratitude. For discussion and critical comment during various phases of my work I thank Hannah Baader, Martin Dönike, Frank Fehrenbach, Beate Fricke, Wolf Löhr, Nicola Suthor and Barbara Wittmann. For substantial help with the translation I owe special thanks to Cassandra Sciortino, Ulrike Tarnow, and Margaret Daly Davis. I am particularly indebted to Steven F. Ostrow for his continuing interest, advice, and patience.

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children, and when I was finally born as his first son, I was named after both my father and grandfather. That’s why my name is Giovanni and Lorenzo.” Considering the Tuscan origins of the Bernini family, of which Naples-born Gianlorenzo was proud throughout his life, both names seem appropriate, Saint John being the patron saint of Florence and Saint Lawrence having particular veneration as the titular saint of the town’s oldest basilica. Chantelou, however, quite untouched, retorts drolly, advising Bernini to pray to Saint Lawrence for an end to the toothache that had been troubling the artist for several days.1 The Frenchman’s brief diary entry makes a provocative comment on the personal piety of the Cavaliere, who worked on Sundays only with apostolic dispensation and who, on the feast day of his patron saint, refused to lift a finger, even for the bust of His Most Christian Majesty.2 Instead, the artist and his constant companion chose to attend a special service at the Oratorian church and then take a walk to the church of Saint Laurent.3 From Chantelou’s recordings, it is clear that Gianlorenzo Bernini used to commemorate his name saint even as a grown man. Unfortunately, the Cavaliere was not, on this occasion, disposed to speak about his early sculptural masterpiece, the Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence (fig. 28). It would not have been unusual for him to do so, since he had fondly recalled his own works in similar situations.4 That he did not this time, is regrettable, all the more so because we have no reliable documents relating to the Saint Lawrence from the time when it was made. We know for certain only that Leone Strozzi purchased the sculpture soon after it was completed, and that it was installed in his Roman villa before 1632 and remained in the family’s possession for over three hundred years. It was then acquired by the Contini Bonacossi Collection and is now on display in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. In 1998 it was one of the highlights of the Bernini jubilee exhibition at the Villa Borghese in Rome, which was dedicated to the artist’s youthful works and the beginning of the Roman Baroque.5 However, unlike the David (fig. 19) and the three mythological groups of the Borghese collection (all carved between 1618 and 1625), the Saint Lawrence has never been regarded as a groundbreaking work of the Baroque style. Even avowed admirers of Bernini may consider this sculptural representation of a martyrdom to be an over-designed Kunstkammer piece that ambitiously combines divergent artistic reminiscences to dazzle the learned beholder with originality and technical skill. While it rivals painting in its mimetic description of fire and different materials (wood, coal, and iron), the pose and treatment of the saint’s body are still very



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fig. 28 Gianlorenzo Bernini, Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence, ca. 1616 –17, marble. Uffizi, Florence [formerly collection of Contini Bonacossi].

much rooted in Michelangelesque conventions of the late cinquecento.6 Yet, although critics have differed in their assessment of the sculpture, it has always been regarded as an important early work, conceived and executed without assistance. There is no consensus on its precise date, as is well known. But, since the catalogue of the Borghese exhibition specifies 1616 –17 as the years when the Saint Sebastian of the Thyssen-Bornemisza collection was made, the same date can be established for the Saint Lawrence with some plausibility,7 confirming the stylistic arguments made years ago by Wittkower and Kauffmann.8 Nevertheless, some Bernini scholars continue to argue for an earlier date, since Baldinucci’s Vita of 1682 states that the youthful sculptor carved the marble saint in his fifteenth year (i.e., 1613). Exactly the same declaration is made in Domenico Bernini’s biography of his father, published in 1713.9 The extent to which Domenico was interested in accurately reflecting his father’s views, or his own, will never be known.10 But we may at least wonder if the sculptor himself, anxious about his afterlife,



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pre-dated the youthful Saint Lawrence and the Borghese sculptures in order to let their artifitium appear even more admirable.11 However we may define the role of Domenico, it remained the task of his book—as of all separately published vite—to keep the reputation of the artist alive and to increase it as much as possible posthumously. As both a chronicle and an apologia, the register of the hero’s deeds always testifies to a state of grace that continues to operate thanks to a virtuous way of life, consisting in perpetual resistance against the sensual temptations that follow in the path of glory: the supernatural gift of ingenium can only produce fruit when cultivated by merit. Presenting individual stories of success as a model of character, artists’ biographies often confirm the idea that exceptional artistic talent would inevitably come to the fore. With his first “published work,” the divine artist evoked not only amazement among his older colleagues, but also attracted wealthy patrons and sympathetic promoters who could facilitate social advancement.12 The precocious masterpiece reads as an omen for future works, deriving its full significance only when viewed in the context of the artist’s oeuvre. It is contrived by the biographer, who implies an arthistorical program in his vita, to show distinct characteristics in the opera d’esordio that point toward the subsequent development of the artist, despite the masterly handling of form and material. Thus, the prominent position of an exemplary early work in the biographies of famous painters and sculptors can be explained by the author’s intention to give it the literary shape of a miraculous auspice which is fulfilled in the hero’s future excellence. Departing from this perspective, I shall examine the story told in Domenico Bernini’s Vita of his father, entitled “Statua di S. Lorenzo in atto di essere abbrugiato” (Statue of Saint Lawrence in the act of being burned). Here, the skilled writer takes the opportunity to color the portrait of the artist as a young man, only partially outlined by Baldinucci. His distance from the event may well have contributed to this purpose, since his Vita was published one hundred years after the date given by the author for the sculpture’s origin. The Saint Lawrence belongs to the “primi studii in Roma,” listed in the second chapter of the biography: Out of reverence for the saint whose name he bore, he wanted to represent in marble Saint Lawrence in the act of being burned on an iron grill, and in order to depict appropriately the pain of martyrdom in the Saint’s face, and the effect the fire was supposed to have on his flesh, he placed himself with his bare leg and thigh



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near the live coals [bragia accesa]13 to feel the martyr’s torment himself [per cui venendo a provare in se il Martirio del Santo]. Then, looking in the mirror, with a lapis14 he drew the painfully altered features of his face, and he watched the changing aspects of his flesh caused by the heat of the flames: An even worthier act than that of the ancient Scaevola, inasmuch as the latter put his hand into the fire in order to punish himself for having failed, whereas our Gian Lorenzo scorched his flesh, driven by his desire not to fail. By chance, his father Pietro happened to pass by and, catching sight of his son at the moment of torturing himself and knowing the reason, began to weep tender tears, because he recognized in this still tender youth of only fifteen years such a strong desire to attain virtue that he [the youth] simulated the torment of the real Saint Lawrence in order to sculpt an artificial one [ritrasse in se il tormento di un S. Lorenzo vero per iscolpirne un finto]. And this was his first fruit [parto] of devotion [that is, the emergence of Bernini’s virtue as a devotional artist] that so perfectly fulfilled the expectations of the people that the cardinal nephew of the Pope [Scipione Borghese himself ] went to [the] house [of the Bernini family] twice to see this work.15 And among the countless people who converged there was also Leone Strozzi, a Roman nobleman, who was so infatuated with the sculpture that he desired it for himself, and now it is to be seen in his delightful villa on the Viminal hill.16 It is instructive to compare Domenico Bernini’s paragraphs with the few words Baldinucci allots to the same subject. Baldinucci speaks of the Saint Lawrence in a rather abbreviated way, within a single sentence. “Meanwhile,” he writes, “still in his fifteenth year, he showed [fece vedere] the figure he carved with his own hand of Saint Lawrence on the gridiron for Leone Strozzi, which was placed in the Strozzi villa, and then for the aforementioned Cardinal Borghese he made the group of Aeneas carrying the aged Anchises.”17 By contrast, Domenico Bernini, starting from the single motif of the “fece vedere” in the corresponding passage, unfolds an amusing and instructive mini-drama that combines, in a charming manner, a number of well-known literary topoi. They can be summarized as follows: first, the artist submits himself to physical pain in order to be able to represent it convincingly; second, as a visual sublimation of the passions, the work of



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art in turn incites intense emotions; third, Gianlorenzo’s enormous gift reveals itself suddenly to Pietro Bernini who, overwhelmed by his son’s great virtue, embraces him; in doing so, fourth, he acknowledges the creative superiority of the son he himself trained as a sculptor.18 A close reading of the text makes clear that it is indeed not the finished work, but only the concept or mental image of a sculpture that has yet to be executed which reveals the virtus of artistic mastery. It is therefore virtually the image of the planned work, based on Gianlorenzo’s performance, that exposes the spiritual content of martyrdom by imitating it. And it is exactly this supreme effort in preparation for the marble statue that—my fifth point— is ultimately rewarded with admiration and acquisition. These aspects will demonstrate that the genesis of the Saint Lawrence, as narrated by Domenico, should at least be understood as a forceful metaphor of the creative process and of spiritual and material success. The story allows us to draw conclusions about both the seriousness of Bernini’s artistic studies and his religious fervor. Thus, a central theme of his later works is already present here: the convincing representation of passionate devotion and its effective transmission to the beholder. Domenico’s comments are probably a later addition and clearly remain within the scope of biographical patterns; but while they should not be taken literally, they should be taken seriously.19 From the start, the reader of Domenico Bernini’s book encounters his high literary ambition.20 The complex style of the preface is not kept up throughout the entire Vita, but the author continues to employ rhetorical lumina liberally. Particularly, in the almost hagiographical first chapters, he draws on elaborate figures of speech to render a miraculous appeal to the res factae of Gianlorenzo’s life—as evident in the brief passage regarding the Saint Lawrence. Here the accumulation of antitheses in a single sequence is striking: Gianlorenzo’s mighty aspiration for virtue contradicts his tender age; his burning desire is cooled by his father’s stream of tears; he acts as a real saint, but will produce a mere fabrication, that is, a work of art which is made in a way that guarantees its particular authenticity.21 These oppositions are neutralized in an ingenious sculptural conception that becomes tangible as “primo parto” of the sculptor’s devotion. Bernini’s much admired imitation of nature thus receives an ethical foundation in the Vita written by his son: by demonstrating deftly “what is” (quel che è),22 the sculpture unmistakably refers to the “real” virtues of its creator. As Augustine wrote, “Virtue was in fact defined by the ancients as the art of living rightly and well. Hence they thought that is was from virtue, called



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arête in Greek, that the Latins derived the word ‘art.’”23 It is Gianlorenzo’s virtuousness and virtuosity that justify his stunning career at the papal court, a career literally carved out by the realization of a martyr statue.

“per rappresentare adequatamente” Even before Gianlorenzo’s perilous exercises are introduced, the text points to their ultimate purpose. Domenico Bernini states that the beginning artist wanted to “portray” (or represent) his patron saint in marble. This expression is intimately linked to the moral sense of the tale: Gianlorenzo, putting himself in the place of the martyr in his experimental arrangement, revives the presence of his prototype.24 He tried, in this way, to draw from a “real” image of Saint Lawrence in order to depict plausibly the historical fact of his martyrdom. A procedure of this kind corresponds to the eagerness displayed in the years around 1600 by Christian archaeologists who not only attempted to reconstruct the death circumstances of the early Christian heroes meticulously, but to attain their verae imagines, too.25 This research often culminated in the recovery of the holy martyrs’ bodies, reportedly sometimes found intact, like ancient statues. In turn, these excavations could be translated into sculptures, as in the case of Saint Cecilia, whose body was found in the holy year of 1600 and immediately thereafter transformed into the well-known reclining marble figure by Stefano Maderno. Here, the effect of an intact corpse is enhanced by the fact that her body is mostly veiled and her face turns away, hidden from the beholder.26 Another statue that corresponded to this need is Bernini’s imago of Santa Bibiana, realized between 1624 and 1626, and placed above the high altar of the homonymous church (fig. 29).27 Her body had been found during the restoration campaign, supposedly together with the antique sculpture of a bear with a cap, the Orso pileato. The latter was placed upon a nearby garden wall, whereas the saint’s body was transferred with great solemnity to the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore.28 According to Domenico, Bernini denied being the sculptor of the statue, claiming instead that the saint herself had by her own volition emerged from the marble (“da sè medesima scolpita, ed impressa in quel marmo”).29 This statement, on the one hand, recalls the powerful presence of the martyr’s body exposed to public veneration, a presence which could also take hold of the artist’s imagination and engender his idea of the statue; on the other hand, it hints at the supernatural character inscribed in the appearance of the



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fig. 29 Gianlorenzo Bernini, Santa Bibiana, 1624 –26, marble. Santa Bibiana, Rome.

pious masterpiece, in this way perpetuating the creative intensity originally invested in its creation. As a “miracle of art,” the saint’s image formed by Bernini not only recalls the tenerezza and devozione of Bibiana, but also of her re-animator.30 Although in the case of the burned Saint Lawrence there was no authentic image to refer to, valuable traces of his physical presence nevertheless existed. Paradoxically, it was exactly the destruction of the body and the dispersion of its pieces that guaranteed its continuation. In Rome, a large number of sacred places celebrate the martyr’s special merits for the sake of the city. Furnished with valuable relics, this network of topoi enabled the commemoration of his charity and his suffering “to depict [it] appropriately.”31 As Domenico Bernini suggests, Gianlorenzo was completely overcome by



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fig. 30 Gianlorenzo Bernini, Damned Soul, ca. 1619 –20, marble. Palazzo di Spagna, Rome.

the role of his patron saint. The instruments of his torture became the artist’s stage props and stimulated his imagination, his fervor to draw was kindled by the live coal. What the young artist was studying with a mirror and lapis in his hands, however, were not the physical alterations caused by the searing heat of fire, but rather the effetti, the reflections of pain in his own physiognomy. It has always been noted that Domenico Bernini’s picturesque account of the genesis of the sculpture does not, in fact, correspond with anything we can see when actually beholding it. The saint’s face, instead of showing the dolorosi moti of its imitator, quite to the contrary presents itself to the spectator in a state of heavenly calmness. But Bernini did present a brilliant marble rendering of a contorted expression, using his own face: the Damned Soul (fig. 30), another youthful work, sculpted around 1619. It seems, therefore, as if his son had simply transferred an anecdote originally



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relating to the bust of the Damned Soul onto the Saint Lawrence. Having no qualms about embellishing his account, he could fashion an even more impressive exemplum of artistic virtue.32 Only in the pointed connection made between the emulation of a saint and of artistic self-discovery can the story obtain its edifying character. In the Damned Soul, Bernini’s conversion of his own effigy into a mask of horror makes the torments of hell emphatically clear to the beholder.33 With his mouth screaming in rage and his hair standing up on end and animated like flames, the entire head becomes an impressive type of damnation, demonstrating with its disfigurement the loss of Godlikeness. In the case of the Saint Lawrence, however, such a distortion of the physiognomy would not have been suited to express the crucial message of the martyr’s exemplary ability to endure extreme trials. On the contrary, the sculpted figure emphasizes the christomimesis of a saint whose especially cruel torture is seen as a process of inner assimilation of God, a transformation of the soul that is indicated by the saint’s face turned heavenward and shown in the moment of holy ecstasy. Hence, the facial expression of Bernini’s Saint Lawrence does not look like a cryptoportrait of the artist, but rather resembles the Blessed Soul (fig. 31). This female pendant to damnation brings to light the imago Dei preserved in the redeemed soul, presenting to us what she herself is chosen to see.34 In the same way, with his face turned up to the light above, Bernini’s Saint Lawrence seems illuminated by the sun of grace.35 But still, how are these conclusions connected to Gianlorenzo’s supposed exercises before the mirror? They may have preceded the sculptural work as a sort of study in expression, fit to anchor safely in the imagination what had been experienced. However, the fact that this case appears in Domenico’s Vita is notable not only as evidence of artistic practice, but more importantly, it also corresponds to contemporary behavioral theories. It was common to consider the human face a mirror of the soul, its contemplation leading to self-knowledge and integrity.36 In the end, the young Bernini is guided by a moral imperative—he undertakes an ordeal of fire to picture in his mind the qualities of his patron saint. “Venendo a provare in se il Martirio del Santo,” he proves worthy of his namesake Saint Lawrence. Simulating the torture—and depicting faithfully the changing expressions on his face—he uncovers the features of “Lorenzo vero.” Re-enacting the pain suffered by the martyr, Bernini tests the limits of his perseverance. Presumably, the pious biographer wanted the genesis of the Saint Lawrence to be understood in this way. The result of Bernini’s pathognomic studies is not the presence



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fig. 31 Gianlorenzo Bernini, Blessed Soul, ca. 1619 –20, marble. Palazzo di Spagna, Rome.

of his own physical resemblance, but an ideal representation of his name: Gianlorenzo “is,” per antonomasiam, San Lorenzo. In this context, it is remarkable to see how Domenico manages to eliminate the marks of pain so clearly imprinted in his narration. In order to achieve this, his own grandfather, Pietro Bernini, is made to enter the scene as an onlooker: “Accidentally passing by” his workshop,37 this distinguished sculptor witnesses the daring experiments of his son. His eyes fall on a performance that is, at the same time, an imitation of and a modeling for the Saint Lawrence figure. The reader, too, inevitably has the impression of a revelation: the message of Gianlorenzo’s acting becomes instantly clear. By using a participial construction, the narrator contracts several consecutive stages of perception and understanding into one single, and nearly synchronic occurrence. He cannot fail to achieve the desired responses of surprise and emotion: “Pietro, his father, came upon him by



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chance, and seeing the son in that act of martyrdom, and learning its reason, he cried tenderly, recognizing in it such a great desire for virtue.”38 The blending of fright and emotion leads to the discovery of Gianlorenzo’s outstanding moral qualities, here understood as both a precondition for and a proof of artistic talent. At the same time, the father’s cathartic compassion is performed as an appropriate reaction to the brutal realism of such a portrayal of martyrdom. In the end, the executed work will surpass even this impressive study, by creating sheer delight, that is, when the disfigured face of Saint Lawrence is transfigured. Consequently, the author of the Vita presents Gianlorenzo’s first largesize sculpture as a “primo parto di divozione.” The spirit of his patron saint impels the young artist to conceive a mature work that not only proves his technical ability, but at the same time bears witness to his piety. The passage regarding the Saint Lawrence in Domenico’s book announces the “birth” of the fervently working sculptor Bernini whose libido artis is mirrored in the martyr’s libido mortis. It is not surprising that this joyous event—the appearance of the artist’s genius—is constructed by the use of religious imagery. We know that the author won the recognition of the papal court with his multivolume Historia di tutte le heresie and in his later life he composed biographies of individuals worthy of sainthood.39 Even the Vita of his father contains some hagiographical traits. The work is not an aesthetic manifesto, but rather a document of familial piety. At the same time, it was also a means of preserving the high reputation of Bernini’s genius, and of proving his life to be as exemplary as his art.40 Thus, Domenico tells us in the second chapter that Gianlorenzo as a boy had studied the great ancient and modern masterpieces for three years and, above all, that he had become enthralled with classical sculpture. In this context, the frequent use of fire metaphors is conspicuous: the narrator refers to Bernini’s “ardent genius” (genio ardente) that “flared up” (s’infuocava) in the young artist at the sight of the antique models, so that he was able to reproduce their “certain luminous quality” (certo lume particolare).41 Domenico writes, “It happened that, as he aged, he desired to attain perfection in this way [i.e., by means of relentless drawing], so that his father Pietro required him to sleep in his room to deny him the comfort to study even in those hours that are reserved for the restoration [refocillamento] of the body.”42 This notice immediately precedes the passage on the Saint Lawrence’s genesis. It reminds us that vigils were kept in memory of the holy martyr: night watches as a mental torture intended as self-purification. Hence,



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Gianlorenzo’s glowing eagerness to work and his fervent devotion to study are at the same time a negation of voluptas by which an adolescent is always threatened. Such commitment was later rewarded by early fame. In this way, the imitation of the saint becomes a prerequisite for the aesthetic success that is only implicit in Domenico’s narration. There is, in other words, a continuous subtext defined by Christian ethics, which emerges at the crucial moment when Bernini’s talent is revealed — only to be covered up again by the account of the completely secular esteem for the artist’s work. Pietro Bernini’s insight paves the way to a more general recognition, inasmuch as the dramatic scene in the immediate family is followed by the son’s appearance on the stage of the urbs. The story ends happily as the Roman audience is delighted by the public presentation of Gianlorenzo’s virtue, now materialized in the finished work. But if it is the manifest concept of sanctity that stimulated a refined patrician to purchase the statue and to display it in his already delightful (deliziosa) villa, this passing of the sculpted saint into a secular realm seems to create a tension with the work’s religious origin. As told, Leone Strozzi was enamored with the marble figure, and in the end his desire is consummated by its acquisition. The figure of speech, “S’invaghì in modo, che la volle per se,” occurs several times in Domenico’s text, and it is either related to the expansion of collections based on the love of the arts or to the seductive power of innovative ideas.43 Interestingly, the author uses the same verb to explain why he gave up his ecclesiastical career: “invaghitosi di onesta e civil donzella romana.”44

“per non errare” In Domenico’s first chapter, an allegory explains why Gianlorenzo took up the profession of his father, despite the fact that—given his abundant talents (“ricca miniera d’ingegno”)—he could have decided upon any conceivable activity: “But since the vivid example is usually the incentive and the guide of behavior, and because a coal [carboncino] nearby cooks more than the entire sun far away, it easily happened that Gianlorenzo, seeing his father inclined to work in sculpture, also gave way to his own inclination for this occupation, and he declared his desire to learn its principles from him.”45 Contingency (the accidental taking up of his father’s profession) and providence (his destination to become a master in this profession) converge in the equivocal reference to coal. To partake as soon as possible in the predestined sun-like glory, he exploited whatever was most convenient:



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the charcoal (carboncino), the most humble of drawing tools, would burn no fingers; rather, only the most frequent use would bring it to a glow. At the same time, live coal from ancient times had been a medium of inspiration, the arising gleam a metaphor of the prima idea, the conceptual energy that all too often dies away, but which, if kindled in an apt manner, might rise into high flame.46 Gianlorenzo is giving a quite literal example of this kind of creative ardor in his youthful work. His chisel possesses the consuming force of fire, and while eating away the statue’s base, it eternalizes its fleeting form. Above the permeable barrier of the grill shines the holy martyr’s highly polished body, scarcely touched by the lambent flames, thus making evident that working in marble can be understood as a kind of creative destruction that makes shape appear by removing the dispensable (“per via di levare”). One might ask, with which outstanding qualities did Bernini’s Saint Lawrence charm his Roman public, since he proposed a freestanding sculpture so self-confidently demonstrating its creator’s ability?47 The representations of martyrdom painted during previous pontificates —which contained meticulous descriptions of cruelty, aimed at an immediate understanding and intended as a guide to pious devotion — are here adapted to a medium making claims to tangible presence. The reclining figure, both retrospective and innovative, increases the urgency of the torture scene, condensing it into a coherent visual formula. This achievement leads to a semantic condensation as well. By giving an exemplary demonstration of his virtuous handling of chisel and drill, the young Bernini proved with his Saint Lawrence to the audience of his workshop his devotion to the art of sculpture. The tense positioning of the martyr’s body on a hollowed-out pedestal—whose regular grid exposes the figure’s proportions— displays a profound knowledge of both human anatomy and the quality of the marble block. With the masterly representation of the nude body, the delicate treatment of the surfaces, the daring drill holes and undercutting, Bernini sets the standard for future sculpture in Rome. His patron saint is endowed with formal characteristics that are equal to those of the most beautiful idols of antiquity. The Saint Lawrence even exceeds them, by means of its integrity in the full sense of the word. Instead of discussing this evident emulation of the ancients, Domenico explores it in another, less explicit way. According to him, the sculptor, masked as “Lorenzo vero,” goes beyond an exemplum virtutis of the ancients: “Even worthier than the ancient Scaevola, inasmuch as the latter put his hand into the fire so as to punish himself for having failed, whereas



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our Gian Lorenzo scorched his flesh driven by his desire not to fail.”48 This concetto refers to the heroic Mucius Scaevola, who attempted to murder the Etruscan king Porsenna, but inadvertently stabbed his secretary and, after surrendering himself to the enemy, put his dishonored hand calmly into a bowl of live coals. This makes Mucius left-handed—and a paragon of selfcontrol.49 While the hero is punishing himself after his failure, the ambitious Gianlorenzo subjects himself to self-correction before beginning what would become an impeccable work of art. The motif of the Roman assassin surpassed by an honest sculptor who knows how to lead his hand in the right way, showcases the finesse of Domenico’s narrative. Once again a clever flourish encloses a serious statement. For an adequate representation of martyrdom a skilled hand is not enough; it is more important to grasp its significance internally. By total identification with his subject, the young artist displays his infallibility even before he begins to chisel. Before further investigating this peculiar contest between pagan and Christian antiquity alluded to by Domenico, let us consider its literary tradition. One precursor for the re-actualization of the Mucius-Laurentius comparison, traceable back to the Early Fathers, is Torquato Tasso’s dialogue, Il Cataneo overo Degli idoli of 1585, in which both heroes, in a paraphrase of Dante, are mentioned in one breath: “What Mucius did to his cruel hand, or what Lawrence [experienced] tied to the grate” (Che fece Muzio a la sua man feroce, / o che tenne Lorenzo in su la grata). Saint Lawrence then is bound to the gridiron by the same principle that makes Mucius burn his unruly hand. As displayed in Tasso’s dialogue, the universal flame of Eros represents for both Christians and pagans the motivation for heroic deeds, yet the heroism of ancient Greeks and Romans, who sacrificed their lives for superhuman patriotism, is surpassed by the charity of the holy martyrs, here declared as epitomizing heroic virtue. The speaker Maurizio Cataneo refers to the platonic etymology of the word heros, when the subject of Christ’s martyrs is brought up, “to whom this name was assigned, and surely, if it is derived from Eros, as it is said, it is due to no one else [than to the martyrs], for no one’s love was as burning as that which led them to death.” Hence charity was “heroic beyond reproach, but [derived] from other heroes and in another way far more marvelous and divine than that known by the pagan peoples.”50 Post-Tridentine treatises reveal that an unreserved equality between pagan and Christian heroism had become subject to question. Whereas Gian Paolo Lomazzo, in his Trattato della pittura (1584), still recommends



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that Scaevola’s deed be represented as an exemplary tale,51 his contemporary Gregorio Comanini, in his dialogue Il Figino (1590), lets the scholar Ascanio Martinengo state indignantly: “though our saints have surpassed the heroic virtue of the ancient pagans, Christians are not ashamed to put the profane image before the sacred, and to indulge themselves in adorning rooms and chambers with figures of pagans more than with those of glorious martyrs and all the blessed host of the just.” And, he continues: “One has painted the effigy of Mucius Scaevola with his right hand in the fire before the King of Tuscany, an example of a man capable of withstanding torment. Why not paint the two young men of Antioch? Diocletian accused them of being Christians, and first asked them and then tried to force them to make sacrifices to idols. They responded that they wanted to prove their patience and placed their hands in the flames burning on the altar, holding them steadily in the fire until the flesh had been consumed and the bones left stripped and bare. Doesn’t this patience exceed that of Scaevola?”52 Such polemics might seem less sophisticated against the backdrop of the contemporary cross-European discussions about the neo-stoic ideal of true perseverance, yet they were rhetorically well established. Recurring in Augustine (De civitate Dei, 5.18),53 against the mythical vir constans of the Roman legend, the proven fact of true blood-witnesses of Christian belief could be advanced, and love of God could be played off against love of the patria.54 From the Jesuit point of view, only divine grace obtained by faith could enable absolute perseverance under torture. Suffering itself did not constitute the value of martyrdom, but rather the goodness of the cause for which it was endured. Because of these premises, pagan and Christian defiance of death could no longer be viewed on equal terms. The muchread Jesuit father, Paolo Segneri, pointed out in one of his sermons that the patriot Mucius had suffered only for a temporal cause, while Saint Lawrence suffered for the spiritual good of his people; only the latter was able to transcend earthly fortitude and exemplify true heroism.55 As a literary commonplace, the comparison remains an effective image even after having lost its argumentative resonance. At the beginning of the eighteenth century the poet Alessandro Guidi, an exact contemporary of Domenico Bernini, cites once again the martyr of a new faith, now in a setting of Roman antiquity adapted to an altered literary taste:56 “A glorious spectacle it was to see the great Spanish Levite [Lawrence] defeating pain and tyrants by going through fire. Now, that the high genius of Rome, in the midst of voracious flames, had seen serene and untroubled virtue prevail so greatly, he did not dare to recall the trials of his ancient son



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[Scaevola], who, against the King of the Tuscans, had risen his undefeated hand and put it confidently to the crucial test.”57 Employing words such as “spectacle,” “see” and “had seen” (“spettacolo,” “mirarsi” and “vide”), there is an obvious appeal to the visual senses. In light of the unequalled endurance of the Christian martyr, even the personification of antiquity falls silent; however, Mucius is cited periphrastically to make it clear that Saint Lawrence must be understood as an exemplary stoic: “Which wise man had taught, that a soul in unbearable pain could resist the senses and keep quiet in a rush of plagues?”58 Whereas the ancient Scaevola had, according to Guidi, given his foreign enemies an example of Roman intrepidness, some centuries later a Spanish deacon distinguished himself as his legitimate successor. A similar idea had already been put forth by the Saragossa-born Aurelius Clemens Prudentius in the second of his Crowns of Martyrdom, his “Hymn in Honor of the Most Blessed Martyr Lawrence.”59 This poet, known as a Christian Pindar, recognizes the saint as the reviver of ancient Roman virtues and makes him a heavenly consul.60 He mentions the lasting impression the martyrdom had on some noble-minded senators and which moved them to renounce their old belief. By the voluntary self-sacrifice of Saint Lawrence, Rome, the ruler of the world, should submit to Christian rule. While burning on the grill, the martyr gives a stirring address to the Roman people, in which he, referring to the foundation myth of the city, condemns the pagan cult originally from Troy as unnatural and announces a Christian emperor who will purge the temples and be a servant to the true God. Of crucial significance is the end of the triumphant coda, promising that marble statues and bronzes will be purified from the blood of idolatry, regaining their innocence.61 Against this backdrop, Domenico’s experienced and almost humorous construction conveys, by implication, further meaning: The “altrettanto più degno” (even worthier) of the comparison in the literal sense refers to Bernini’s insatiable desire for virtuousness, but this amplification would seem grotesque, if the “desiderio di non errare” (desire not to fail) did not also concern his artistic ambition. The artist, like the martyr and miles christianus, is superior to the soldier Mucius because of his ethical motivation; by analogy, Gianlorenzo’s sculpted patron saint will surpass the statues of the ancient gods. The hand of the youthful sculptor — trained by untiring practice and disciplined by serious contemplation of his subject— will revive Roman sculpture and imbue it with Christian purity. A Scaevola shining through the Saint Lawrence corresponded exactly to the convictions of Bernini’s potential patrons, mostly clergy with cultured humanist tastes,



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who, with antiquarian instincts, rediscovered the spirit of early Christianity, transforming fragmentary antique sculpture into Christian saints and creating new storie sacre in pagan guises. For the Roman aristocracy, the strong local foundation of venerating martyrs was easily compatible with its cult of ancient heroes. It might be questioned whether an author so much indebted to the literary conventions of his time like Domenico Bernini, from almost a century’s distance, could convey the historical context of the sculpture’s genesis; it is also uncertain if he had ever seen it—although it is possible that it was a visual discovery of the work that motivated his reference to Scaevola.62 In contrast, the episode’s function within the teleology of the Vita’s narrative can be established with some certainty. The carefully staged “primo parto di devozione” follows, as already stated, the account of the “indefessa applicazione” to study ancient models, an education for which Gianlorenzo walked from his father’s workshop, on the Esquiline, to his school, the sculpture court in the Vatican Palace.63 Three years of persistent drawing prepared him to conceive a work that gave the inexhaustible “materia” of the antique canon a new form in his first statue of a saint. As a mark of moral maturity, this figure assumes the role of intermediary to the more important (but pagan) Borghese sculptures treated in the subsequent chapter of Domenico’s book. Indeed, it was none other than the enthusiastic collector, Cardinal Scipione Borghese, who twice visited Bernini’s studio to admire the sculpture, before Leone Strozzi acquired it for his villa.64 It thus becomes clear how closely the conspicuously brief discussion of the masterworks in the Villa Borghese — the climax of Bernini’s early career—is linked to the literary treatment of the Saint Lawrence account.65 In contrast to the martyr figure, the Borghese groups were widely known at the time of the Vita’s publication, both through the transmission of prints and bronze reproductions, as well as through their exposure to Grand Tour travelers. In Domenico’s text they form a self-contained quadruple unit, created in an incredibly short period of time. Because it is known to everyone, their technical brilliance needs only to be invoked, and not described in detail.66 With the Borghese sculptures, Gianlorenzo proves in his youth (“ancor tenero, e giovane di età”) to be well versed in his trade and equipped with the abilities of an older (antico/vecchio/esperto) artist; all later gained experience will hardly be able to surpass this summit —which explains the alleged melancholy of the mature Bernini, who looked back despairingly at the irretrievable accomplishment of his early works.67 However,



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in Scipione’s Villa, Aeneas and Anchises, David, Apollo and Daphne, and Pluto and Proserpina are admitted into a select circle: Therein resides almost a whole people of antique statues, almost all intact, preserved for us from the fury of the barbarians by the same ruins of Rome. . . . And it was right there that he was to place his own [sculptures]. The emulation of such celebrated artists, the comparison of their works, and the expectation of all [the public] caused Bernini great apprehension for the undertaking. But his spirit, which loved arduous and noble enterprises, did not doubt at all of success, and he resolved to make the four statues, any one of which would have worthily occupied any ancient artist.68 Even the first-rate Borghese antiquities paled in comparison to such an exceptional feat, and since visitors demanded to see only the new statues, Scipione feared for the esteem of his collection of antiquities.69 If Roman society had already pointed its finger at the ten-year-old boy because of the unmistakable sign of divine endowment imprinted on his face, the sculptor now became a “Mostro d’ingegno” to be admired, following a visit to the Villa— just to verify his age so eloquently belied by the grandezza of his works.70 For the universally acclaimed, virtually unbelievable “perfezzione, e maestria” of each of the four works, Bernini himself gave an explanation: during the creative process “he felt so enflamed by and so much in love with what he was doing, that he did not work the marble, but devoured it.”71 The divine security of his hand is also accentuated: “in his youth he never struck a false blow.”72 Here two aspects of ingenious creative power are positioned as mutually interdependent: the artist’s quick-tempered nature, tending toward irascibility, is a prerequisite for his superhuman capacity to work, while persistence, asceticism, and introspection allow him to control his ferox manus circumspectly. The furious hand’s success is guaranteed because he transformed it into a willing instrument of the ravenous mind, which for its part is governed by the “wish not to fail.” As a corrective of licentiousness, this principle can serve as a model to all those who aspire to the recognition of truth to eschew that corruptive furia, which is a characteristic of overconfidence.73 But the spirit will emanate even brighter sparks, when the body is chastised.74 During his obsessive study of the antique, Gianlorenzo hardly ever had a meal—sated as he was by the ineffable sweetness of the “vivid lessons of those dead statues.”75 Driven by his immense hunger for knowledge



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he consumes marble statues, effectively assimilating whatever they can teach him, in accordance with antique theories of imitatio. And it was not that this nocturnal wanderer was seeking sensual adventures, but simply the company of his adored antiquities, “le sue Innamorate.”76 Such an amatory blaze is fuelled by the “desire to reach perfection in art” to the point that the ordeal of conceiving the Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence matches the inner glowing and the live coals, his love of sculpture, and the martyr’s piety. Only through this ordeal, Domenico Bernini implies, can the divine seed of the idea be transferred into the parto, the delivery, of the work. As a result, the “beautiful death” of the saint becomes the dies natalis (the name day) of the artist. In conclusion, as profoundly double-layered as this crucial passage of the Vita may be, religious impetus and artistic ambition are disengaged in the story’s final outcome. Domenico Bernini grants the youthful work a prominent position in his book, but he prefers to hint only at the sculpture’s perfection rather than characterize it precisely. The figure of Saint Lawrence is presented as a tableau vivant that frames the idealized effigy of its creator. Domenico does not recount the enormous efforts that went into carving the sculpture; however, the brief mention of its success and eventual destination testifies to the artist’s mastery. The assertion that the work owed its emergence to Gianlorenzo’s personal devoutness does not by any means preclude its profane reception. Right from the beginning it was destined to be “discovered” by a competent public, transferring the artist’s devotion into the delight of the beholder. After the rumor of Pietro Bernini’s gifted son had been disseminated, this first of his works born of devotion fulfilled all expectations of the public (“riuscì ancora tanto gradito alla espettazione delle genti”), pitting it against the work of his predecessors (the ancients, Michelangelo, his father). Amazement and admiration, called forth by the novel character of the work and the artist’s obvious triumph over the difficulty of his task, become even more acute when the discrepancy between his age and the sculpture’s artistic maturity is perceived. Once installed in Leone Strozzi’s villa (and probably not in its chapel), the effect of this new type of Saint Lawrence certainly would have stimulated a comparison with the ancient sculptures in the collection, fragmentary or restored. But even before its transformation into a collector’s piece, the core of the sculpture’s excellence is laid bare by Pietro Bernini’s testimony: Gianlorenzo’s eminent virtue. Just as the spectacle of martyrdom had the power of conversion, the public display of the Saint Lawrence established a community of ardent admirers. To earn the laurels of his patron saint, the



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youthful artist made his unerring hand visible to colleagues and connoisseurs (“fece vedere scolpita di sua mano”) and, at the same time, as an alter Mucius, he put this hand into the fire to create even more amazing works in the future. With the Saint Lawrence, Gianlorenzo Bernini makes a name for himself: the sculpture is his reception piece to Rome’s “artisti di nome”—by Bernini, now an “artista di nome” himself, of Rome.

notes 1. Chantelou/Stanic´, 111; Chantelou/Blunt, 109. 2. For Bernini’s explanation for working on feast days, see Chantelou/Stanic´, 139 (Saint Bartholemew, 24 August), 142 (Saint Louis, 25 August), 190 (19 September, he can work on Sundays for three hours); Chantelou/Blunt, 146, 150, 211. 3. Chantelou/Stanic´, 112; Chantelou/Blunt, 110. 4. For example: Chantelou/Stanic´, 51– 52, 57, 86, 106, 123–24, 136, 208, 228; Chantelou/Blunt, 23, 30, 74–75, 102, 125–26, 142, 233, 259. 5. For its provenance, see Sebastian Schütze, “San Lorenzo,” “San Sebastiano,” and “Anima Beata e Anima Dannata” in Coliva and Schütze, Bernini scultore: La nascita del barocco, 73–74 (with bibliography). 6. Preimesberger, “Themes from Art Theory,” points to the relationship between Bernini’s early works and the art-theoretical discourse practiced in the literary circle of Cardinal Maffeo Barberini, stressing the contemporary discussion of Michelangelo’s work and the ongoing paragone debate. 7. Sebastian Schütze, “San Lorenzo,” “San Sebastiano,” and “Anima Beata e Anima Dannata” in Coliva and Schütze, Bernini scultore: La nascita del barocco, 67, 83 and, for a discussion of divergent opinions, 74 n. 1. 8. Wittkower, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, 1966, 174; Kauffmann, Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini, 20. 9. See below. 10. On the issue of the interdependence of the texts, see the Prolegomena to this volume. 11. Domenico (DB, 17–20), for instance, lets all these “prime pruove” be sculpted during the lifetime of the Borghese pope, “nel termine solo di due Anni,” “e la sua età era allora presso a quella di diecinove anni, quando operava tali cose.” See also the contradictory statements in Chantelou/Stanic´, 106; Chantelou/Blunt, 102: “the Cavaliere told him that he had done the Daphne at eighteen, and at the age of eight had done a Head of Saint John which was presented to Paul V” versus Chantelou/Stanic´, 228; Chantelou/Blunt, 260: “He said that at six years he had done a head in a bas-relief by his father, and at seven another, which Paul V could hardly believe was by him.” 12. See, in general, Kris and Kurz, Legend, Myth, and Magic, esp. 26 –37. See now also Pfisterer, “Erste Werke und Autopoiesis,” 263–302, with extensive bibliographical references. 13. Baldinucci, Vocabolario, s.v. “Brace, e Bracia” “Fuoco senza fiamma che resta dalle legne abbruciate. E brace ancora diciamo i carboni di legne minute spenti.” 14. In this context, “lapis” may denote the form of Bernini’s drawing object rather than its material. In his Vocabolario, Baldinucci suggests black or red chalk (see s.v. “Amatita”). Actually, Domenico (DB, 28), mentions his father’s “disegni in lapis” referring to Bernini’s coveted portrait drawings, carefully executed with different colored chalks, as described by Baldinucci, Vocabolario, s.v. “Matita rossa, e nera, e suo uso.” Yet, in all likelihood



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the young Gianlorenzo used natural chalk (“pietra nera”: black clay slate) or charcoal (“Carbone, overo lapis nero”) for his rapid studies. Both materials were readily available, in contrast to the still rare graphite pencil (“Lapis piombino”), as well as the lead pencil, here out of the question because of its hardness. Further, see Meder, Handzeichnung, passim. 15. Although this passage is misleading, by “di lui propria casa,” cannot be intended the cardinal nephew’s urban palace or villa, but rather must refer to the latter’s repeated visits to the Casa Bernini “frà quegli innumerabili Personnaggi” as a special honor. 16. “Per divozione del Santo, di cui portava il nome, volle ritrarre in marmo S. Lorenzo in atto di essere abbrugiato nudo sopra la graticcia, e per rappresentare adequatamente nella faccia del Santo il dolore del Martirio, e l’effetto, che far doveva il fuoco nelle di lui carni, si pose egli medesimo con una gamba, e coscia nuda presso la bragia accesa, per cui venendo a provare in se il Martirio del Santo, ritraeva poi col lapis alla vista di uno Specchio i dolorosi moti della sua faccia, & osservava i varii effetti, che facevano le prop[r]ie carni alterate dal calore della fiamma: Altrettanto più degno dell’antico Scevola, quanto che Questi sottoposse la mano al fuoco in pena di haver errato, & il nostro Gio: Lorenzo si abbrugiò le carni per desiderio di non errare. Sopraggiunse a caso Pietro suo Padre, e veduto il figluolo in quell’atto di martirio, e risaputane la cagione, teneramente ne pianse, scorgendo in esso ancor tenero, e giovane in età di quindici anni un desiderio così grande della Virtù, che per giungervi, ritrasse in se il tormento di un S. Lorenzo vero per iscolpirne un finto. E questo suo primo parto di divozione riuscì ancora tanto gradito alla espettazione delle genti, che il medesimo Cardinal Nipote del Papa fù due volte a vederlo nella di lui propria Casa, e frà quegli innumerabili Personnaggi, che vi concorsero, Leone Strozzi Nobilissimo Romano se ne invaghì in modo, che lo volle per se, e presentemente si vede nella sua deliziosa Villa del Viminale.” DB, 15–16. 17. “Correva egli in tanto il quindicesimo di sua età, quando e’ fece vedere scolpita di sua mano la figura di S. Lorenzo sopra la Graticola per Leone Strozzi, che fu posta nella lor Villa; e poi per il già nominato Cardinal Borghese la statua dell’Enea, che porta il Vecchio Anchise.” FB, 8; FB-1948, 77–78; FB-1966/2006, 12. 18. In Paris Bernini twice reported that when Maffeo Barberini asked his father whether he was worried about being surpassed by his own son, Pietro Bernini replied that this would be his least fear, because “in this game, the one who loses wins.” Chantelou/Stanic´, 47, 106; Chantelou/Blunt, 16,102. For this topos, compare the episode told by De’ Dominici, Vite de’ pittori, scultori ed architetti napoletani, 3:394–95, where the not yet eightyear-old Luca Giordano, predicted to become a “facile, e risoluto Pittore di grandi idee,” outstrips his father Antonio, a “mediocre Pittore, . . . povero d’invenzione,” surprising him with two putti executed on his own (one is painted in the father’s absence, the other before his very eyes): whereas the painter is ashamed, the father is moved to tears. 19. “An anecdote is hardly ever inserted in a biography for pure literary entertainment or edifying morality, nor is it an accurate historical record. It is rather an elegant critical device, a literary means of interpreting a set of historical data, a subjective comment put in an objective form. Insofar as interpretation is the difference between history and chronicle, it is a legitimate part of the writing of history.” Perini (“Biographical Anecdotes and Historical Truth,” 151, 158 – 60 and note 35) deals further with the problem of historiographical “truth” and “verisimilitude,” underlining the consciousness of the biographers of writing a work of fiction. 20. Domenico presents himself as “Autore di molte opere già pubblicate con le Stampe, e di questa presente.” DB, 53. 21. “ritrasse in se il tormento di un S. Lorenzo vero per iscolpirne un finto.” The unity of mimesis and poiesis covered by the ambiguous term “finto” hints at the statue’s character as a re-creation of the saint which is as well invented and imitated, simulatus and figuratus. 22. DB, 29; Chantelou/Stanic´, 228; Chantelou/Blunt, 259.



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23. Saint Augustine, Civitas Dei, 4.21: “Ars quippe ipsa bene recteque vivendi virtus a veteribus definita est. Unde ab eo quod Graece arete dicitur virtus nomen artes Latinos traduxisse putaverunt.” 24. Baldinucci, Vocabolario, s.v. “ritrarre”: “di nuovo trarre. Da’ nostri Artefici si usa questa voce per lo dipingere dal naturale.” In addition, the speculative interpretations of the cinquecento may be still relevant for the notion, going beyond the function of depiction. See Freedman, “Concept of portraiture.” For portraiture as “extraction” (pro- resp. retrahere), see also Preimesberger, Baader, and Suthor, Porträt, 38 and 280 – 81. 25. See Borromeo, Della pittura sacra libri due, on “ritratti al naturale.” For the motives and aims of the “cardinali restauratori” in the wake of Baronius’s philological efforts, and for the “politica di recupero” in general, see Zuccari, Arte e committenza, 89 –108. For the impetus of Christian archaeology after Trent, see Herklotz, “Historia Sacra und mittelalterliche Kunst”; Herklotz, “Christliche und klassische Archäologie”; Saxer, “Ricerca dei ‘corpi santi.’” 26. On Maderno’s statue of Saint Cecilia, see Wolf, “Caecilia, Agnes, Gregor und Maria.” 27. See, above all, Kauffmann, Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini, 78 – 84. 28. DB, 43; cf. FB, 15; FB-1948, 85; FB-1966/2006, 19. On the bear-figure, see Buchowiecki, Handbuch, 1:469. According to the contemporary witness Domenico Fedini, the sculptor was present when Santa Bibiana’s grave was opened; however, no corpus integrum was found. Fedini, Vita di S. Bibiana, 58. 29. DB, 42. The tendency of great artists to attribute responsibility for the work of their hands to a higher entity has a long tradition. In Paris, Bernini repeatedly names God as the true author of his Louvre projects—a strategy that made it hard to voice any critique against them. Chantelou/Stanic´, 63, 75, 114; Chantelou/Blunt, 40, 59, 114. 30. “Mà la figura di S. Bibiana, che pur’allora egli fece, e per la tenerezza, e per la devozione è un miracolo dell’Arte, e di questa sua opera si pregiò poi sempre in modo il Bernino anche nella sua più provetta età, che fù solito dire, Non haver’esso fatta quella Statua, mà la Santa medesima essersi da sè medesima scolpita, & impressa in quel marmo.” DB, 42 – 43. Bernini’s Bibiana is conspicuously distinguished from the older sculpted holy roman virgins. Unlike Nicolas Cordier’s composite Sant’ Agnese (c. 1604/1605), it is not about conversion or “baptism” of antiquity (see Montagu, Roman Baroque Sculpture, 155–57) but its amalgamation. And instead of Maderno’s cadavre esquise there is now a consciously unstable statue wrapped in dynamic drapery, an ecstatic body, visibly wrenched from the soil, characterized as “archaeological find” only by means of the incorporated column fragment. 31. Damasus, pope and poet, honored the martyr with a titulus, and with a basilica: San Lorenzo in Damaso. The Constantinian church erected over his tomb at Campo Verano was replaced by Pope Pelagius II, becoming then one of the patriarchal basilicas of Rome, San Lorenzo fuori le mura. Also significant are the churches San Lorenzo in Miranda at the place of the conviction, San Lorenzo in Fonte at the residence of the converted prison officer Hippolytus, San Lorenzo in Panisperna at the place of the execution, where the coals used for this purpose are venerated, and San Lorenzo in Lucina, where the martyr’s grill is kept as its most prized relic. See Ugonio, Historia delle stationi di Roma, fols. 72v–76v, 149v–154v, 183v–188v, 221v–225r, as well as Buchowiecki, Handbuch, 2:247–93. 32. Significantly, Domenico omitted the busts in his Vita, whereas Baldinucci, (FB, 105; FB-1948, 178; FB-1966/2006, 114) lists them in the catalogue of Bernini’s works provided by his heirs. 33. Preimesberger, “Grimassierende Selbstdarstellung Berninis,” 419. 34. For the conceptual contrapposto of the two busts, see Lavin, “Bernini and antiquity,” esp. 33, with reference to the antique personae; cf. Lavin, “Bernini’s Portraits of No-Body,” in Lavin, Past-Present; Sebastian Schütze, “San Lorenzo,” “San Sebastiano,” and



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“Anima Beata e Anima Dannata,” in Coliva and Schütze, Bernini scultore: La nascita del barocco, esp. 163– 65. 35. Cf. Preimesberger, “Themes from Art Theory,” 5. 36. In the early seicento, the meditation of oneself in the mirror was considered as a kind of household remedy for the preservation of spiritual health, in the sense of the Socratic “Nosce te ipsum,” as approved by the holy fathers. For the establishment of physio- and pathognomic studies as a moral science and the development of appropriate methods of observation, see Rodler, Silenzi mimici del volto. 37. Maffeo Barberini, too, “incontrollò a caso.” DB, 23. For the topos of “pure chance,” see Kris and Kurz, Legend, Myth, and Magic, 26. 38. See note 16 above; emphasis mine. 39. On Domenico Bernini’s literary career, see the Prolegomena to this volume. It is noteworthy that in 1714, one year after publication of the Bernini Vita, Domenico published his Vita del Cardinal D. Giuseppe Maria Tomasi. According to the preface, this hefty tome was written quickly, “nel breve giro di trentaquattro giorni,” yet the publication date was delayed for more than a year. Apparently there were strategic reasons to give priority to Bernini’s biography. It is worthwhile to compare the structure and narrative strategies of these two vite, both prepared for printing at the same time. Here I only point to their analogous typographical appearance and thematic organization. 40. In Domenico’s Vita, Bernini’s only aberration, the well-known Costanza Bonarelli affair (rather inconspicuously mentioned), leads paradoxically to an extraordinary mark of favor on the part of Urban VIII. The papal pardon confirms the unique character of his ingegno sublime: “Il Papa . . . al Cavaliere mandò per un suo Cameriere l’assoluzione del delitto scritta in Pergamena, in cui appariva un Elogio della sua Virtù degno da tramandarsi alla memoria de Posteri.” DB, 27 (emphasis mine). 41. DB, 14–15. 42. “Il che fù tutto effetto di una indefessa applicazione, e di uno genio ardente di segnalarsi, che maggiormente in lui s’infuocava alla vista di que’ nobili Esemplari, la cui eccellenza con un certo lume particolare parea, che egli in loro più distintamente raffigurasse. Quindi avvenne, che crescendo in età, crebbe in lui in guisa tale il desiderio di arrivare alla perfezzione dell’arte, che fù necessitato Pietro suo Padre farlo dormire la notte nell’istessa sua Camera, per toglierli l’agio di applicarsi allo studio in quell’ore, che son dovute al rifocillamento del Corpo.” DB, 14–15. 43. Cf. DB, 28, 41. 44. DB, 53. “Vago” is the analogue of the Latin venustus (graceful), but also of cupidus (covetous). For the etymology of this ambivalent term, see Sohm, “Gendered Style in Italian Art Criticism,” 765–73: “Vaghezza makes the mind wander [vagare] and frees it to desire sensible beauty [desiderare]. Hence it is understood as to mean vagabond, attractive beauty, and charm.” 45. “Ma come che l’esempio vivo suol essere incentivo, e norma nell’operare, e più cuoce un carboncino vicino, che tutto il Sole lontano, facilmente avvenne, che vedendo Gio: Lorenzo inclinato il Padre alle opere di Scultura, piegasse anch’esso la sua inclinazione a questo esercizio, e si dichiarasse volerne da lui intraprendere i principii.” DB, 4–5. 46. “Poca favilla gran fiamma seconda” (a little spark is followed by great flame). Dante, Paradiso, 1.34. Bernini’s energy and the metaphorical use of fire imagery in his vite are the subjects of a penetrating study by Fehrenbach, “Bernini’s Light.” I wish to express my thanks to the author for allowing me to consult his manuscript prior to its publication. 47. On the statue’s “demonstrably artistic character,” see Preimesberger, “Themes from Art Theory,” who disclosed scores of paragone motifs in it. 48. See note 16 above.



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49. The loci classici are Titus Livius, Ab urbe condita, 2.12; and Valerius Maximus, Factorum et dictorum mirabilia, 3.3.1. See also Soussloff, “Critical Topoi,” 20 –22. 50. “ma de’martiri di Cristo ancora, a’ quali s’attribuì questo nome [di eroi]; e certo, s’egli deriva d’amore, come si dice, a niuno è tanto convenevole, perché niuno amore fu così ardente come quello che gli spinse alla morte. . . . Eroica senza fallo, ma d’altri eroi e in altro modo più maraviglioso e divino che non conobbero le nazioni gentili.” Tasso, Dialoghi, 1.187. Dante’s verse, cited from memory, is not linked with Tasso’s argument. Even though the Paradiso culminates in praise of the universe-moving Love, the theme of canto IV, where Scaevola and Saint Lawrence are confronted, aims at something different: both give an example of heroic willpower. The difficult question, if a forced breach of a vow can be justified, is settled by Beatrice as follows: The fallen souls could well have resisted the powers of evil, “Se fosse stato lor volere intero, / Come tenne Lorenzo in su la grada,/ E fece Muzio alla sua man severo / . . . Ma così salda voglia è troppa rada.” (In Longfellow’s translation: “If their will had been perfect, like to that / Which Lawrence fast upon his gridiron held / And Mutius made severe to his own hand / . . . but such a solid will is all too rare”). Paradiso, 4.82 – 84, 87. In its unbending nature, this will itself resembles the nature of fire: “Chè volontà, se non vuol, non s’ammorza; / Ma fa come natura face in foco, / Se mille volte violenza il torza”; ibid., 40 – 42. The problem of (original) sin and freedom of will is further discussed in canto VII, 79 – 84. Scaevola figures already in Dante’s De Monarchia as an example of amor patriae and is moved by Divine inspiration in the Convivio; see Enciclopedia Dantesca, s.v. “Muzio.” 51. Lomazzo, Scritti sulle arti, 2.119. 52. Comanini, Figino, 63, 65. “avanzando le virtù eroiche de’ nostri santi quelle degli uomini antichi del gentilismo, i cristiani non si vergognino di preporre le profane alle sacre imagini, e di compiacersi vie più d’adornar le sale e le camere con figure d’uomini infedeli, che con quelle de’ gloriosi martiri e di tutta la beata schiera de’ giusti. . . . Si fa dipingere l’effigie di Muzio Scevola con la man destra nel fuoco dinanzi al re di Toscana, come d’uomo pazientissimo de’ tormenti. Perché non così dipingere i due giovani Antiocheni? I quali, accusati a Diocleziano d’esser cristiani, e da lui pregati, e poi minacciati, perché sacrificassero agli idoli, dissero di voler far prova della loro pazienza. Onde, poste ambedue le mani tra le fiamme, le quali ardevano in su l’altare, le tennero salde nel fuoco fin tanto che, seccata la carne tutta, l’ossa rimasero inarsicciate et ignude. Non vince forse questa pazienza quella di Scevola?” Barocchi, Trattati d’arte del Cinquecento, 3:318, 320. A section of Niccolò Circignani’s painted catalogue of torture in Santo Stefano Rotondo (c. 1582 – 86) shows two unnamed imitators of Mucius under the innumerable martyrs of Diocletian and Maximian’s reign, perhaps those remembered by Comanini: “A: Duo iuvenes sponte manus ardentibus prunis imponuntur” (In the background is the martyrdom of Saint Vincent, which is analogous to that of his compatriot Lawrence). The surpassing of the antique example is clearly expressed in the inscription accompanying Ottavio Vannini’s fresco Saint Apollonia Throwing Herself into the Flames (1622 –23) in the Villa of Poggio Imperiale near Florence: “Mira la fiamma, e poi si vibra in quella / mossa Appollonia da celeste ardore, / Roma non ammirar di Muzio il core, / sà le fiamme sprezzar debil donzella.” In a satirical way, the heroism of Mucius’s deeds is completely dismantled in Lancellotti, Farfalloni degli antichi historici. 53. Lenkeith, Dante and the Legend of Rome, 167. 54. Justus Lipsius, in his widely read De Constantia (1584), warns against excessive patriotism; the true patria we will find in heaven. Lipsius, De Constantia, 80. Examples of the secondary importance of loyalty to patria in contemporary regional hagiography are provided in Ditchfield, Liturgy, Sanctity and History, 133. 55. Marzot, Classico della controriforma, 79 – 80.



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56. The reference to Guidi (1650 –1712) in ibid. As one of the protagonists of the Arcadian Academy, he was promoted by Queen Christina of Sweden and enjoyed the favor of the Albani pope Clement XI, whose homilies he translated into Italian. 57. In the original, an alternation of hendecasyllables and septenaries. “Spettacolo di gloria era a mirarsi / il gran levita ispano / per sentiero di fuoco / domar pene e tiranni. Allor che vide/ l’alto genio romano/ entro i voraci ardori / starsi tanta virtù tranquilla e lieta,/ più non osò di rammentar le prove/ dell’antico suo figlio, / che innanzi al re toscano / porse l’invitta mano / e sicuro la tenne al gran cimento.” Guidi, “Il martire san Lorenzo,” 250 –53, verses 38 – 49. 58. “Qual de’ saggi insegnò che possa un’alma / infra dolori immensi / non conformarsi ai sensi / e in tempesta di pene aver sua calma?” Ibid., verses 54–57. 59. Throughout the seventeenth century, the Peristephanon was highly esteemed both for its historical validity and its poetic elegance; even Guidi’s mellow odes went back to the Christian Pindar’s metrical variety. 60. Prudentius, Hymnus in Honorem Passionis Laurentii Beatissimi Martyris in Prudentius (trans. H.J. Thompson), 108 – 43 (here verses 559 – 60). 61. Ibid., verses 413– 84, esp. the last quartet, 136: “Tunc pura ab omni sanguine / tandem nitebunt marmora, / stabunt et aera innoxia, / quae nunc habentur idola.” Although complaining of the detrimental sway of the “monstrous idols” (verse 7), Prudentius in his epistle Contra orationem Symmachi (in Prudentius, trans. H. J. Thompson), 501–5, recommends that marble statues be exempted from charges of wicked worship and be preserved as testaments of great artistic skill and “the country’s fairest ornament.” Ibid., 388. 62. Closer inspection of the Saint Lawrence reveals that the saint’s (left) hand, offering his soul to God, is not elevated but lies motionless on the grill, surrounded by flames— an indication of his constancy. Cf. Cesare Ripa’s corresponding personification (costanza), holding its hand in flames. Whether the sculptor himself intended to allude to Scaevola must remain undecided. The significance the antique hero with his injured hand could take on for artists as a figure of identification has been demonstrated by Walter Melion with regard to Hendrick Goltzius: Karel van Mander, in the biography of his friend, not only tells us of the young artist’s inclination for fire and the accident that crippled the very hand that was later to become so skillful, he also mentions “that Goltzius displayed in one of the public rooms of his house a large canvas grisaille depicting the Roman hero Mucius Scaevola,” thus insinuating a connection between the child’s fiery urge to cover walls and floors of the house with scribbles and sketches, and subsequent proofs of his “heroic” drawing ability as exemplified in the series of engravings of Roman heroes. See Melion, “Love and Artisanship,” 70 and note 42, and Van Mander, Leben der niederländischen und deutschen Maler, 2:224, 226, 242. 63. DB, 12 –14. 64. DB, 15. That the misleading passage is indeed talking about Scipione Borghese is made clear in the index: “Cardin. Caffarelli col nome di Borghese. . . . Due volte si porta a Casa del Bernino per vedere i suoi lavori, p. 15.” 65. Baldinucci (FB, 8; FB-1948, 77–78; FB-1966/2006, 12), moves directly from the Saint Lawrence to the Aeneas and Anchises, calling the latter Bernini’s “prima opera grande.” In contrast to his brief mention of the Saint Lawrence, he provides a vivid characterization of the Aeneas group as well as of the David and Apollo and Daphne. On the other hand, the Pluto and Proserpina is only briefly discussed. For the chronology of the Borghese groups, see now the entries in Coliva and Schütze, Bernini scultore: La nascita del barocco, with full bibliography. 66. “Quanta perfezzione, e maestria contenga poi in se ciascuna di queste quattro Statue, deve più tosto giudicarlo l’occhio col mirarle, che descriverlo la penna con esagerazione vana di parole.” DB, 19.



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67. “e come poi disse nella sua più vecchia età, Non dava mai colpo nella sua giovinezza in fallo. Tanto fin d’allora era superiore all’arte. Anzi avvenne, che portatosi un giorno in quella Villa doppo quarant’Anni col Cardinal Antonio Barberino, nel rimirare queste sue Opere sospirando proruppe nelle seguenti parole, Oh quanto poco profitto hò io fatto nell’Arte, mentre Giovane maneggiavo il Marmo in questo modo!” DB, 18 –19. Of his Santa Bibiana, the artist boasts “anche nella sua più provetta età.” DB, 42. 68. “Dentro risiede quasi un Popolo di Statue antiche, e quasi tutte intatte, preservate a Noi contro il furore de’ Barbari dall’istesse ruine di Roma. Fra queste il Seneca nel bagno, Venere e Cupido credute di Prassitele, il Gladiatore di Agasio celebre Scultore della Città di Efeso, l’Ermafrodita ritrovato negli horti di Salustio presso il Colle Quirinale sotto il medesimo Pontificato di Paolo Quinto, e la Testa in basso rilievo di Alessandro Magno, ottengono frà le principali il primo luogo: E quivi doveva egli porre ancora le sue. L’emulazione con sì celebri Artefici, il paragone delle opere, e l’espettativa di tutti recavano grand’apprensione al Bernino del fatto. Mà l’animo di lui amatore d’imprese ardue, e nobili non diffidò punto del successo, e risolvè il lavoro di quattro Statue, una sola delle quali poteva degnamente tenere occupato ogni vecchio Artefice.” DB, 17–18. 69. DB, 19. 70. DB, 19. This is the fulfillment of Annibale’s prophecy told in the second chapter. DB, 10. As a conscious reversal of the antique position, the work’s fame is passed on to its creator: he too becomes an attraction. In Baldinucci (FB, 9, FB-1948, 79; FB-1966/2006, 13–14), this motive arises from the success of Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne: “e bastimi solamente il dire, che non solo subito ch’ella [statua] fu fatta veder finita, sene sparse un tal grido, che tutta Roma concorse a vederla per un miracolo, ed il giovinetto Artefice stesso, che ancora 18 anni non avea compiti, nel camminar, ch’e’ faceva per la Città, tirava dopo di se gli occhi di tutte le persone, le quali il guardavano, e ad altri additavano per un prodigio.” 71. “Che nel operare si sentiva tanto infiammato, e tanto innamorato di ciò, che faceva, che divorava, non lavorava il Marmo.” DB, 18. 72. “Non dava mai colpo nella sua giovinezza in fallo.” DB, 18. Compare to Baldinucci: “fin da quella tenera età, come egli era poi solito dire, divorava il marmo, e non dava mai colpo a voto; qualità ordinaria non de’ pratici nell’arte, ma di chi all’arte stessa s’è fatto superiore.” FB, 8; FB-1948, 78; FB-1966/2006, 13. 73. One of its victims was Melchiorre Caffà, Ercole Ferrata’s most gifted pupil, as told in the latter’s vita by Baldinucci, Notizie, 1974–75, 6:528. “Fu nell’ inventare e disegnare bravissimo; ma nel lavorare il marmo ebbe talvolta bisogno dell’assistenza del maestro, perche pel grande spirito, col quale operava, avrebbe voluto il tutto finire in un sol colpo, onde avea bisogno di qualche ritegno per non errare” (emphasis mine). In the academic discourse, normally the “good rules” and the model of the “excellent masters” have to secure the right path. 74. “Chi mortifica la sua carne glorifica lo spirito.” Ripa, Iconologia, 1611, s.v. “Furor.” 75. “Nè altro refrigerio prendeva in tutti quei giorni, che di poco vino, e cibo, dicendo che il solo gusto della viva lezzione di quelle morte Statue gli faceva ridondare nel Corpo ancora una non sò qual dolcezza, ch’era sufficiente a mantenerlo in forze gl’intieri giorni.” DB, 12–13. “Fu parco di vitto,” we read at the Vita’s ending (177)—a precondition not only for the health kept in old age, but also for the release of creative energy, as exemplified by Michelangelo’s way of living. The maxim “eat little, draw much” also applied to the studious Carlo Maratti, who was not put off by long walks and always arrived first and left last when studying in the Vatican, fasting, keeping vigil and creating his drawing in a virtual delirium. Bellori, Vite, 575–77. 76. DB, 12 –13. Baldinucci (FB, 5; FB-1948, 74–75; FB-1966/2006, 9) gives the corresponding narration without similar erotic undertones. In his version, it needs the authority of Cardinal Barberini, who incites the ardor (“desse . . . calore, e fomento”) to help the “virtù di Gio: Lorenzo ancor tenera, e di fresco nata” to grow into maturity.



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EIGHT gianlorenzo bernini’s bel composto: the unification of life and work in biography and historiography Maarten Delbeke

The bel composto plays a central role in the Bernini literature of the last few decades. Essential to Maurizio and Marcello Fagiolo dell’Arco’s interpretation of Bernini’s work in their monograph of 1967,1 the notion became consecrated in Irving Lavin’s study of 1980, Bernini and the Unity of Visual Arts. The “challenge” imposed by the Cornaro Chapel to the beholder, Lavin wrote, is based on a “new and revolutionary” attitude toward architecture, painting and sculpture. This attitude is reflected in “one of the most noteworthy statements on Bernini’s art,” recorded in the two biographies of the artist. Paraphrasing Baldinucci, Lavin wrote, “Bernini was the first to attempt to unify architecture with sculpture and painting in such a way as to make of them all a beautiful whole [un bel composto]; and that he achieved this by occasionally departing from the rules, without actually violating them.”2 Since Lavin’s book, the bel composto has acquired different shades of meaning, ranging from a notion central to Bernini’s theory of art, to the collective noun for a series of Bernini’s works realized between the end of the 1630s and the 1670s, to a method of art-historical analysis.3 Since the notion of the bel composto is derived from passages that appear almost identically in Baldinucci’s and Domenico Bernini’s vite, this essay proposes to read both passages as integral parts of their biographical texts. The composto will emerge as not merely colored, but determined by the narrative each of the biographers proposes. As I hope to show, the shift between the two versions of the composto-paragraph, recognized but not taken into account by Lavin and highlighted by Rudolf Preimesberger,4 indicates differences between Baldinucci’s and Domenico’s views on a wider set of themes related to Bernini and his art— differences that call into question whether the bel composto is a neutral, well-defined, and

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unequivocal art theoretical notion. Also, if the passages on the composto only fully acquire meaning within the vite, it becomes possible to read them less as the theoretical keystone of both texts, than as elements in a network of related concepts that are all equally important in the biographical interpretation of Bernini’s art and persona. Given that the bel composto is central to present-day Bernini studies precisely because it is seen as the fully-developed heart of Bernini’s own art theory, the analysis presented here will question the role of biography in the definition of Bernini’s theory of art. Like the cases proposed in the Prolegomena to this volume, the composto presents a philological problem. Sections of the known biographical manuscripts prepared by the Bernini family suggest a focus similar to Domenico’s text, yet do not use the word composto.5 Possibly Baldinucci transformed these ideas into an art-theoretical maxim, an intervention subsequently softened or reversed by Domenico. Alternatively, Baldinucci might have introduced an entirely new, better-honed theoretical notion into the fabric prepared by the Berninis, motivated by the interest in artistic theory that transpires from his Vocabolario del disegno (1681).6 This could have induced Domenico to use and develop this striking element of Baldinucci’s text to add substance to his own portrayal of his father. Since we have no clear answer on the issue of precedence, this essay will take the more expanded view of the composto as its starting point. With Domenico Bernini’s text, the issues connected to the notion will be mapped out. Tracing Baldinucci’s view of these same issues then allows us to gain a better understanding of his definition of the composto.

domenico bernini: “uscire dalle regole” as an exercise in judgment In the fifth chapter of Domenico’s biography we find the statement that has become identified with the bel composto: it was generally thought, and probably not that easy to rebuke, that he [Bernini] was among the first, also from past centuries, who had been able to unite together the fine arts of sculpture, painting, and architecture, in such a way that he formed within himself a marvelous composto of all, and he mastered them all with eminence. He reached this perfection by tireless study, and by leaving behind the rules from time to time, however without ever violating



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them, because he often said, “he who never leaves behind the rule never surpasses it.” But not everybody is able to do this.7 Since Domenico’s narrative is largely chronological, this passage is linked to a particular phase in Bernini’s development. After the first chapter on Bernini’s childhood, the second is dedicated to his arrival in Rome and his first visit to the papal palace, then residence to Paul V. It also treats Bernini’s training as a sculptor. The third and fourth chapters sum up Bernini’s works under Paul V and Gregory XV. The fifth is largely devoted to young Bernini’s studies in painting and architecture supervised by Urban VIII. Chronologically, this period falls right after the start of Urban’s pontificate. The account of these formative years offers Domenico the occasion to record reflections on the three visual arts; it concludes with the passage quoted here. Chapter six discusses the works under the Barberini pope, first of all the construction of the Baldacchino in Saint Peter’s (fig. 32). There is a clear parallel between chapters two and five. Both deal with the first introduction of Bernini to a future patron, who then takes a special interest in the training of the extremely talented youth. These two chapters are also intertwined on the level of narrative. Cardinal Maffeo Barberini, later Urban VIII, meets the prodigy at the court of Paul V. He witnesses Bernini’s theatrical presentation of his first tour de force, the two busts of Scipione Borghese.8 Domenico insists that Barberini’s presence was only in appearance purely accidental, but that, in fact, “he was guided by the highest Providence.” Stunned by Bernini’s incredible feat, the cardinal feels the desire to stimulate the development of the young artist. Magnanimously, Paul V grants Barberini, a well-known lover of the arts, the protection of Bernini, stating that Bernini “will be the Michelangelo of his age.”9 Already upon his first encounter with the child prodigy, Paul V had drawn the parallel between the two artists, casting it as a prophecy.10 However, as Domenico’s narrative progresses, explicit comparisons of Bernini with Michelangelo make room for references to Bernini’s Michelangelesque qualities. Thus, it is made clear that Bernini actually lives up to the promises he showed as a youth, by truly embodying Michelangelo’s virtù. In the text, this shift occurs with the pontificate of Urban VIII. The unique synergy between artist and patron is indicated by Barberini’s oftenquoted declaration, reported on the first page of chapter five, that Bernini was very lucky to see Maffeo Barberini on the papal throne, but that he, Barberini, was even luckier to have a Bernini during his pontificate.11 Chapter six opens by stating that right from the start of his reign, Urban wanted



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fig. 32 Gianlorenzo Bernini, Baldacchino, 1624 – 33, bronze. Saint Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City.

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the artist to paint the loggia della benedizione, and to conceive a construction for the crossing of Saint Peter’s.12 His wishes for the crossing were immediately met with by the artist. For since the day Gianlorenzo, at the age of fourteen, wandered into the basilica in the company of the great painter Annibale Carracci, he had been thinking about such a monument. Carracci had looked into the immense empty church, and exclaimed that one day a genius would come along who would make “in the middle and the back two big constructions, well proportioned to the vastness of the space.” From that day on, Bernini hoped that he would be the one. Barberini, who was aware of this prophecy, was immediately seduced by the scheme Bernini had been imagining since the day of his visit.13 From what follows in Domenico’s biography, it becomes clear that, as foretold by Carracci’s prophecy, proportion is the central problem in designing the Baldacchino (fig. 32).14 Not surprisingly, Domenico refuses to describe the Baldacchino, not however because his words fall short; that is self-evident. Rather, Domenico insists that the beauty of the Baldacchino can only be judged with the eye, since it is unique in seeing all at once the site, the building, the vastness of the void, the beauty of the sculpture, and the richness of the material. Indeed, the main problem his father had to confront when designing the Baldacchino was mastering this multitude of elements which are not proper to the object, but connected to it, “annesso a lei.”15 Bernini’s overcoming of exactly this challenge led him to modestly acknowledge that his work had succeeded “by chance” (a caso).16 Even so, Domenico continues, in his design Bernini applied a specific and rigid method, a procedure, it is emphasized, which can be taught, and hence, we might add, described. Bernini’s application of this method allows the biographer to revert to the ekphrastic strategy of evoking the creative process rather than the finished product.17 Domenico’s difficulty as a writer exactly parallels his father’s in designing the Baldacchino, and he overcomes his initial inability to write about the multitude of elements by reproducing Bernini’s tackling of the same problem. This analogy between writing about and making art receives extra emphasis because Bernini’s method reflects the categories of rhetoric:18 first there was the choice of the material, then the invention, then the ordinazione, or arrangement of the parts, and finally the addition of beauty and grace.19 While Gianlorenzo was able to follow his method in the first two and the last of the steps, the rules did not allow him to determine the arrangement and proportion of the parts, due to the vastness of the space. Therefore, with great reluctance, he had to determine the ordinazione by “leaving behind the rules without however



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violating them, and in so doing, he himself found the measure which can not be found in the rules.”20 This phrase is nearly identical to the second part of the definition of the composto.21 This suggests that the passage on the Baldacchino contributes to its significance: the “uscir dalle regole” finds its meaning in the kind of insight that arranges and binds a multitude of things in such an exceptional way that it seems to border on chance, and challenges any known mode of representation. Domenico’s description can only point out when this is done, but not how, just like visual representations can show the monument itself but fail to seize this particular, essential quality.22 The importance of this quality is emphasized with an additional anecdote. Thirty years after the completion of the Baldacchino, Bernini visits Saint Peter’s with his good friend Sforza Pallavicino. Pallavicino asks the artist how he had been able to determine the size of all the parts of the Baldacchino so as to make it look well proportioned from every point of view. Bernini responds: “with the eye.” “How then,” Pallavicino continues, “can the eye determine the size of the parts before they are arranged and put into place?” He answers this question for Bernini, who was dumbfounded: “because the eyes are yours.”23 Here, the faculty that enables the transgression of the rules is explicitly mentioned: the giudizio dell’occhio. It is worth mentioning that in the anecdote Domenico paraphrases Pallavicino’s own definition of contrapposto, or antithesis, introducing yet another parallel between the evocative powers of language (powers, so it seems, Domenico fails to summon) and Bernini’s creative prowess.24 However, within the biographical narrative, Domenico clearly wants to ascribe to Bernini a quality intimately associated with Michelangelo: the ability to determine the final shape and arrangement of a work by means of innate artistic judgment, as opposed to the application of traditional and teachable rules. According to David Summers the giudizio dell’occhio “was the power of the artist to seek the various and the new, to display his skill, to use all means, in short, which delighted the eye,” closely associated with “free artifice outside normative rule.”25 As “the capacity to distance oneself from the rules if and when necessary,” the giudizio allows to complement or even surpass arte.26 The exercise of the giudizio manifests itself in the establishment of proportion, not only understood in a quantitative sense — that is, as sensory proportion —but also qualitative, as a fundamental, ontological unity, created with the force of reason.27 This kind of innate judgment is discussed in an important body of sixteenth-century texts on imitation, which revolve around the relationship



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between teachable and rule-bound art, arte, and individual ingegno, or “innate brilliance.”28 Such authors as Pietro Aretino stress the importance of the judicious application of ingegno to triumph over arte, or teachable rules, to achieve uniqueness and novelty. Their champion is Michelangelo, who becomes the most perfect embodiment of the giudizio dell’occhio.29 These themes shape Domenico’s passage on the Baldacchino and consequently the definition of the composto, which upon second consideration, addresses exactly the tension between teachable art and ingegno, governed by judgment: Bernini was able to unite absolute mastery of the three arts by tireless study and judicious transgression of the rules.30 In the biography this theme is introduced very early on, in the anecdote on young Bernini’s unwillingness to simply copy the models his father provided. Gianlorenzo’s statement on the matter is cast in the terms of an old metaphor on imitation, “if he always had to walk behind others, he would never get to pass easily someone else.”31 This topos on the imitation of models, however, becomes reinvigorated not only because it is repeated in the composto passage, but also because of its close association with, again, Michelangelo: as Cesare D’Onofrio has pointed out, Vasari puts almost the same words in Michelangelo’s mouth.32 This overview suggests that the first six chapters of Domenico’s biography offer an interwoven series of statements culminating in the description of the Baldacchino, a material testimony to the artistry of Gianlorenzo. Domenico carefully puts into place a conceptual framework to reveal the genius of his father. This framework consists of the prophecies of Paul V and Annibale Carracci, Bernini’s adoption by Urban VIII and his subsequent training and, finally, the description of the Baldacchino and its creation. The bel composto derives its meaning from this sequence and the themes it introduces: papal recognition of the child prodigy, the power of Bernini’s ingegno and the resulting creative prowess, Bernini’s attitude toward models and tradition. The central image to embody these ideas is Michelangelo, under whose cupola Bernini finds the right proportions for the Baldacchino.33 In other words, it is as the creator of the Baldacchino that Bernini becomes the new Michelangelo, with whom he shares the virtù to expand the rules of art through a judicious application of ingegno.34 As demonstrated by Robert Williams in his essay in this volume, in Domenico’s biography this idea is the universal principle that defines the man Bernini, whose greatness manifests itself in any endeavor he undertakes or could want to undertake. In the very first paragraph of the biography we read that “since [Bernini] with a maraviglioso composto of highly praised



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gifts, each of which could have rendered any man admirable and great, was so well able to furnish his soul with all, that his greatest achievement was not to be praised as excellent in the profession he exercised; so much he had in himself with eminence all the parts, that shape a man of great and virtuous idea.”35 Christina of Sweden discovered in Bernini “such an elevated ingegno and such a perfect judgment, that Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, which he possessed with eminence, were only the minor parts of excellence bestowed upon this man by God;”36 and Louis XIV discerned in Bernini “the Idea of an elevated ingegno, and a composto of all excellent gifts.”37

the three arts Domenico Bernini’s view of the composto is that Gianlorenzo’s exceptional mastery of the three arts “in se” (in himself ) formed only one, albeit essential, part of his being a great man. This composto of virtù is generated by Bernini’s judicious breaking of the rules of any art to which he turns his attention. This allows him to always surpass his examples, a principle that supersedes the visual arts and permeates every facet of his life. The Baldacchino is the first standing witness of Bernini’s greatness. As Rudolf Preimesberger was the first to notice, Filippo Baldinucci’s view of the composto is fundamentally different.38 Domenico states how Bernini made a composto in himself, in se. In Baldinucci’s rendition of the passage, the in se is lacking. He writes: The opinion is widespread that Bernini was the first to attempt to unite architecture with sculpture and painting in such a manner that together they make a beautiful whole [bel composto]. This he accomplished by removing all repugnant uniformity of attitudes, breaking up the uniformity sometimes without violating good rules although he did not bind himself to the rules. His usual words on this subject were that those who do not sometimes go outside the rules never go beyond them. He thought, however, that those who were not skilled in both painting and sculpture should not put themselves to that test but should remain rooted in the good precepts of art.39 This bel composto is about the combined use of the three arts in one work, which necessitates the transgression of the rules that govern each of the



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arts. As transpires clearly from the concluding remark, transgression is justified by complete artistic mastery: those who only master either sculpture or painting should stick to the rules of their art. The core meaning of Domenico’s composto, that it is the model of Bernini’s formation as a man, and consequently as an artist, is absent from Baldinucci’s definition. Specifically, the Florentine’s version does not include the phrase “alla qual perfezzione giunse, per mezzo di un’indefesso studio,” and so lacks the emphasis on training and study.40 Therefore, to fully understand Baldinucci’s definition of the bel composto and its relation to Domenico’s view, it is necessary to retrace the Florentine’s perspective on Bernini’s training as a youth and compare it to the later Vita. The different accounts of Bernini’s formation will go a long way to explain the divergences in the definition of the composto. As we have seen, Domenico twice deals extensively with Bernini’s training as a youth. First in chapter two, under the marginal annotation “Suoi Studii in Roma,” after the account of Bernini’s meeting with Paul V and Maffeo Barberini, and long after the anecdote about Bernini’s independence with regard to the models his father proposed.41 In this passage, Domenico describes Bernini’s study of sculpture. The young artist’s attention to painting, the biographer stresses, is “not as much to learn from it how to use color, . . . but rather to retrieve from it the disegno, and the expressiveness, which could serve him as attributes of sculpture.”42 In chapter five, Bernini’s training is complemented when Urban VIII ascends to the papal throne, and orders the artist to devote some of his time to painting and architecture, so that “he would join eminently, to his other virtues, also these fine abilities.”43 Bernini’s examples are the ruins of antiquity in architecture, and Raphael in painting, “as many paid masters, for anyone who would endeavor to undertake such studies.”44 In this passage, Domenico stresses that Bernini, who already mastered disegno, now also knows colorito. As pointed out, the extensive account of this second period of study, spiced with many an art-theoretical maxim, concludes with the declaration of Bernini’s mastery in the three arts in the composto statement.45 Baldinucci offers a much more concise account of Bernini’s formation. Moreover, he suggests that from the very beginning sculpture, painting, and architecture equally attracted the artist’s interest. Upon his arrival in Rome, Gianlorenzo admires “the most celebrated works of the ancient and modern painters and sculptors as well as the precious remains of ancient architecture.” Then Baldinucci notes Gianlorenzo’s specific predilection for the works of Michelangelo and Raphael. He writes: “[because of the presence of



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painting, sculpture, and architecture in Rome] it was made easy for Bernini, through close and continuous study of the most praiseworthy works, above all those of the great Michelangelo and Raphael, to draw within himself the essence of all their perfection and distinction so that he could, in accordance with his ability, emulate the lofty ideas of those sublime spirits.”46 It is suggested here that Bernini considers Michelangelo and Raphael eminent examples because, among modern artists, they are the most noteworthy practitioners of all three visual arts. Moreover, in this quote we find the “in se,” which Domenico records in several statements on Bernini’s composto.47 In Baldinucci, Gianlorenzo has “in se” the lesson drawn from these two excellent oeuvres. In other words, Baldinucci defines the formation of Bernini’s abilities as the judicious study of his noble predecessors; these abilities essentially concern the visual arts: sculpture, painting, and architecture. Baldinucci’s next comment on Bernini’s training is the anecdote about Gianlorenzo’s unwillingness to imitate Pietro’s models. This little story however is cast in a specific light: here, Pietro’s initial dismissal of Gianlorenzo’s improvements is not a sign of Pietro’s awe (as in Domenico), but a cunning pedagogical trick to spur the development of his son.48 The third and final passage on Bernini’s formation conflates the themes that Domenico distributes over (the chronologically parallel) chapters five and six. Baldinucci writes: [Urban VIII] had conceived the lofty ambition that in his pontificate Rome would produce another Michelangelo. His ambition grew even stronger, as he already had in mind the magnificent idea for the high altar of Saint Peter’s in the area which we call the confession and also for the painting of the benediction loggia. Therefore, the Pope informed Bernini that it was his wish that he dedicate a large part of his time to the study of architecture and painting so that he could unite with distinction these disciplines to his other virtues. The young artist immediately follows the pontiff’s advice and studies the “antique statues and buildings of Rome,” “as many masters paid for by youthful artists.” He also studies painting, and especially the handling of color, since he already masters disegno.49 After this passage, Baldinucci treats the Baldacchino. This quote obviously parallels Domenico’s evocation of Urban’s educational program for Bernini; many clauses appear verbatim in both texts.



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There are, however, fundamental differences, which immediately bear upon the problem that concerns us here. In Baldinucci, Bernini’s training under Urban VIII is a repetition, or perfection, of the study he undertook as soon as he arrived in Rome, attracted as young Gianlorenzo was by all the works of sculpture, painting, and architecture he sees there. In Domenico, as we have seen, Bernini initially only studies painting to perfect his sculpture. Only later, when under the impetus of Urban Bernini turns his attention not to sculpture, but to ancient architecture and Raphael, does he acquire “in eminenza” those virtù that allow him to form a composto of all three arts.50 Baldinucci also uses this “in eminenza” in the passage quoted here, in connection with Urban’s explicitly stated intention to create his own new Michelangelo, a master in the three visual arts. Bernini is presented as Michelangelo’s equal and heir from the very first pages of Baldinucci’s text.51 As a consequence, the extension of Bernini’s virtù under Urban has less to do with the progressive accumulation of abilities depicted by Domenico, than with Bernini’s accomplishment of extracting in se the lessons taught by his forbearers, especially Michelangelo, and maintaining the artistic standards the Florentine had set.52 In other words, under Urban Bernini becomes the new Michelangelo because he now masters the three arts in equal measure. Self-evident as this may seem, compared to the same section of Domenico’s Vita Baldinucci’s text differs on two key points: as also transpires from the title of his Vita,53 in Domenico, Bernini’s mastery of the three arts is much less important per se, and nowhere is it compared to Michelangelo’s;54 conversely, in this section Baldinucci never exalts Bernini’s ability to judiciously break the rules, surpass his models, and make truly novel art. We have seen that Domenico portrays the innate giudizio of his father in a well-defined sequence of anecdotes on his formation and the works he performs. Baldinucci uses the same set of anecdotes yet with a different, often weaker, emphasis. In Baldinucci, Paul V pronounces only one Michelangelo-prophecy, upon his first encounter with Bernini, when the pontiff asks the child prodigy to design the head of a saint. On the same occasion, Maffeo Barberini is charged with Bernini’s education.55 Baldinucci’s account of the unveiling of the two Scipione Borghese busts makes no mention of Michelangelo or Barberini.56 Thus, his account is less empathic than Domenico’s on three points. There is no repetition of the prophecy, which is moreover cast in more cautious terms.57 Baldinucci does not portray the assignment of Bernini’s education to Maffeo Barberini as a response to any particular desire of the cardinal. It is the pope who decides,



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and Barberini who obeys; the role of Bernini’s genius as the motor of the transaction is minimized.58 Finally, in Domenico the event is linked to the unveiling of a portrait bust, a genre, Bernini liked to mention, Michelangelo never practiced; in Baldinucci, not.59 Just as the Michelangelo prophecy is not connected to the episode with the bust, so Carracci’s prophecy does not appear in the passage on the Baldacchino, but in Bernini’s childhood years.60 Less is made of the suggestion, prominent in Domenico, that Bernini’s development from a young boy to a mature artist, fostered by the patron who will facilitate the building of the Baldacchino, parallels Bernini’s own continuous preoccupation with the same problem.61 Moreover, Carracci’s reference to the problem of proportion carries less weight than in Domenico, because Baldinucci does not address Bernini’s design method in his evocation of the Baldacchino.62 Bernini’s four-step procedure is recorded much later, unconnected to any particular work, in the chapter on the artist’s theoretical views (which also contains the “definition” of the bel composto);63 in the passage on the Baldacchino, reflections on the ordinazione, or arrangement and proportion, are almost completely absent. Only in the final paragraph, well detached from the evocation of the monument by the account of the Baldacchino’s critical reception and Urban’s praise, Baldinucci writes how the artist had to trust his ingegno to determine the proportions of the construction, seemingly products of chance, since the rules did not provide guidelines.64 However, without the framework of the teachable method or the carefully constructed parallel between description and creation, this statement is much less powerful than in Domenico’s Vita. It becomes even weaker because Baldinucci’s text does not contain the anecdote with Sforza Pallavicino, so that no mention is made of the giudizio dell’occhio.65 Moreover, the statement on ordinazione forms a climax in Domenico’s narrative, prepared by the chapters on Bernini’s childhood and training. As we have seen, Baldinucci casts the exchange between Pietro and Bernini in a different light, and does not invoke the “uscire dalle regole” to describe Bernini’s accumulation of virtù under Urban’s guidance.66 The remark about the role of the ingegno in designing the Baldacchino is without further implications. From this brief overview of the first section of Baldinucci’s biography, up to the description of the Baldacchino, it becomes clear that Baldinucci casts the relation between Bernini and Urban, between Michelangelo and Bernini, between mastery of the three arts and transgression of the rules in a different light than Domenico. For Baldinucci, Urban wants to create his own Michelangelo, and orders Bernini to train accordingly; in Domenico,



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providence unites the new Michelangelo with Urban, so that the artist can propose the artwork his future patron desires. In Baldinucci, the identification between Bernini and Michelangelo is based on their shared mastery of the three arts; in Domenico, on their shared capacity to judiciously break the rules. Baldinucci relates that Urban explicitly stated that Bernini, like Michelangelo, should master the three arts to execute works for him; it is the pontiff’s ambition that defines the imitatio Buonarroti. In Domenico, the proportionality of the Baldacchino implicitly identifies the model of Gianlorenzo’s virtù. This comparison with Baldinucci puts Domenico’s position into sharper relief. As we have seen, the composto of the arts is only one aspect of the great man Domenico depicts: Bernini would have excelled in any profession or activity to which he had turned his attention, since his greatness exceeds the particularities of any specific arte. This idea is most vocally expressed in the paragraphs and chapter concerned with Alexander VII and his court.67 In Baldinucci, less is made of Bernini’s universality.68 His text does contain the remark that Domenico attributes to Christina of Sweden about the three arts being the minor parts of Bernini’s excellence, but here the praise is notably weaker: the quote, attributed to Alexander, does not refer to Bernini as a “GRAND’HUOMO,” the epithet Domenico uses and repeats in the closing sentence of his Vita.69 Indeed, in Baldinucci, the bel composto is an exclusively artistic principle, based on Bernini’s mastery of sculpture, painting, and architecture; Baldinucci’s depiction of Bernini’s formation explains how Bernini acquired this expertise. This mastery then stands as the basis of Bernini’s specific contribution to the historical development of art: he was the first (not “one of the first,” as in Domenico) to unite the arts of sculpture, painting, and architecture in the bel composto, that is, in a new art form.70 The idea of progress, of leaving the beaten path, is here related to the problem of the unification of the arts, not to Bernini’s virtù. Baldinucci’s bold definition of the bel composto appears at the end of his biography, in the sequence of art-theoretical statements attributed to or connected with Bernini.71 Literally detached from the artist’s life, this section serves to suggest the contours of a coherent and developed art theory. It opens with a reconfirmation of Bernini’s Michelangelesque mastery of the three arts, rooted in disegno.72 After briefly referencing Bernini as a caricaturist, Baldinucci records his definition of the bel composto. Then Bernini’s qualities as a painter receive praise, followed by his capacity to fuse sculpture and painting, because of his ability to handle marble as if it were wax. This paragraph elaborates on the definition of the composto, as transpires



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from Baldinucci’s consideration that this ability of Bernini’s lies beyond the grasp of “gli altri artefici;” in other words, like (or as part of ) the bel composto, this fusion is what Bernini contributes to art.73 Domenico also credits his father with the remarkable ability to treat stone as if it were wax,74 not surprisingly in conformity with his composto, called to memory by casting Bernini’s achievement as a paragone between the “regola” transmitted by classical sculpture, and the judicious expansion of the canon facilitated by the artist’s unique “cuore.”75 Baldinucci, on the other hand, keener to give Bernini a place in the historical development of art, presents the remark on painterly sculpture as an attempt to “render conto di se stesso,” that is, to defend his idiosyncrasy; there is no reference to a rule or norm.76 It is rather reductive, but not incorrect, to sum up the differences between the two versions of the so-called bel composto as follows: for Domenico, Bernini masters the three visual arts (like any other art or science) by leaving behind the rules; for Baldinucci, Bernini can leave the rules behind because he masters the three arts. In Domenico, this capacity to break the rules is rooted in an innate ability of Bernini’s that transcends the specificity of all human arti; in Baldinucci, Bernini’s equaling of Michelangelo provides him with the license to transcend the specific rules of the three visual arts and unite them in one work.77 As this analysis has shown, these views are pithily expressed in the respective passages dealing with the composto, yet at the same time lie embedded in the two biographical narratives. Moreover, important issues are connected to the theme: patronage, training, and tradition, Bernini’s abilities and, more generally, views of what Bernini actually represents. Key, in both texts, is the theme of novelty and uniqueness: the bel composto is cast in terms derived from the discussion on the imitation of models and justified innovation, accomplished by judgment and ingegno, a discussion which, in seventeenthcentury Rome, is most fully developed with regard to literature and especially poetry.78 Domenico, as I hope to have shown, ties this discussion to Bernini the man, Baldinucci to the artist. This difference appears especially in Baldinucci’s view of the relationship between Bernini and Michelangelo, which is cast in terms of history, rather than of virtù.79 He also accords both tradition and patronage an important role in the creation of Bernini’s work,80 more than Domenico, who is bent on proving the uniqueness of the man who is his father. This explains, for instance, why Francesco Borromini appears as Bernini’s nemesis in Domenico’s Vita, and as an architect of unacceptable license in Baldinucci.81



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the unification of life and work in the composto It is safe to say that, despite Preimesberger’s work, Filippo Baldinucci’s and Domenico Bernini’s views of the composto are hardly ever distinguished. This negligence toward the sources points toward a more fundamental problem than the historical accuracy of a definition. The analysis presented here shows that the difference between the two views runs far deeper than even Preimesberger suggested. It fully emerges if we read the composto for what it is: a notion deeply embedded in Bernini’s two biographies. As a result, the composto only acquires its full meaning when the biographical construction is taken into account. In other words, while Domenico’s and Baldinucci’s views differ in putting more or less stress on person or work, on ingegno or art form, at the most fundamental level both versions are essentially biographical attributes of Bernini. If, in the biographies, the bel composto serves as a means to interpret Bernini’s work through the prism of his life, it emerges less as a neutral analytical tool to understand Bernini’s work than an interpretation of his artistic persona, and its perception at the turn of the seventeenth century. Even a careful and historicized use of the term will almost necessarily collapse artist and oeuvre. A cursory glance at the Bernini literature of the last decades attests to the urgency of this problem: the bel composto is more often than not considered the uniquely Berninesque fusion of an exceptional religiosity with new means of artistic expression, which touches and inspires the beholder in unprecedented ways. This new artistic expression consists of Bernini’s unique capacity to fuse the three arts, operated by means of the giudizio dell’occhio, progressively exemplified by an oeuvre that spans Bernini’s entire life, and parallels his own development as a person.82 This allencompassing view of Bernini’s composto goes well beyond what can actually be found in the textual sources, yet at the same time eerily echoes and fuses the biographical themes (that is, the attributes of Bernini, not his work) introduced by Domenico and Baldinucci. While important aspects of Bernini’s work can certainly be approached via themes that are inherent to either version of the composto, and find support in other contemporary sources,83 the exclusive connection of these aspects with Bernini’s persona, through the bel composto, obfuscates our understanding of his art on several counts. The conflation of a limited number of biographical themes into a catch-all theory withholds from view the true theoretical value of the biographies,



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which only emerges when they are considered as a whole. As this and other essays in this volume show, the biographies offer highly contrived interpretations of Bernini’s artistry and creativity that point to a very wide body of theoretical intertexts. The theoretical potential of the biographies is only fully mined if the passages that do not boast art theoretical vocabulary are also taken into account. If the biographies are employed to open up the notion of artistic theory, the importance of the few explicit (but underdeveloped) arttheoretical notions, such as the composto, is put into perspective, while other, heretofore less explored themes (like the discussion on imitation) will emerge more clearly.84 Such a recontextualization would allow a recalibration of the claims on uniqueness and novelty that have become connected to Bernini’s art via the bel composto. As this essay has tried to show, the very definition of the composto is rooted in an existing vocabulary that describes the process of creation through imitation. Claims on novelty and uniqueness are part and parcel of this vocabulary, and the early modern creativity it defines. As such, they are hardly exclusive to Bernini.85 While the importance of Bernini’s work for the Roman Baroque is undeniable, to overstress these claims runs the risk of separating that work from its historical and intellectual context, in a way that, again, echoes the biographies. To return to our first example, Domenico’s refusal to give a description of the Baldacchino, or to elaborate on the meaning of its different elements, such as the columns and the cross, does not mean that he neglects the meaning of the Baldacchino. While suggesting that the Baldacchino is about his father’s art, and nothing else, Domenico subsumes all other fields of meaning implicitly under the umbrella of art. Domenico suggests that exceptional art made by excellent artists, such as Bernini’s Baldacchino, is capable of incorporating the different interpretive layers into an object that communicates these layers by provoking an unprecedented aesthetic experience. Art and meaning enter in a symbiotic relationship, in which art holds the reins. The idea of the bel composto is subtended by exactly the same view of art’s revolutionary capacities, which are embodied in the unique artist. While this may be a valid view of art and its function, it is also necessarily incomplete.

notes 1. Maurizio Fagiolo dell’Arco and Marcello Fagiolo dell’Arco, Bernini: introduzione al gran teatro, 62, 80, 163, 170 –73. 2. Lavin, Bernini and the Unity of Visual Arts, 6. 3. See, for instance, Careri, Bernini: Flights of Love; Bernardini and Fagiolo dell’Arco, Gian Lorenzo Bernini: Regista del Barocco, 24, 119 – 82.



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4. Preimesberger, “Berninis Cappella Cornaro,” 192 –93. 5. Audisio, “Lettere e testi teatrali di Bernini,” 42, the section on the Baldacchino in ms. italien 2084, fols. 130 –31. 6. Baldinucci, Vocabolario; the bel composto is, however, not mentioned or suggested there. This view is defended and developed in Montanari, “Il ‘bel composto.’” Tomaso Montanari, who very kindly made his manuscript available to me prior to its publication, reacted to an earlier, but substantially identical draft of this paper. Montanari deals with many issues that are discussed here, often in compatible, sometimes in conflicting ways. In this author’s opinion, his philological interpretation, predicated upon the inseparability of the two vite, does not offer arguments that invalidate the reading of the biographies as two texts in their own right presented here. 7. DB, 32 –33: “Ci giove solamente il dire, esser concetto molto universale, e da non potersi forse così facilmente riprovare, ch’egli sia stato fra’Primi, anche de’ Secoli trascorsi, che habbia saputo in modo unire assieme le belle Arti della Scultura, Pittura, & Architettura, che di tutte ne habbia fatte in se un maraviglioso composto, e le habbia tutte possedute in eminenza. Alla qual perfezzione giunse per mezzo di un’indefesso studio, e con uscir tal volta dalle Regole, senza però giammai violarle, essendo suo detto antico, che Chi non esce tal volta di Regola, non la passa mai. Mà il far ciò, non è impresa da tutti.” 8. In so doing, Domenico dates the busts at least ten years too early; see, most recently Anna Coliva, “Scipione Borghese,” in Coliva and Schütze, Bernini scultore: La nascita del barocco, cat. nos. 29 –30, 276 – 89; and Levy’s essay in this volume. 9. DB, 11–12. 10. DB, 9. 11. DB, 23–24. When Gregory XV dies, Maffeo Barberini comforts Bernini with the following words: chiunque verrà Papa, bisognerà, che vi ami per forza, se non vuol fare ingiustizia a se, a voi, & a chiunque hà in pregio l’esser virtuoso; see also DB, 12: “che seppe [Urbano] così bene custodir quel Giovane, che cresciuto in età, doveva render celebre il suo Pontificato con operazioni illustri, e gloriose.” 12. DB, 37: “impose il Papa, come si disse, al Cavaliere, che facesse i suoi studii nella Pittura, & Architettura con intenzione di far a lui dipingere la gran Loggia della Benedizione, & alzare una qualche gran Mole, che riempisse il vano sotto la Cuppola di S. Pietro.” 13. DB, 37– 38. It is explicitly stated that “[e]ra già noto questo vaticinio al Pontefice.” See note 61 for Baldinucci’s treatment of the same issue. 14. The extensive literature on the Baldacchino has not dealt with the related passages in the biographies, with the exception of Bauer, “Bernini and the Baldacchino.” Short remarks in Kirwin, Powers Matchless, 218; Benedetti, “Metafisica del mondo nell’architettura,” 78 – 80; Montanari, “Gian Lorenzo Bernini e Sforza Pallavicino,” 59 – 60. 15. DB, 38 – 39: “Se ben richiederebbe l’Historia, che facessimo particolar descrizione di questo stupendo Edificio, tuttavia essendo certi, che colle parole non saressimo mai per sottoporlo adequatamente alla luce dell’intelletto, ci siamo risoluti passarlo sotto silenzio per due ragioni; la prima delle quali si è, che questa maravigliosa Machina non tanto è in sè riguardevole, per ciò che essa in sè contiene, quanto per ciò, che in sè non contiene, mà che è annesso a lei, e l’accompagna: Onde l’occhio solamente può esserne degno Giudice, che con riguardare unitamente il Sito, la Mole, la Vastità del Vano, che empie senza ingombrarlo, la Vaghezza de’Rilievi, la Ricchezza della Materia, e tutto ciò che essa è, e la proporzione che fuor di essa nel Tutto s’accorda, rimane appagato, e sodisfatto.” 16. DB, 39: “in tal modo, che tramandandone la specie nell’imaginativa, fà di mestiere, che l’intelletto affermi per verità, ciò che diceva per sua modestia il Cavaliere, Quest’Opera essere riuscita bene a caso, volendo con raro temperamento dimostrare di haverla più tosto per buona, che fatta.”



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17. Galand-Hallyn, Reflet des fleurs, 36 – 48. 18. On the analogy between the visual arts and rhetoric, see, for instance, Lee, “Ut Pictura Poesis,” 264 and app. 2; Tagliabue, “Aristotelismo e Barocco”; LeCoat, Rhetoric of the Arts, 30 –32; Summers, Michelangelo, 73–74; Lecercle, Chimère de Zeuxis, 12 –14. 19. DB, 39: “E come che il Cavaliere dava per documento a’suoi Discepoli in materia di Architettura, che prima bisognava riflettere alla materia, indi all’invenzione, poi all’ordinazione delle parti, e finalmente a dar loro perfezzione di grazia, e tenerezza.” 20. DB, 40: “Volle nobilitar l’Invenzione con una ordinazione miracolosa delle parti, in cui pareva, che consistesse la difficoltà maggiore. Considerò, che in un tratto così smisurato di spazio, vana sarebbe stata la diligenza delle misure, che malamente potevano concordare col tutto di quel Tempio; onde facendo di mestiere uscir dalle Regole dell’Arte, difficilmente vi acconsentiva per timore di perdersi senza guida. Tuttavia accordò così bene queste repugnanze, che nel dar loro la proporzione, seppe uscir dalle Regole senza violarle, anzi egli stesso da sè trovò quella misura, che invano si cerca nelle Regole” (emphasis mine). 21. Also Bauer, “Bernini and the Baldacchino,” 165, discusses the Baldacchino in terms of the composto, yet on the grounds that the construction embodies a fusion of architecture and sculpture. 22. DB, 39, where Domenico remarks that while many know the Baldacchino from engravings, these representations miss exactly its true quality, “che consiste nella proporzione, e misura, cha hà la Mole col Tempio.” Domenico’s insistence on the ineffability of Bernini’s achievement points toward the notion of the “non so che,” as referred to, for instance, in DB, 25: “riconoscendo tutti in lui [Bernini] un non sò che di singolare.” This notion lies at the heart of late seventeenth-century conceptions of judgment and taste, shaped in literary debates between Italy and France, for instance in the work of the French Jesuit Dominique Bouhours, who engages both with Sforza Pallavicino’s theory of antithesis (see note 24 below) and poetry written in honor of Bernini’s work; see Delbeke, “Fenice degl’ ingegni,” 145– 46. On these literary debates, see Moriarty, “Principles of Judgement,” 522 –28, and the literature in note 81. 23. DB, 40 – 41: “E questa fù quella medesima [misura, che invano si cerca nelle Regole], di cui richiesto una volta doppo trent’anni dal Cardinale Sforza Pallavicino suo intrinseco, & amorevole, che domandògli, mentre un giorno vagheggiava quest’Opera, Di che misura si fosse servito in ordinar così proporzionate le parti, che da qualunque prospetto di quel vasto Tempio si consideravano, e sembravano tutte fatte apposta per qualunque veduta, rispose, Che dell’occhio. E come hà potuto l’occhio, ripigliò l’acutissimo Cardinale, appagarsi delle proporzioni delle parti, avanti che queste fossero ordinate, e commesse? allora il Cavaliere ò che si dichiarasse vinto, ò che volesse parer convinto, non temendo d’altro più, che di parer d’intenderlo, chinò il capo, e nulla rispose: Mà ben per lui rispose il Cardinale, con soggiungere, Che altri occhj non vi volevano al bisogno, che quelli della sua Testa.” 24. Montanari, “Gian Lorenzo Bernini e Sforza Pallavicino,” 62; Delbeke, “Fenice degl’ ingegni,” 26 –28, 156 –59. I will return to the implications of this analogy for the signification of the Baldacchino elsewhere. 25. Summers, Michelangelo, 360. 26. Klein, “Giudizio et Gusto,” 346; also Summers, Judgment of Sense, 317–20. 27. Summers, Michelangelo, 332 –36, 359 – 63. 28. See Kemp, “From ‘mimesis’ to ‘fantasia’”; Klein, “Giudizio et Gusto”; Grassi, “Mania ingegnosa”; Sohm, Style in the Art Theory, 112 –18. 29. Pietro Aretino is quoted in Klein, “Giudizio et Gusto,” 348: “Guardate dove ha posto la pittura Michelagnolo con lo smisurato de le sue figure, dipinte con la maestà del giudizio, non col meschino dell’arte.” Many comparable statements can be found in late sixteenth-century Florentine treatises; see, for instance, the Trattato delle perfette Proporzioni of Vincenzio Danti (1567), in: Barocchi, Scritti d’arte del Cinquecento, 2:1563.



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30. See the quote in note 7. 31. DB, 5: “Accortosi [Pietro] un giorno, che nel ritrarre un disegno haveva mutato uno scorcio di una figura, in atto però più naturale, e spiritoso, e supponendo la variazione più tosto colpo di sorte, che tiro di maestria, lo ripigliò come mancante, e poco attento all’esemplare propostogli. Gio: Lorenzo modestamente rispose, che l’avidità dell’operare l’haveva fatto trascorrere, e forse passar oltre al suo dovere, ma che s’egli doveva sempre andar dietro altrui, non sarebbe giammai arrivato a passar facilmente avanti ad alcuno. Da questa risposta comprese finalmente il Padre, che degno Maestro d’un tal discepolo era il suo solo ingegno, onde lasciò a lui libero il modo di operare, facendo quindi argomento, con qual motivo di speranze maggiori, facesse presentemente il Figliuolo progressi sì grandi.” Compare also the “supponendo la variazione più tosto colpo di sorte” with the “essere riuscita bene a caso” (DB, 39) of the Baldacchino. 32. D’Onofrio, “Note berniniane 1: Un dialogo-recita,” 129. 33. This comparison is explicit in Totti, Ristretto delle grandezze di Roma, 5: “[Il Baldacchino è] disegno, e fattura del Cavalier Bernino Scultore, Architetto e Pittor fiorentino, che sì come ha procurato di arrivar Michel’Agnolo nella gloria di essercitar perfettamente, com’egli faceva, queste tre nobilissime professioni, così s’è ingegnato con l’aggiunta della quarta di operar maravigliosamente di getto, di trapassarlo.” Quoted in D’Onofrio, Roma vista da Roma, 375–76. On the theme of the imitatio Buonarroti, see Soussloff, “Imitatio Buonarroti.” 34. This argument is also an implicit statement on the authorship of the Baldacchino, since Francesco Borromini, in the paragraph before the “definition” of the composto, is portrayed as a heretic, a person who lacks the virtù to judiciously expand the canon of antiquity; see DB, 32. On the authorship discussion, see now Burbaum, Rivalität zwischen Francesco Borromini und Gianlorenzo Bernini, 16 – 45. 35. DB, 2: “Poiche egli con un maraviglioso composto di pregiatissime doti, ciascuna delle quali in se stessa poteva rendere ammirabile e grande ogni huomo, seppe così ben di tutte fornire il suo animo, che non fu il maggior pregio in lui l’essere acclamato per eccellente nella professione che fece: Tanto in se hebbe con eccellenza ancora tutte quelle parti, che posson formare un’huomo d’idea grande, e virtuoso” (emphasis mine). 36. DB, 104: “che nella continua prattica havuto col Bernino l’havevo scoperto di un’ingegno così elevato, e di un giudizio così perfetto, che la Pittura, Scultura, & Architettura possedute da lui in eminenza, erano le minor parti di eccellenza, di cui quel grand’Huomo era stato dotato da Dio.” 37. DB, 130: “Mà il Rè, che in lui conosceva un’Idea d’ingegno elevata, & un composto di doti tutte eccellenti.” 38. Preimesberger, “Berninis Cappella Cornaro.” 39. Translation adapted from FB, 67; FB-1948, 140; FB-1966/2006, 74: “È concetto molto universale, ch’egli sia stato il primo, che abbia tentato di unire l’Architettura colla Scultura e Pittura in tal modo, che di tutte si facesse un bel composto; il che fece egli con togliere alcune uniformità odiose di attitudini, rompendole talora senza violare le buone regole, ma senza obbligarsi a regola: ed era suo detto ordinario in tal proposito, che chi non esce talvolta della regola non la passa mai; voleva però, che chi non era insieme Pittore e Scultore, a ciò non si cimentasse, ma si stesse fermo ne’buoni precetti dell’Arte.” 40. See note 7. 41. DB, 12 –13. 42. DB, 14: “Ne fù in lui minore lo Studio delle Pitture, non tanto per quindi apprendere la maniera del colorire, e ciò che pare qualità più propria del Pittore, quanto per ricavare da quelle rare figure, con cui vien fregiata ogni Camera del Vaticano, il disegno, e l’espressiva di esse, che poteva a lui servire per attributo della Scultura.” 43. DB, 26 : “e come che stimava [Urbano VIII] l’ingegno di lui atto, e capace a ricevere qualunque eccellente impressione, gli ordinò dal bel principio, che per eseguire quel



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tanto divisava di fare, applicasse qualche parte del suo tempo nello studio della Pittura, & Architettura, vago eziamdio, che alle altre sue Virtù aggiungesse ancora in eminenza queste belle facoltà.” 44. DB, 26: “e non di altro Maestro si prevalse nell’una [l’architettura], che delle fabbriche antiche, e nell’altra delle Pitture moderne di Raffaello, che al suo dire, erano tanti Maestri pagati, per chi voleva applicarsi a somiglianti Studii.” 45. DB, 26 –33. 46. FB, 4; FB-1948, 73– 74; FB-1966/2006, 8 – 9 (with minor changes): “Imperciocché ammirandosi in quella sola Città le fatiche più illustri, sì degli antichi, come de’moderni Pittori, e Scultori, e le preziose reliquie eziandio della vecchia Architettura, che ad onta del tempo, non leggier nemico, stando ancora in piè, . . . fu a lui facile coll’attento studio, e continovo dell’opere più lodate, e massimamente di quelle del gran Michelagnolo, e di Raffaello, il farne in se un estratto di tutto l’esquisito, e di tutto l’eletto, a fine di poter, giusta sua possa, agguagliare l’eccelse idee di quelle sublimissime menti” (emphasis mine). Domenico includes Michelangelo and Raphael in a longer enumeration of exempla, which follows the quote in note 42, and forms part of the section on “suoi studii in Roma.” When he juxtaposes the lessons of antiquity and modern art, Domenico only mentions Raphael; see note 44. 47. See notes 7 and 35. 48. “Ma che non può un’ indole ingegnosa, allora che ella viene accompagnata da una ben saggia, e prudente educazione! Faceva egli [Bernini] vedere le sue belle fatiche al Padre, il quale mostravagli in un tempo stesso stima, e dispregio; lodavagli i disegni, ma dicevagli altresì di tener per fermo, che egli in ciò ch’e’ fusse per far di poi, non sarebbe mai giunto a tanto; quasi che egli stimasse, che la perfezion del primo operato fusse più tosto un colpo della sorte, che effetto di abilità del Figliuolo; invenzione in vero ingegnosissima, con cui facevalo divenire ogni dì emulo delle proprie virtù, e tenevalo con se medesimo in continovo cimento.” FB, 5; FB-1948, 75; FB-1966/2006, 10. Contrary to Baldinucci, Domenico clearly casts the anecdote as a sign of Pietro’s astonishment before Gianlorenzo’s genius. As suggested in note 31, in Domenico the reference to chance prefigures the linking of ingegno and caso in the passage on the Baldacchino. Whereas Baldinucci also suggests this link in his evocation of the Baldacchino (see note 64), in the passage discussed here the tension between arte and ingegno is absent. Baldinucci’s version quite closely follows the fragment published in Audisio, “Lettere e testi teatrali di Bernini,” 41. 49. “[Urbano VIII] aveva concepita in se stesso una virtuosa ambizione, che Roma nel suo Pontificato, e per sua industria giungesse a produrre un’altro Michelangelo, tanto più, perchè già eragli sovvenuto l’alto concetto dell’Altar Maggiore di S. Pietro, nel luogo, che diciamo la Confessione; come ancora di far dipignere a lui tutta la Loggia della benedizione: il perchè gli significò esser gusto suo, che egli s’ingegnasse d’applicar molto del suo tempo in studi di Architettura, e Pittura, a fine di congiugnere alle altre sue virtù in eminenza anche queste belle facoltà. Non tardò il Giovane ad assecondare i consigli dell’amico Pontefice: e fecelo senz’altro maestro, che delle statue, e Fabbriche antiche di Roma, solito dire, che quante di queste si trovano in quella Città, son tanti Maestri pagati per li Giovanetti.” FB, 10 –11; FB-1948, 80 – 81; FB-1966/2006, 15. Then follows the remark on Bernini’s earlier mastery of disegno. That it is Urban’s explicit intention to build the Baldacchino is repeated at the end of the paragraph. On this issue, see also Soussloff, “Imitatio Buonarroti,” 590 –92. 50. The phrase “in eminenza” is repeated DB, 26, 36. 51. FB, 2 –3; FB-1948, 72 –73; FB-1966/2006, 7– 8. 52. As Soussloff (“Imitatio Buonarroti”) has pointed out, Baldinucci’s portrayal of Bernini as Michelangelo should be read against the background of the seventeenth-century Michelangelo reception.



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53. On this point, see the Prolegomena in this volume. 54. As noted above, Raphael is the example when it comes to painting, the buildings of Antiquity when it comes to architecture. 55. FB, 4–5; FB-1948, 74–75; FB-1966/2006, 9 –10. See also Levy’s essay. 56. FB, 7– 8; FB-1948, 76 –77; FB-1966/2006, 11–12. 57. Compare FB, 5; FB-1948, 75; FB-1966/2006, 10: “Speriamo, che questo Giovanetto debba diventare il Michelagnolo del suo secolo,” with DB, 11–12: “ch’ei sarebbe stato il Michel’Agnolo del suo tempo,” and DB, 9: “Questo Fanciullo sarà il Michel’Angelo del suo tempo” (emphasis mine). See also the Prolegomena and Ostrow’s essay in this volume. 58. FB, 5; FB-1948, 74; FB-1966/2006, 9: “Il quale [Paolo V] soprammodo desideroso che la virtù di Gio. Lorenzo . . . fusse da mano autorevole sostenuta, e promossa a quel grado d’altezza, che le promettevano i fati, al Cardinal Maffeo Barberino grande amatore, e fautor delle lettere, e delle arti . . . ne commisse la cura.” Compare with DB, 11: “Onde, come poi hebbe a dire con il corso del tempo, [Maffeo Barberini] sentissi fin da quel punto portare all’affezzione del Bernino con’un impeto interno di parzialissima propensione, desideroso eziamdo di promuoverne i successi.” 59. D’Onofrio, Roma vista da Roma, 184– 85. 60. FB, 6; FB-1948, 75–76; FB-1966/2006, 10 –11. 61. DB, 38: “Dal desiderio [spurred by Carracci’s prophecy] ne nacque in lui l’idea, che poi felicemente produsse sotto il Pontificato di Urbano.” FB, 6; FB-1948, 76; FB-1966/2006, 11, follows the prophecy with: “E così senza punto avvedersene interpretò il vaticinio di Annibale, che poi nella sua propria persona si avverò così appunto, come noi a suo tempo diremo, parlando delle mirabili opere, che egli per quei luoghi condusse.” The passage on the Baldacchino, FB, 11–13; FB-1948, 81– 83; FB-1966/2006, 16 –17 contains no references to the prophecy; compare with note 13. 62. FB, 11–13; FB-1948, 81– 83; FB-1966/2006, 16 –17 actually completely refrains from describing the Baldacchino, jumping from an elaborate justification of his silence on the subject (here related to the difficulties posed not by the nature of the Baldacchino, but by Saint Peter’s as a whole) to the rumors against Bernini’s design and his handsome reward upon completion of the construction. Then follows the passage quoted in note 64. 63. FB, 71; FB-1948, 145; FB-1966/2006, 78: “Nel prepararsi all’opere usava di pensare ad una cosa per volta, e davalo per precetto a’suoi Discepoli, cioè prima all’invenzione, e poi rifletteva all’ordinazione delle parti, finalmente a dar loro perfezione di grazia, e tenerezza. Portava in ciò l’esempio dell’Oratore, il quale prima inventa, poi ordina, veste, e adorna, perchè diceva, che ciascheduna di quelle operazioni ricercava tutto l’uomo, e il darsi tutto a più cose in un tempo stesso non era possibile.” 64. FB, 13; FB-1948, 83; FB-1966/2006, 17: “Soleva dire il Cavaliere, che quest’opera era riuscita bene a caso; volendo inferire, che l’arte stessa non poteva mai sotto una sì gran Cupola, ed in ispazio sì vasto, e fra moli di così eccedente grandezza dare una misura, e proporzione, che bene adequasse, ove l’ingegno, e la mente dell’Artefice, tale quale essa misura doveva essere, senz’altra regola concepire non sapesse.” 65. This is all the more striking since Baldinucci elsewhere links the “uscire dalle regole” to the giudizio dell’occhio: “È ben vero che, siccome tutte queste proporzioni, o siano in pittura, o siano in scultura, sono sottoposte al giudizio ed alla censura dell’occhio, così devono adoprarsi sempre con antecedente consiglio dell’istesso, non ostante ogni più ferma regola,” quoted in Bauer, “Bernini e i ‘modelli in grande,’” 281. 66. FB, 11; FB-1948, 81; FB-1966/2006, 15 (quoted above, note 49), for Baldinucci’s very summary account of this training period. 67. DB, 4, 95–99. 68. The only remarks relative to this theme are in FB, 74 – 75, 78 – 79; FB-1948, 148 – 49, 151–52; FB-1966/2006, 81– 82, 85– 86.



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69. FB, 54; FB-1948, 127; FB-1966/2006, 61: “Fino a due volte [Alessandro] andò alla casa del Bernino in persona, ed era tale la stima, ch’e faceva di lui, ch’e’ soleva dire, che la natura per renderlo del tutto singolare avealo dotato di grande ingegno, e di straordinario giudizio, e che la Pittura, la Scultura, e l’Architettura erano le minor parti d’eccellenza, ch’egli avesse” (emphasis mine). Compare with the passage in Domenico quoted in note 36. 70. See notes 7, 39. 71. FB, 66 –79; FB-1948, 140 –52; FB-1966/2006, 73– 86. 72. FB, 66; FB-1948, 140; FB-1966/2006, 73: “Potiamo primieramente con ogni ragione affermare, che il Cavalier Bernino sia stato nell’arti sue singolarissimo; conciossiacosache egli abbia posseduto in eminente grado l’arte del disegno, ciò, che dimostrano assai chiaro l’opere, che egli ha condotto in Scultura, Pittura, e Architettura.” This statement echoes the opening passage of the Vita, FB, 2 –3; FB-1948, 72 –73; FB-1966/2006, 7– 8. See also FB, 75–76; FB-1948, 149 –50; FB-1966/2006, 83, where it is suggested that Bernini’s theatrical activity is rooted in disegno. The notion disegno does not appear often in Domenico’s Vita, for instance in DB, 14, when it is explained why Bernini initially studied paintings; see note 42. 73. FB, 67– 68; FB-1948, 141; FB-1966/2006, 74 – 75: “Non fu mai forse avanti a’nostri, e nel suo tempo, chi con più facilità, e franchezza maneggiasse il marmo. . . . e sebbene alcuni biasimavano i panneggiamenti delle sue Statue, come troppo ripiegati, e troppo trafitti, egli però stimava esser questo un pregio particolare del suo scarpello, il quale in tal modo mostrava aver vinta la gran difficulta di render, per così dire, il marmo pieghevole, e di sapere ad un certo modo accoppiare insieme la Pittura, e la Scultura, ed il non aver ciò fatto gli altri Artefici, diceva dependere dal non essere dato il cuore di rendere i sassi così ubbidienti alla mano, quanto se fussero stati di pasta, o cera” (emphasis mine). See also Panofsky, “Scala Regia im Vatikan,” 272 n. 1. 74. Besides the brief remark that the study of painting proved useful for Bernini’s development as a sculptor, the suggestion that Bernini himself thought to have coupled sculpture and painting by making marble as supple as wax is Domenico’s only reference to the unification of the arts. 75. DB, 149: “Ad un’altro . . . nel dir che gli fece ‘Esser i panneggiamenti del Rè, & i crini del Cavallo, come troppo ripiegati, e trafitti, fuor di quella regola, che hanno a Noi lasciata gli antichi Scultori,’ liberamente rispose [Bernini], ‘Questo, che da lui gli veniva imputato per difetto, esser il pregio maggiore del suo Scalpello, con cui vinto haveva la difficultà di render’il Marmo pieghevole come la cera, & haver con ciò saputo accoppiare in un certo modo insieme la Pittura, e la Scultura. E’l non haver ciò fatto gli antichi Artefici esser forse provenuto dal non haver loro dato il cuore di rendere i sassi così ubbidienti alla mano, come se stati di pasta.” This discussion takes place in relation to the equestrian statue of Louis XIV. 76. FB, 68; FB-1948, 141; FB-1966/2006, 75: “questo però diceva egli non già con affetto di iattanza o presunzione, ma per rendere conto di se stesso, e dell’opere sue.” Here, the discussion is not connected to the Louis XIV equestrian, which is discussed very briefly in FB, 53; FB-1948, 126; FB-1966/2006, 60 – 61. 77. Domenico’s clear sense of the deep resonances of the notion of regola transpires from the “Avvertimento al lettore” in his Vita del Ven. padre Fr. Giuseppe da Copertino: “Quando un soggetto, di cui si scrive la Vita, con le sue sorprendenti azioni esce, come si suol dire, fuor di regola, si è degno di scusa, se lo Scrittore di essa sia forzato ad uscir anch’esso fuor di quelle regole, che vengono prescritte, o dalle disposizioni dell’arte, o dalla costumanza dì quegli Istorici, che avanti di Lui hanno simili materie trattato. La Vita del Venerabile Fra Giuseppe da Copertino è sì varia negli accidenti, sì unita nelle meraviglie, e tanto sempra l’istessa in se, e diversa da se nella somiglianza del suo corso, . . . è d’uopo ch’ella [la penna] scriva con maggior verità, che ordine, con maggior fedeltà, che



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distinzione, sicchè perduta la traccia dell’arte, con nuova arte diventi artificio la confusione medesima de’racconti.” 78. See Delbeke, “Fenice degl’ ingegni,” 20 – 85. On the interaction between literary and artistic theory on matters of imitation and judgment, especially in relation to Michelangelo and his reception, see Battisti, “Concetto d’imitazione nel Cinquecento”; Klein, “Giudizio et Gusto,” 342 – 46; Summers, Michelangelo, 186 –99. For discussions of imitation in seventeenth-century Rome, see Bellini, “Linguistica Barberinae,” 71– 74, 92 –104; Fumaroli, L’Age de l’éloquence, 193–202. An important point of intersection appears in Poussin’s paraphrase of Agostino Mascardi’s definition of style, recorded by Bellori; see Bellini, Agostino Mascardi, 164 – 79; Sohm, Style in the Art Theory, 116 –21, 186 – 88. For architecture, see, for instance, Benedetti, “La metafisica,” 81; Payne, “Architects and Academies,” 118 –33. 79. This shift in perspective also transpires if we compare FB, 2; FB-1948, 72; FB-1966/2006, 7, who affirms that “a cui [Bernini] per andar di pari con gli antichi più chiari, e più rinomati Maestri, e co’moderni, poco altro per avventura mancò, che l’età,” with Domenico, who writes that “fù commune l’opinione, che per andar di pari quel tempo con quegli antichi, anche più chiari, e rinomati, altro forse non mancasse, che l’età” (emphasis mine). Here, the point is made to praise the Borghese, who despite this generally shared negative view of the present era continue their patronage, which leads to the discovery of Bernini. In Domenico, then, Baldinucci’s judgment of Bernini’s place in history becomes a common opinion refuted by Bernini’s very appearance on the Roman scene. 80. This point has been made by Soussloff, “Imitatio Buonarroti,” 589 –93. 81. See esp. DB, 79, where Borromini is named as the evil force behind Bernini’s disgrace with the Vatican bell towers. See McPhee, Bernini and the Bell Towers, 172 – 75. Baldinucci’s relating of Borromini to the issue of the “uscire dalle regole” refers uniquely to the latter’s capacities as an architect—not as a man—and thus prefigures late seventeenthcentury criticism of “borrominismo” and more generally the definition of a proper style; see FB, 75, 81; FB-1948, 149, 154–55; FB-1966/2006, 82, 88. Also Baldinucci, “Cavaliere Francesco Borromini. Pittore e architetto,” in Notizie, 1974–75, 5:137, 140 note 1. On these discussions, see Delbeke, “Antonio Gherardi e la questione dello stile.” On the literary background of this debate, see the overview in Viola, Tradizioni letterarie a confronto, 1– 43; on the epistemological aspects, see Baffetti, “Muratori tra ‘ingegno’ ed ‘evidenza.’” 82. See, for instance, Boucher, Italian Baroque Sculpture, 134: “This period . . . led to the creation of [Bernini’s] greatest masterpiece, the Cornaro Chapel in Santa Maria della Vittoria in Rome. Filippo Baldinucci said of the Cornaro Chapel that there Bernini exceeded even the talents of Michelangelo, for although Michelangelo had been supreme in painting, sculpture and architecture, Bernini was the first to combine all three in one work, creating a bel composto or beautiful synthesis. In doing so, he fused the arts into a statement which crossed space and indeed time, drawing the spectator and the deceased members of the Cornaro family into a perpetual re-enactment of the mystical union of the soul with God.” 83. Bernini’s unique fusion of the three arts is described in poetry; see Montanari, “A Contemporary Reading of Bernini’s ‘Maraviglioso Composto.’” The importance of the giudizio dell’occhio for Bernini’s artistic practice is not only stressed in his fragmentary biography (on which, see Audisio, “Lettere e testi teatrali di Bernini,” 42), but also in Bernini’s own avviso for the Duomo of Milan, see Bernardini and Fagiolo dell’Arco, Gian Lorenzo Bernini: Regista del Barocco, no. 170, and in several remarks of Bernini’s recorded in Chantelou’s diary (15 July, 22 July, 23 August 1665); see the synthesis in Lavin, Bernini and the Unity, 10 –12. See also Zollikofer, “‘Bisogna dissegnar’all’occhio’”; or the opinion of Bernini’s judgment voiced in an eighteenth-century discussion of the interior of the Pantheon, published in Marder, “Bernini and Alexander VII,” 644– 45.



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84. It should also be remarked that the notion itself possibly borders on the commonplace. In Bona, Relatione delle cerimonie fatte per le coronatione, the dedication contains the following phrase: “La fatica di sì bel composto, si come è riguardevole, così dovendola io dar’alle stampe.” 85. D’Onofrio, “Note berniniane 1: Un dialogo-recita,” 129 already remarked that the topos of finding “a new way” was also applied to Borromini.



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NINE from mascardi to pallavicino: the biographies of bernini and seventeenth-century roman culture Eraldo Bellini

an ingenious artist amid popes, kings, princes, and cardinals “For a new order now arises.”1 These words by Domenico Bernini, which allude to Tasso’s famous verses (“For the new order now begins, / prosperity returns, and all is well”2), serve to indicate a decisive passage toward better fortunes. With them, Domenico invites readers of his Vita del cavalier Gio. Lorenzo Bernino, published almost thirty years after Filippo Baldinucci’s Vita,3 to contemplate the triumphal honors that, after the tumultuous papacy of Innocent X, the new pope Alexander VII Chigi would reserve for his illustrious father. The Chigi papacy saw Gianlorenzo working on, among other projects, the colonnade of Saint Peter’s, the Scala Regia (see fig. 13) and the Cathedra Petri. Two visits to Bernini’s house attest to the continuously growing esteem and admiration of the same pontiff, who was (in Domenico’s words) “in shew holier,”4 like the hermit of Orlando Furioso (2.12), “in shew devout and holier,”5 or, again in the Furioso (34.54), like Saint John the Evangelist, who “was holy in his face.” Ariosto had modeled both after the archetype of Dante’s Cato, who had a face that was “worthy in his looks of so great reverence.”6 Recent studies increasingly stress the decisive role of the Chigi papacy in establishing Bernini’s prestige. The artist not only stood at the center of Alexander VII’s building ventures, but also was closely connected with that other Roman court of Queen Christina of Sweden and Cardinal Decio Azzolini, and esteemed and admired by Sforza Pallavicino, one of the sharpest and most influential literati and philosophers of his time.7 The age Translated by Thomas Hartmann (with the assistance of Maarten Delbeke and Steven F. Ostrow)

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of Alexander VII nonetheless also witnessed the first signs of a crisis in Bernini’s status. The artist had been for at least a half a century, in Francis Haskell’s words, the “artistic dictator of Rome.”8 His famous journey to France in 1665, highlighted in both biographies and rendered in detail by Paul Fréart de Chantelou,9 was however primarily due to a diplomatic defeat of Alexander VII. King Louis XIV, wishing to employ the most famous and acclaimed artist of his time for his grandiose Louvre project, forced the pope to hand over his principal artist, at that time deeply engaged in Rome. On the other hand, Bernini’s own dissatisfaction with the results of his French sojourn mirrors the early shelving of Bernini’s Louvre plans, in 1667. Together with the abandoning of his project for the apse of Santa Maria Maggiore after the election of Clement X Altieri in 1670, the events in France signal the artist’s declining fortunes during the last years of his life.10 In contrast, according to Baldinucci, “great unwavering good fortune” was “enjoyed by Bernini during the long pontificate of Urban.”11 The vite of Bernini, and chapters 5 through 10 of Domenico’s biography in particular, attest to the constant and almost obsessive presence of Maffeo and the other cardinals of the Barberini family in not only Gianlorenzo’s artistic and professional, but also his private and personal life. Maffeo also exercised decisive influence in codifying the imitatio Buonarroti that defined Bernini’s self-image throughout his life.12 The more than twenty-year relationship of esteem and familiarity with Urban VIII deeply marked Bernini, and provided a wealth of memories and anecdotes ready to be called upon during old age. “He is always eager to quote Pope Urban VIII, who loved him and valued his qualities from his earliest years,” wrote Chantelou on 6 June 1665. Surprised at Bernini’s persistent memories of Barberini, the diarist added the day after, “During all our conversations he continually quoted Urban VIII on every kind of subject either to recall some trait of his character that was, he said, the most sensitive and responsive he had ever known, or to show on what intimate terms he had been with him.”13 The compilation of Bernini’s biography began during the artist’s life at his sons’ initiative to stem the crisis of the 1670s. The intent behind the decision to draft a biography was apologetic and defensive,14 and as a result Domenico’s and Baldinucci’s texts are populated with pontiffs, kings, princes, and cardinals, all called upon to testify to the universal esteem in which Gianlorenzo was held. At the same time, the biographies do away with the less “exemplary” men of letters and court members, even if these literati had been entrusted with developing and spreading the ethicalcultural ideas promoted by the same prominently present pontiffs. With



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the important exception of Sforza Pallavicino, whose testimony, however, was admitted into the texts only during the Chigi era, when he became a cardinal in 1659, the biographies do not mention members of the Barberini circle such as Agostino Mascardi and Giovanni Ciampoli. Nevertheless, they helped to shape that fervent cultural environment of the apes urbanae, whose writings probably exercised an important influence on the themes and aesthetics of Bernini’s art.15 Besides the apologetic traits of the biographical agenda, the stress on the absolute primacy of Bernini’s “genius” (more so in Domenico’s Vita than in Baldinucci’s) also helped to erase references to Bernini’s “culture,” to his literary world, and to suggestions from men of letters who worked around him.16 After his father taught him the first rudiments of art, Gianlorenzo had no other teachers beyond “his own genius.” The “liveliness of this genius” emerged not only in his artistic activity but also in his “pointed and ingenious sayings,” which peppered his extremely admired theatrical pieces. The delighted audience supposed that Bernini was indebted to Plautus or Terence, yet, Domenico affirms, Gianlorenzo had never read them and “went ahead by the strength of his genius only.”17 Alexander VII himself, Domenico reminds us, declared himself “amazed” at how Bernini, “with only the strength of his genius, could have, in whatever area of discourse, reached where others had only just arrived after long years of study.” “Without having studied,” noted Chantelou in turn, “he has almost all the advantages with which learning can endow a man.”18 These statements have fed the somewhat simple assumption — previously made about Leonardo—that Bernini was a “man without letters.” However, a recently discovered inventory of books linked to the Bernini family, and particularly to Gianlorenzo and his brother Luigi, begins to suggest what this “ingenious” artist may have read.19 The goal of this essay, therefore, is to present some elements of the vast cultural mosaic that surrounded and stimulated Bernini’s longtime activity, with special attention to the Barberini circles. This mosaic constitutes an intricate web of voices, concealed behind a thick curtain of silence put into place by the selective view of the vite and the distance between the artist’s real culture and that of his biographers.

amphion, truth, and zeuxis’s “old woman”: bernini and mascardi Ann Sutherland Harris attributes two portraits of Agostino Mascardi to Bernini. One is a painting, now lost, which once belonged to Cassiano dal



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fig. 33 Gianlorenzo Bernini, Agostino Mascardi, ca. 1630, black and red chalk with white heightening on paper. École des Beaux-Arts, Paris.

Pozzo. The other is a drawing of 1630, known through another conserved in Paris at the l’École des Beaux-Arts (fig. 33).20 In 1630 Mascardi was forty years old and practically at the height of his fame. In 1622 he had published the Silvae, a volume of Latin poems. In 1624, under the direction of Virginio Cesarini and Ciampoli, he composed Le pompe del Campidoglio, an account of the festivities for the coronation of Urban VIII that outlined the new pontiff’s ethics and aesthetic ideals while voicing the expectations of spiritual and cultural renewal under the Barberini pontificate. In 1625, by now Urban’s cameriere d’onore and main organizer of the Academy promoted by Cardinal Maurizio di Savoia, Mascardi published the Prose vulgari, a collection of discourses and orations. In 1627 his Discorsi morali su la Tavola di Cebete Tebano appeared in Venice. Enjoying the protection of Cardinal Francesco Barberini, in 1628 Mascardi was awarded the chair of Eloquence at La Sapienza, which he held until 1638, two years before his



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death. In 1636 the treatise Dell’arte istorica appeared, probably Mascardi’s most significant book. The work, revitalizing a Ciceronian model, joined the search for truth in historiographic narration to an effective writing of history, making use of refined rhetorical techniques. Already at the center of cultural and academic life in the Rome of Urban VIII, the intellectual figure of Mascardi took on a European dimension during the middle decades of the seventeenth century, as witnessed by the interest of Gabriel Naudé and Nicolas Poussin in the doctrines of Dell’arte istorica.21 In a polemic against the author of Cebetis Tabula, who claims that the liberal arts are no benefit in acquiring virtue, the third part of Mascardi’s Discorsi morali su la Tavola di Cebete Tebano offers a defense of poetry, rhetoric, dialectics and music, arithmetic, geometry, astrology (actually astronomy), Epicurean philosophy (when rightly interpreted), and, finally, criticism, that is, philology. In his defense of criticism, Mascardi emphasizes the importance of the discipline, which aims at restoring works to their true authors, and attempts to reconstruct their true thoughts by integrating and correcting their corrupted writings. Nevertheless, Mascardi is opposed to the sort of “therapeutic obstinacy” that groups of arrogant philologists apply to the venerable texts of the ancients, altering and falsifying them instead of restoring them to their original integrity. In this philologism, Mascardi sees the weakness of the modern mind, which, unable to create its own works, busies itself with minimal restorations of the writings of others. Mascardi discerns similar attitudes in the practices of contemporary sculptors, who were more occupied with restoring the paltry leftovers of antiquity than creating ex nihilo. Exactly at this point Mascardi inserts praise for Bernini, who in his judgment is the only genius still able to give life “to an entire piece of marble.” I have seen many workshops in Rome that at first glance seem to be of excellent sculptors, since on entering one sees there busts, heads, arms, and other broken parts of ancient statues; these, however eroded by time or broken by the ferociousness of barbarians, nevertheless, somehow, in their honored relics, demonstrate their maker’s skill. However, taking a good look around, I never saw an entire piece of marble from which an image could be made, except for the single house of Cavalier Bernini, who in his youth knows how to give life to stones with his chisel better than the fabulous Amphion knew how to with his song. I then realized the reason for the mistake, since those miserable menders of old



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stones, having been abandoned by talent and betrayed by art, impoverished of design and begging for invention, waste their years redoing a nose according to Tropeo’s surgeons, mending an elbow, or attaching a finger, in short, using new marble to patch up decrepit figures.22 In reality, evidence suggests that Bernini did restore “antiques” during the 1620s and 1630s, just as did the other great sculptors of the early seventeenth century, such as Algardi and Duquesnoy.23 Mascardi probably did not ignore the fact that Bernini, too, had mended “old stones” and used “new marble to patch up decrepit figures.” Yet these lines propose an image of Bernini as an artist who is able to create ex nihilo by relying on his own genius, gifted with a creative force visible in an already impressive set of acclaimed masterpieces. The above passage by Mascardi, pointed out by Ezio Raimondi and discussed by Elizabeth Cropper,24 represents an early — if not the first — critical judgment of Bernini’s artistic activity in print. It cannot be excluded that Mascardi’s praise of Bernini’s creative talent was nourished by events from the letterato’s own life, considering that Gianlorenzo may have carved the bust of Virginio Cesarini, Urban VIII’s maestro di camera, for the Palazzo dei Conservatori (fig. 34).25 When Cesarini, not yet twenty-nine, died on 11 April 1624, at the beginning of Urban’s papacy, Mascardi composed a meditative funerary oration that was first read at the Accademia degli Umoristi, which Cesarini had headed, and then collected in Mascardi’s Prose vulgari of 1625.26 Cesarini had been central to the Roman intellectual scene, having earned the esteem of both the Jesuits, especially Robert Bellarmine, and the trust of the circles involved in Galilean science. Already connected to Maffeo Barberini, in 1618 Cesarini entered the Accademia dei Lincei, and quickly became one of the most valued collaborators of its head, Federico Cesi. Cesarini promoted and defended Galileo’s Saggiatore, published in 1623 immediately after the election of Urban VIII as an open letter sent from Galileo to the same Cesarini. A faithful follower of Galileo, yet also an influential member of the new pontiff ’s court, between 1623–24 Cesarini exemplified the reconciliation between the Church and the most advanced scientific and intellectual demands, necessitated by the Copernican condemnation of 1616, but severly disrupted by the trial of Galileo in 1632 and 1633. Considering Bernini’s remarkably precocious activity, it remains difficult to associate the statements in the Discorsi morali to any particular work. The



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fig. 34 Anonymous, Virginio Cesarini, 1624, marble. Sala dei Capitani, Palazzo dei Conservatori, Rome.

allusion to Amphion, the mythological singer whose lyre caused stones to follow him for the construction of the walls of Thebes, is appropriate to sculpture in general. An excellent sculptor, in fact, is one who endows stone with life and movement.27 The theory of a “portrait in movement,” prominent in both biographies, exemplifies what Bernini considered true excellence in sculpture.28 Moreover, Domenico portrays Gianlorenzo as almost “ecstatic” in his tireless work, “emanating a spirit from his eyes to give life to the stones.”29 Nevertheless, the mention of Amphion may refer specifically to the Apollo and Daphne, completed in 1625 (fig. 35). Antonio Bruni, letterato, member of the Accademia degli Umoristi, a correspondent of Marino and quite close to Mascardi himself, also evokes the myth of Amphion together with Orpheus in the madrigal Per la statua di Daphne, ch’è nella villa dell’emintiss. Sig. cardinal Borghese, included in his Veneri of 1633. He links the two mythological characters by virtue of their shared ability to move even trees and rocks with the sweet song of their lyres:



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fig. 35 Gianlorenzo Bernini, Apollo and Daphne, 1622 –25, marble. Galleria Borghese, Rome.

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Praise the beautiful Daphne Sculpted so alive By he who also gives marble both sense and life; Only you can praise her, You, Thracian poet, Theban swan You seem with your odes: Here comes a sovereign sculptor, So that you, new Amphion, newborn Orpheus, From your song to the trophy Draw trees, stones, and rocks, who transforms her From one form to another, And shows her gracious to your lyre, Now transformed into a wail, and now into stone30 Within the madrigal, the praise “new Amphion, newborn Orpheus” (evoked symmetrically as “Thracian poet, Theban swan”) is not addressed to Bernini, who was just as able to give “marble sense and life,” but to the poet who celebrated the artist’s Daphne. Bruni seems to shrewdly suggest a contiguity, almost a collaboration, between the sculptor’s and the poet’s work: if the latter is able to draw “trees and rocks” with his song, the sculptor offers the image of Daphne “now transformed into a wail, and now into stone” to his lyre. In the absence of a comprehensive view of Bernini’s extraordinary poetic reception,31 it remains difficult to identify the poet who sang the praises of the “beautiful Daphne.” While Ludovico Leporeo inserted a poetic description of Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne in the booklet La Villa Borghese, published in Rome in 1628 and dedicated to Cardinal Scipione,32 the allusion might well point to Maffeo Barberini. His famous couplet, actually more “moralizing” than praise, “Whoever, when in love, pursues the delights of a fleeting form / fills his hand with leaves or plucks bitter berries,”33 has recently been shown to probably derive from Petrarch’s sonnet Si traviato è ‘l folle mio desio (The madness of my wish is misled): “Just to reach laurel one gathers / bitter fruit, which wounds others / upon tasting, it afflicts instead of comforting.”34 Maffeo’s Latin couplet could be read on the pedestal of the Apollo and Daphne from March of 1625.35 Bruni himself, moreover, would reuse the same mythological pattern in the madrigal Statua di bronzo di N.S. Urbano VIII. Opera del cavalier Bernini (see fig. 36), also included in his Veneri. Now the poet almost scolds Bernini for having preferred bronze to marble when portraying the pontiff as Jupiter the



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fig. 36 Gianlorenzo Bernini, Tomb of Urban VIII, 1627– 47, mixed media. Saint Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City.

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Thunderer, thus impeding the transfer from sculpture to poetry praised and augured in the other madrigal. If Maffeo “draws with his odes / the most faraway rocks / why then do you not make / sculpture in marbles?”: Why, Bernini, did you sculpt in the thundering metal a breathing image of great Urban? If he draws with his odes the most faraway rocks, why then do you not make sculpture in marbles? Ah, the mystery is quite visible. Of our holy Jupiter, already trembles from terror and fear the proudest Enceladus of Thrace, you are enamored with sculpting therefore the august image, because the hand of Jupiter who rules Heaven wants to thunder from heaven as well.36 Within Bernini’s oeuvre, Truth (fig. 10) commands a special fascination. It is the only finished figure of a group in which, according to Paolo Giordano Orsini’s description of the model, Bernini also intended to portray Time, “who, in flight, fells buildings and the like and discovers Truth.”37 The theme of Truth appears throughout Bernini’s oeuvre.38 Modern historiography, however, following Domenico’s biography, has linked the conception of this particular work to Bernini’s difficulties during the early years of the papacy of Innocent X. In 1646, to the artist’s shame, his bell tower of Saint Peter’s (fig. 37) was demolished. The construction of two bell towers had been planned and authorized by Urban VIII, but a commission installed by the new pontiff judged that the first tower threatened the stability of the basilica’s entire facade.39 According to Domenico, the idea to create the group Truth Revealed by Time for himself and to will it perpetually to his own family was Bernini’s proud response to his being blamed for the failure of the bell tower and his subsequent virtual banishment by the Pamphili pope. Nevertheless, in July of 1648 the pope would promote Gianlorenzo’s project for the Four Rivers Fountain in the Piazza Navona. To let time reveal the truth about one’s work was what Castiglione’s courtier desired as well. The Cortegiano was not only at the Bernini house, as the 1681 inventory reminds us,40 but, as the perfect courtier that emerges from his



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fig. 37 Israel Silvestre, View of Saint Peter’s (showing the south tower and scaffolding in place for the construction of the north tower), ca. 1641– 42, engraving. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, 1917.

biographies, Bernini—whom Chantelou characterized as possessing an “honest assurance”—must have put its lessons to the test daily, in his never-ending meetings with the powerful.41 Castiglione, defending himself against criticism of the literary style of his book, and of his creation of an undoubtedly perfect yet completely utopian courtier, concluded the dedication to Bishop Michel De Silva by invoking the “view of common opinion.” He relied upon the judgment “of time, which uncovers the dark defects of everything in the end and, fathering truth and impassionate judgment, always gives a just sentence of life or death to writings.”42 It is probable that Castiglione was to Gianlorenzo something more than a pale shadow linked to the flourishing of art and literature under the faraway papacy of Leo X de’ Medici. As we learn from Chantelou’s Journal, Bernini seems to have been familiar with the intellectual fellowship among Castiglione, Bembo, and Raphael. In Bernini’s opinion, no painter could compete with Raphael “as regards composition, because,” as Chantelou reports, “he had Bembo and Baldassare Castiglione as his friends and was always able to draw on their knowledge and intellect.”43 The widespread diffusion of the theme “Veritas filia Temporis” (Truth, the daughter of Time) in both iconography and literature is well known.44 This topos, already present in Greek tragedies and in Plutarch,45 then spread through Gellio,46 also appears in Mascardi’s Discorsi morali su la Tavola di



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Cebete Tebano. In his discourse Del pentimento del mal oprare cagionato dalle sciagure (On regretting evil deeds caused by disasters), he sets out to refute an assertion by Massimo Tirio, who claims that “regret,” or “changed thought,” is unbecoming, not only to God but also to great men, whose reputation it seems to lessen. “From this misunderstood sophistry arose obstinacy,” rebuts Mascardi, “especially in great men, who, in order to not confess their errors, sustain mistaken resolutions with authority, deeming it appropriate decorum to their nature not to appear subject to error.” For Mascardi, in contrast, to recognize the error of one’s own behavior does not deserve “rebuke” but praise. “Among mortals second thoughts are, perhaps, wiser,” Euripides had written in Hippolytus,47 and Cicero had repeated, “For the later thoughts, as the saying goes, are usually the wiser” (posteriores enim cogitationes, ut aiunt, sapientores esse solent).48 To correct the false images of truth that continually lay snares along man’s moral and intellectual paths, Mascardi proposes a Plutarchian image of “truth” who is the “daughter of time . . . , because only through lengthy study and years can it be found.”49 In his verses on Truth, Filippo Baldinucci hypothesizes that the sculptor halted his own hand as he stood before the stone destined for the statue of Time in order not to honor unjustly “a cruel tyrant / Who, in destroying, brings about / so many injuries to art and nature.” “Your most lovely works,” the doubtful Bernini would have said to himself, “Fear perhaps the rigor / of his hungry tooth. / But to sue for peace / have you need to do him such an honor?”50 As mentioned above, the model for Truth Revealed by Time, seen by the duke of Bracciano, showed Time, too. The polemic and self-consolatory value of the work first proposed by Domenico suggests that Bernini’s project emphasized the action of unveiling Truth.51 Baldinucci’s comment in verse, instead, transforms Time from a positive element, humanity’s last hope against every injustice and father of Truth, into the more traditional image of Time the devourer, often linked in poetry with the competing theme of poetry’s eternal virtue. Perhaps Baldinucci was aware of another page in Mascardi’s Dell’arte istorica, where the author of Discorsi morali transformed Saturn-Cronus from a figure who generates Truth into someone who tears and devours it, a relentless destroyer of both “memories,” which enable a truthful reconstruction of history, and “marble,” which is corroded and mutilated by the ceaseless attrition of the ages: And because among the things that from place to place and from time to time have been handed down, none more easily corrupts



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than truth, and Saturn, that is, Time, is said to be father of Truth because she, together with his other children, is devoured and consumed; it should come as no surprise that with the length of years truth runs the same risk as those marbles from sumptuous workshops, since at times the statues are missing eyes, an arm, a leg, a head, which are eroded by time, and thus the original knowledge of those trunks are erased and they remain nameless.52 Whether Mascardi’s reflections also contributed to a more or less elaborated aesthetic theory of Bernini himself is difficult, if not impossible, to verify, since the absence of direct testimony from the artist forces us to rely almost exclusively on the biographies. A striking passage from Domenico and Baldinucci exemplifies this problem. “Beyond saying that the painters, who are excellent imitators, were still excellent in art, since they found themselves imitating what was beautiful in art, they really only rendered the objects pleasant and charming to viewers. For example they could turn a loathsome old woman, who in the flesh caused nausea, into someone pleasing if well-painted,” Domenico Bernini writes in the section of chapter 5 that presents Gianlorenzo’s ideas and preferences on painting, and particularly his insistence on the differences between painting and sculpture.53 The passage appears, more tersely formulated, in Baldinucci as well: “He used to say that all the delight of our senses is in imitation. As an example of this he pointed out the great enjoyment that comes from seeing a fine painting of a rancid and loathsome old woman, who in living and breathing flesh would nauseate and offend us.”54 Irving Lavin, in what is probably the most complete attempt at reconstructing the artist’s aesthetic ideas, seems not to have taken this passage into account.55 This omission was, perhaps, not accidental, since it seemingly contradicts Bernini’s advice that “his students love that which was most beautiful in nature. The artist said that the whole point of art consisted in knowing, recognizing, and finding it.”56 For Bernini, then, “art” is, as Lavin summarized, “an imitation of nature in more perfect form.”57 However, following Aristotle’s Poetics (4.1448b.4 –19), the passage on the “rancid and loathsome” old woman who nevertheless pleases in paint centers on imitation itself, detaching it from the model it began with. On the other hand, these statements seem to subtend Bernini’s practice of “caricature,” where he did not intend to faithfully portray natural ugliness, but, as Domenico writes, to “deform, in jest, the images of others, in those parts where in some way nature had been wanting.”58



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How to connect the “loathsome old woman,” of Domenico, or the “rancid and loathsome old woman,” in Baldinucci, to the other aesthetic statements attributed to Bernini invokes the problem, mentioned above, of whether the indirect testimonies contained in the biographies allow us to discuss a coherent art theory attributable to the artist. It cannot be excluded that in Bernini’s times the example of the horrible old woman’s beautiful portrait had become a topos that circulated orally within a circle of virtuosi. Nevertheless, it should be noted that the topos was explicitly dealt with in Mascardi’s Discorsi morali, in the same third section that praised Bernini, at the conclusion of the defense Della poesia. Closely following the unstated source for his apologue, Mascardi here inserts the horrible yet delightful portrait into the mythological catalogue of Zeuxis, amplifying in turn, with an elaborate list, the unpleasant physical details of the old woman’s face. Mascardi’s source was the Compendium of De verborum significatione by Festus, a work firmly rooted within the humanist tradition, edited by Paolo Diacono and subjected to the rigorous philology of Giuseppe Scaligero (1565) and Fulvio Orsini (1581), to cite two famous examples: One day Zeuxis set out to paint an ugly old woman. He employed all the efforts of art. He made her with a nose that was neither whole nor sharp, but runny, crooked, with teary eyes, a puss with a dog-like mouth, such that it made your stomach churn. Nevertheless there had never been seen a bigger miracle in painting, so much so that, sitting down to consider the work of his brushes, he burst out in such unstoppable laughter that he ridiculously died. What more could he have done in this world, having reached the limits of excellence in art with his work? . . . For certain it is in that old woman that this great man’s fame lives more youthfully than ever, and to this day it can be said that even if that work was not beautiful in nature, since it had many defects, it was quite beautiful in art.59

sacred poetics and christian “fasti”: bernini and barberini culture During the final years of Paul V’s papacy and the brief reign of Gregory XV, Bernini continued to treat with brilliant versatility both sacred and profane subjects. As Preimesberger observed, a visitor to the Casino in Scipione Borghese’s villa on the Pincio would have seen Bernini’s David (fig. 19) in



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the first room and his Apollo and Daphne (fig. 35) in the last. These works were made almost simultaneously.60 The cultural project of the subsequent pontiff, Urban VIII, aimed to recuperate moral and religious themes for the imitative arts by establishing a classicizing formal rigor. This project may have influenced Bernini’s artistic choices. As Preimesberger wrote, “Bernini’s David, with the lyre at his feet, seems to be not only an academic piece following Leonardo, and not only an ideal reconstruction of the Discobolus, but also the reflection of a struggle between opposing cultural positions, of an ecclesiastic ‘Kulturkampf.’”61 The importance of Giovanni Ciampoli’s poetic treatise Poetica sacra is now becoming recognized by Bernini scholars,62 even if the dialogue in verses between Poetry and Devotion, posthumously published in 1648 by Sforza Pallavicino, still awaits a comprehensive study.63 In the Poetica sacra Devotion reproaches Poetry for its tenacious adhesion to the stale themes of love, recalling how ancient poetry had often celebrated moral and religious virtues. Devotion similarly invites Poetry to no longer select its subject matter from mythology, but from Holy Scripture and the hagiographic tradition, no less wonderful stories and, unlike the tales of the ancients, true as well. If mythology presents us with Amphion, the sound of whose lyre built the walls of Thebes, Scripture remind us that the walls of Jericho were demolished by the sound of trumpets. Again, if the archangel Michael can equally claim all the warrior virtues of Mars, Phaethon has a worthy equivalent in Joshua, who halts the sun, and the myth of Deucalion in the story of Noah.64 Compared to this fertile “poetry of heaven,” Parnassus only produces sterile laurel, “which is only abundant with leaves,” observes Devotion, not unlike the couplet that Maffeo composed for the Apollo and Daphne. Further ahead, Poetry is constrained to confess, like Maffeo’s verses, that only “bitter fruit sprouts from laurel.”65 Nevertheless, the Poetica sacra appears to propagate only “substitutions”; in reality, the attempt to radically substitute the myths with subjects taken from Scripture or hagiography was limited to prohibiting the contamination of true and false deities, or mythology and sacred history. “Infallible edict / O Muse, I beseech you to enact / do not expose me to the vulgar / never Christ and Jupiter in the same writing.”66 If there are in the churches “only of true divinities / faces depicted in marble and canvas,” explains Devotion, “the admired lunacy of Argive dreams” can honestly reign in places of pleasure. Similarly, serious writings necessarily deal with true deities, but playful verses can make use of the myths as well, as long as dangerous contaminations are avoided: “At times in odes, where amusement



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resides / introducing various images / of deities, false or sacred / freedom is granted.”67 This is as if to say that there is no real conflict in David residing in the same villa as Apollo and Daphne. In any case, Devotion explains further, it would be excessively severe to uproot the names of the days of the week or the planets, seeing that a “long usage” has by now transformed the names of the gods of antiquity into common words. More generally speaking, the Poetica sacra authorizes the widespread reuse of the classical heritage, both in literature, placing the precious resources of poetics and rhetoric at the service of the true religion, and in the figurative and architectural arts, where statues and altars once dedicated to mythic gods are called upon to adorn the true religion’s places of worship, just like the Pantheon was converted into a Christian church and the very faces of Saints Peter and Paul “depicted in bronze and gold” were taken “from ancient buildings.”68 As Ciampoli would reaffirm in his Modo giovevole per servirsi ancora della letteratura profana (Advantageous ways to still make use of profane literature), included in his Prose, posthumously published by Pallavicino in 1649, the accumulated treasures of the ancient writers are so vast and precious that it is essential to graft and reutilize ancient wisdom with Christian purposes, “and it will not be idolatry to adore the true God in that transfigured material, while the same bronze that was Jupiter on the Capitoline now depicts Peter and is worshipped at the Vatican.”69 The argument from the Poetica sacra that fundamentally concerns Bernini is Devotion’s attempt to convince Poetry that imitation always implies invention, regardless of whether its subject is taken from mythology or sacred history. What counts, in fact, are “new appearances,” and the formal revision of the theme, not the initially imitated facts. Originality is therefore shifted from the plane of inventio to that of elocutio, the level of formal solutions. Titian and Raphael are still great painters when they no longer portray mythological subjects, Ciampoli declares, and everyone admires, he continues—with an argument not unrelated to Bernini’s own imitatio Buonarroti—Michelangelo’s immense creative freedom in depicting the Last Judgment. “Certainly the brush of the Arno / decorating admired walls at the Vatican / with an imitating right hand / did not desire in vain / when he colored truth, the palm of invention. / With new appearances / truth-like trophies / you know with what talent he feigned where / the judging Lord strikes the wicked.”70 In the Poetica sacra, moreover, Ciampoli, enumerating recent “festivals” of Christian Rome such as the election of Urban VIII or the opening of the Jubilee of 1625, celebrates the temple with which papal Rome rivaled imperial Rome in its splendor,



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partly thanks to the columns of Bernini’s Baldacchino, unveiled in June 1627 (fig. 32): From [the] unbelievable spaciousness of a consecrated abode rises to a supreme height, almost a hollow mountain, with great arches along its back [the] golden cupola with a bright front. Of marbles varied and white shine their feet [the] eastern hardness and arming their sides the travertine rock spurns age. Yet where can I leave you, golden bronzes, to whose won glories Corinth cedes its ancient palms? If it was already seen [that] with two columns at sea to the spread sea vessels Alcides placed the limits, here of the great temple in majestic part four columns of rare amazement almost at art’s limit, from magnanimous Urban raise themselves to Heaven.71 No records have survived of a relationship between Bernini and Ciampoli. Such a relationship is, however, probable, considering that Ciampoli was secretary of papal briefs to Urban VIII from 1623 to 1632 and played a central role within the Barberini circle. The relationship between Bernini and Pallavicino during the years of Alexander VII has been documented by Tomaso Montanari and Maarten Delbeke, but we have no proof that such ties date back to the pontificates of Urban VIII and Innocent X. That the biographies, too, offer no hint of such connections might be explained in a number of ways. The biographies suggest that Bernini enjoyed constant prosperity and success during the more than twenty-year reign of Urban. However, the Barberini papacy itself seems divided between a first and second decade, with a tipping point in 1632, when a case was built against Galileo’s publication of the Massimi sistemi (Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems). In the same year, Urban entered into a bitter conflict with Cardinal Gaspare Borgia, head of the Spanish faction



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in the consistory, who caused a diplomatic crisis by accusing the pontiff of a lack of commitment in the struggle against Protestants and of practically conspiring with France against imperial interests.72 Both factors were probably behind Ciampoli’s exile in November 1632, since he was a valiant defender of Galileo and the Massimi sistemi and was accused by the pope of having hidden agreements with the Spanish faction.73 In all probability, the same factors led Sforza Pallavicino to distance himself from Rome as well, since he was close to Ciampoli and also a member of the Lincei. Between 1632 and 1636 he was the governor of Jesi, Orvieto, and Camerino.74 In contrast with Ciampoli, who died in Jesi in 1643 without ever having set foot again in Rome, Pallavicino returned there in 1636. The year after he made the quite controversial decision of entering the Society of Jesus.75 Pallavicino was soon teaching at the Collegio Romano, but he did not publish anything between 1636 and 1644, that is, until after the death of Urban VIII.76 This suggests that his return to Rome had not been unconditional. That Pallavicino however continued to write, in anticipation of better times, is suggested by the astounding rate of Pallavicino’s publications in the five years after 1644, during which his most significant writings came to light.77 Furthermore, in 1651 Innocent X gave Pallavicino the task of responding to Paolo Sarpi’s Istoria del concilio tridentino, and the two volumes of Pallavicino’s Storia del Concilio di Trento appeared in 1656 and 1657, at the beginning of Fabio Chigi’s pontificate.78 So while the election of Innocent X saw Bernini the “Barberinian” suddenly cast aside to the point of undergoing the humiliation of seeing his bell tower of Saint Peter’s demolished, it allowed Pallavicino to return fully to Roman cultural life. Moreover, Pallavicino’s dramatic re-emergence appears to have coincided with Bernini’s most intense crisis, during the early years of the new pontificate. This dichotomy between Bernini’s and Pallavicino’s fortunes can at least partly explain, I believe, why the biographies wait for the Chigi era, after Sforza had become a cardinal, to stage the first learned conversation between Gianlorenzo and Pallavicino, at a court of cardinals and in the presence of the pontiff himself. Considering the apologetic intent of the vite, only this historical climate was worthy of depiction. Pallavicino, who first edited the Poetica sacra in 1648, certainly shared its ideas. He also put into practice what Ciampoli had theorized. In his Fasti sacri, an octameter “poem” which placed the structure of Ovid’s Fasti at the service of the new religion, he proposed celebrating, month by month, the main Christian feast days. The Fasti were never completely published, but are known through an anthology edited by Stefano Pignatelli and published



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in 1686 with a dedication to Christina of Sweden, that also included some of Ciampoli’s poetry.79 The selection of the Fasti sacri published there covers the first six months of the year and ends with the feast of Saint Peter, allowing Pallavicino, too, to celebrate the Baldacchino. Its columns represent, as in Ciampoli’s verses, the insurmountable limit, the Herculean pillars of art, and every human magnificence: Now here, Urban, prepare your gazes to contemplate with pleasure the admirable works from your hand; four columns, actually more golden towers, here art learns to conquer both nature and age, her ancient imitators; these columns give the feast its limit, even a great king cannot go beyond them.80 The Fasti sacri present us with an interesting bibliographical problem. Pallavicino’s papers in the Biblioteca Casanatense in Rome hold a suddenly interrupted imprint containing the complete version of the first two cantos of the Fasti sacri, an introduction and the section on feast days of January. Each canto has introductions in prose, and the whole is introduced by a Discorso intorno al seguente poema (Discourse concerning the following poem).81 These sections in prose are absent from the edition of 1686. What matters for the present argument is that these prose sections explicitly deal with ideas of a “religious” reform in the imitative arts, which consequently could have reached Bernini not just through Ciampoli, but also through Pallavicino, a key interlocutor in Domenico’s biography. In the Discorso intorno al seguente poema, Pallavicino urges modern writers to distance themselves from mythological subjects that were no longer in harmony with Christian culture, and to end that painful division that made them seem “idolaters in writing, and Christians in mind.” Pallavicino, like Ciampoli, characterizes Maffeo Barberini as a decisive turning point, at first the leader and then the generous patron of those men of letters who wished to reconcile literature with an age of Christian civilization.82 The point in the Fasti sacri that most concerns Bernini is that Religion, after having triumphed over false gods, reassures Pleasure, which was a bit distressed by the new queen’s severe manner. In an argument that recalls the Poetica sacra Religion maintains, in the introduction to the first canto, “that having been the one who came to bless the human race, she will not prohibit any of the pleasures that are not the fruit of vice or the root of



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greater harm.”83 She hopes, therefore, that Pleasure brings the treasures of India, the wax of Ibla, the incense of Arabia, the marble of Africa, and the cedars of Lebanon to adorn the churches. She commands excellent painters and sculptors to portray sacred history, and music to celebrate the divine offices and various displays during the Forty Hours devotion, in processions, in consecrating churches, and in the famous celebrations of Holy Years. These intentions are repeated in these terms in the 146th octameter of the first canto in Fasti sacri: I will raise up more than one modern Apelles, who will amaze future centuries: who will render the colors of iris and stars obscure through the art of a brush. From the eternal hand more beautiful works will be painted on consecrated walls: in marble from Paro and Numidia the art of Phidias will sculpt sacred histories.84 In octameter 73 of canto 1, moreover, Pallavicino invites poets to cease glorifying ancient myths, like Ovid’s untruthful claims about the powers of Medea’s magic potions to return life and youth to the “old extinct members” of Aeson, Jason’s father.85 In the hour of death a Christian has much better hope of “a new immortal life,” by grace of the blood shed by Christ at the sacrifice of the cross: Be silent in praising, o untruthful Parnassus, the magical liquor used by the impious Medea; which to the old extinct members in a warm jar gave life, and restored the flower of youth. Good goes to the servants of Christ beyond death new immortal life is created in heaven, by virtue of that blessed humor, that came from the heart of Jesus crucified.86 In the treasury of Saint-Denis, gazing at the reliquary allegedly containing the blood of Christ, Bernini stated, according to Chantelou, “that the blood was the relic of relics.”87 And one can point to Bernini’s famous designs for the Sangue di Cristo (Blood of Christ), or Sangue sparso (Spilled blood), from around 1670, engraved by François Spierre (fig. 38), which



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Bernini had placed in front of his bed during the final days of his own life. This act exemplified a wise ars moriendi (the art of dying), according to Irving Lavin, in the belief that “the goodness of God being infinite, and infinite being the merit of the precious blood of his son, it was an offence to these attributes to doubt mercy,” and that “in this sea his sins are drowned.”88 It can also be observed that meditating over the redeeming effects of the blood of Christ represents a thematic core in Michelangelo’s Rime. These were first published in 1623, edited by the artist’s nephew of the same name, and dedicated to the then Cardinal Maffeo Barberini.89 As comparison with Guardi’s modern edition makes clear, Buonarroti’s edition of the Rime is completely unreliable.90 But this was the only edition available to Bernini, and in it he would have been able to read, in the sonnet “Forse perché d’altrui pietà mi vegna” (Perhaps so pity for others will come over me), an eloquent tercet: “May your flesh, your blood, and that ultimate pain which killed you cancel the sin / in which both I and my father were born.”91 There he also would have seen the concluding tercet of the sonnet “Mentre m’attrista e duol, parte m’è caro” (While it saddens and pains me, I hold dear in part) also touched upon the same subject: “And yet your blood seems to give us understanding / that, just as there was no equal to your suffering, / so, too, there’s no limit to your precious gifts.”92 Above all, the entire sonnet “Scarco d’una importuna e greve salma” (Relieved of a troublesome and heavy corpse) seems evocative of Bernini’s devotion to the sanguis Christi in his old age: Relieved of a troublesome and heavy corpse, eternal Lord, and set free from the world, as a fragile boat, tired, I turn to you, from the frightful tempest toward sweet calm. Your thorns and your nails and both of your palms, and your benign, humble, and merciful face, promise to my unhappy soul the grace of deep repentance and hope of salvation. May your holy eyes not look upon my fault with justice alone, nor your sacred ear to hear it, and may your stern arm not stretch out to it. May your blood wash my impious habit and the older I grow, the more may it overflow with ever-ready aid and full forgiveness.93



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fig. 38 Francois Spierre after Gianlorenzo Bernini, Sangue di Christo, ca. 1670, engraving.

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“new stars” and lively flies: pallavicino, bernini, and the new science There are good reasons to see the Chigi era as an almost natural continuation of Urban VIII’s papacy, after the parenthesis of the Pamphili pontificate. Similarities abound: both pontiffs were poets of considerable fame, and they surrounded themselves with literati who in turn formed a distinct cultural salon.94 Furthermore, Alexander VII also continued Urban’s architectural patronage with renewed vigor, relying heavily on the genius of Bernini. Nevertheless, Alexander VII’s pontificate seems to have lacked the strong incentive for the innovative scientific debate ignited by Galileo and scholars at the Lincei during Urban’s reign. This debate involved the pontiff’s closest collaborators, who were urged to rethink the relationship between the “two cultures” of humanism and science on many different levels, including their literary choices.95 On the other hand, Virginio Cesarini’s Carmina, two volumes of Latin and vernacular poetry, first time came to light in 1658, at the height of the Chigi era.96 However, Cesarini’s poetry was introduced by a Virginii Caesarini vita written by Agostino Favoriti, one of Alexander VII’s closest collaborators. As I have tried to show elsewhere, this biography systematically devalued the Lincei experience of Urban’s old cameriere segreto, to the point of insinuating that Virginio’s enrollment at the Accademia dei Lincei was due to the “undue influence” of Federico Cesi and Galileo on a curious, yet inexperienced young man.97 If Favoriti’s biography expresses the official position of the Chigi literati with respect to the Lincei and the reckless theories of Galileo, Pallavicino’s statements concerning Galileo and his Copernican beliefs —both those published in the Vindicationes Societatis Iesu of 1649 and those contained in his private correspondence—indicate his constant involvement with the new doctrines. These were never rejected a priori but always rationally examined and carefully compared with traditional science.98 Also Pallavicino’s reflections on style and rhetoric, fully developed in the definitive edition of his Trattato dello stile e del dialogo of 1662, seems to reflect the syntactic and “verbal behaviors” of Galilean prose, although it is probably too much to state that “Sforza Pallavicino belongs to that important group of people who were able— during the seventeenth century and beyond—to reconcile a true religious faith and a sincere respect for the Church with an intellectual adherence to the new science and admiration of Galileo.”99 If many of Pallavicino’s pages publicly or privately espouse esteem and admiration for Galileo, the evidence at our disposal sketches Pallavicino’s relationship



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with the new science not as much as one of reconciliation and adhesion, but more as one of doubt and anxiety. The figure of Carlo Roberti de’ Vittori (1605–1673) is well known to Bernini scholars. Papal nuncio to Paris during Bernini’s journey to France in 1665, then made cardinal in 1667, Carlo Roberti carried out quite important diplomatic work in the difficult preparation for the artist’s grand tour.100 He was also the correspondent to whom Pallavicino confided his scientific uncertainties. They had a lively debate, for example, over questions such as de certitudine mathematicarum, which was absolutely vital toward understanding the “realistic” features of the new shape of the universe that Galileo was sketching.101 One of Pallavicino’s letters to Roberti in Paris immerses us in this climate of debate, theories, and attempts to capture a never entirely grasped truth. In it, Pallavicino, after having expressed his doubts about a number of Galilean experiments conducted at the Accademia del Cimento, reaffirms the hypothetical nature of each astronomical system in line with Saint Thomas: With regard to the system of the world, Saint Thomas spoke better than anyone, advising us that astronomers did not intend to prove that this or that system were true, but only that the appearances we see are not opposed to them, being able to find innumerable other possible systems that do not equally contradict them. Which of these be true, those who are in Heaven know, not we worms, who are thousands of miles away from them, who change the system according to new appearances that crop up. Who could, living in Genoa and not having any information about Corsica except that which he saw through a telescope, dare to know how to describe it? And yet this daring would be much less, since it concerns something much closer and much smaller.102 This letter seems to recall the words that Cardinal Bellarmine used to close his response to Federico Cesi’s letter De caeli unitate of 1618, the latter’s arduous attempt to reopen, on the basis of numerous scriptural and patristic examples, the Copernican question after the condemnation of 1616: “Let us try, my Lord, to live with the holy fear of God, so much so that we reach Heaven, where at that point in time we will clarify everything.”103 Yet if these lines “may seem an easy fideistic ‘closing,’” they may also express “Bellarmine’s drama as a man of faith who harbors uncertainties in reconciling



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Scripture with the ‘new science’ on its way to confirmation.”104 Pallavicino’s letter seems to adopt a similar attitude. Here, however, the suspension of judgment seems not to have been inspired by theological or religious scruples, much less by institutional prohibitions, than by the perception that man can only glimpse minimal and mostly unrelated sparks of truth about the marvelous complexity of the universe’s architecture. Even the reference to the telescope, a truly modern instrument and almost a metaphor for the new science in itself, is ambiguous. 105 While the telescope is undoubtedly insufficient to determine the true structure of the world, it nevertheless allows some knowledge of completely unknown, if not invisible, objects. While imperfect and approximate, it aids man in his investigation of truth. Pallavicino does not hesitate, in fact, to subject even the most guarded mysteries of faith to modern instruments. For example, he proposed, once again in a letter to Roberti from 1658, to verify “scientifically” the proclaimed eucharistic miracle by observing a fragment of host through a microscope: I would think that, for the fulfillment of the other procedures, you could have brought from Rome (where they have an excellent artificer) one of those eyeglasses that, using the Greek word, they call “microscopes,” that is, eyeglasses for tiny things, and have the maker write the manner in which they are to be used. Seeing that this instrument incredibly enlarges an object, and as a result, renders visible everything impressed in little pieces of host, and, when these are seen to match what happens in other similar pieces of uncorrupted host, we will be able to consider whether those relics are likewise uncorrupted.106 In light of this evidence, Affò’s judgment of Pallavicino’s attitude toward the new science still appears valid: “Therefore he took the good laws and the true method of investigating truth from the ancient school of Aristotle, and from the moderns he chose that new light that was aided by what experience had discovered, thus making it all an extremely useful compound of eclectic philosophy.”107 The only reference to Galileo related to Bernini forms part of a written and possibly recited dialogue between the artist and Lelio Guidiccioni, a man of letters whose poetry contributed significantly to the establishment of Bernini’s myth.108 Probably dating to the autumn of 1633,109 the dialogue enacts a little debate between Guidiccioni, whose stays faithful to Renaissance classicist theory of imitation, and Bernini, who tends to embrace



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novelty for its own sake and veers from the paths established by the ancients. “Nevertheless,” objects Gianlorenzo to his conversation partner, “you could even say that not everything has been discovered up to now, and that there is always a new region to discover: either in Heaven, with new stars and spots, or on earth, with new provinces, new trades, new inventions, bells, artillery, printed matter, what do I know? Whatever has been, the same will be. The world turns, and in turning in such a large circle it stimulates geniuses, and prizes of special glory are given to the discoverers of new things.” In his response, Guidiccioni guides the discussion back to reassuring tradition, reaffirming that the modern path is in reality always that traced by the ancients, even if the moderns think that they are discovering new things. So those discoverers of “celestial novelties,” like those of unknown lands or new instruments, have not really opened a new path but rather utilized the knowledge supplied by the men of previous generations.110 Moon spots, obvious symptoms of the fragility of the Ptolemaic and Aristotelian construction founded on the clear distinction between heavenly and earthly physics, were certainly present in Gianlorenzo’s artistic training, perhaps back when his father Pietro was involved in the decoration of the Pauline Chapel in Santa Maria Maggiore. At the end of 1612, Cigoli painted a Galilean moon at the Virgin’s feet in the cupola of the chapel, in timely vividness, unusually distinct in its light and shadow.111 Moreover, the church of Santa Maria Maggiore continued to remain at the center of Gianlorenzo’s life, as it was the site of the Bernini family tomb.112 And if the record of Gianlorenzo’s statements to Guidiccioni in the dialogue contains any historical truth, it is certainly significant that Bernini did not hesitate to put forward “new stars and spots” just after Galileo was condemned. In the absence of documentary proof it appears rash to attempt to establish how Pallavicino’s epistemological doubts filtered through the conversations that he entertained with Gianlorenzo on a frequent and— especially during the pontificate of Fabio Chigi—probably daily basis. Yet by subtly referencing texts that were well known at the time, but much less so now, we may be able to retrieve some indications of Galileo’s relation to Bernini or Pallavicino. In the first book of Arte della perfezion cristiana (Rome, 1665), Pallavicino lays out the “reasons that make clear to every intellect why God is the creator of the universe,” to oppose the doctrines of Epicurus and Democritus, then spread by Lucretius, which negated the existence of a creative mind and placed nature and chance at the base of every operation.113 The operations that we observe daily in the universe far outweigh man’s most perfect



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creations, Pallavicino infers, and yet we cannot nurture a single doubt that “the various human works, buildings, paintings, engravings” proceed from a methodical and regulating mind. If this can be stated, “so much more,” observes Pallavicino, “does this reasoning force us to concede that there is an invisible mind that had the idea and knows what it is doing in this immense, majestic world.” Just as no one would dream of declaring that Michelangelo’s masterpieces were the fruit of chance and not of a wise, planned intent, so much more serious is the “madness” that supposes that the infinite creations of the world spring from chance instead of from the “highest mind.” “And in truth,” Pallavicino illustrates, “how much more artifice can be discerned, I will not say in this always-wound watch of the world, but in a pomegranate, or a sweet orange, than in all the figures of Michelangelo?” And after having declared the superiority of whichever simple fruit produced by nature in comparison to the most perfect works of Michelangelo, Pallavicino repeats the same concept by drawing from a personal memory involving Bernini: I remember that one day, being in the presence of our excellent Pope Alexander, the Cavalier Lorenzo Bernini, the greatest sculptor of our age, had a statue brought with him in which he carved with wondrous art the image of His Holiness; I, after having given the work its worthy praise, with the goal of reviving the pontiff from the annoying heat, which was fervent because of the season and the hour, hoped to somewhat raise the discussion [in such a manner that] I esteem worthy of the elevated ingenuity of our Prince. Whereupon I added, “And yet, Signor Bernini, this image of Pope Alexander that you have made with inestimable skill, how less like him it is, in its visible form, than that fly circling around?” Which was immediately recognized as true by the pontiff, and soon after by Bernini, who was a man of quick and sharp wit; because all the more resembling to the body of any man is the body of any dissimilar animal, because of the organization of its members that all sensitive beings generally share, than a mass of stone that had been only shaped on its exterior surface.114 The Arte della perfezion cristiana appeared during a period when Bernini and Pallavicino were particularly close. Pallavicino was an able, yet also discreet and respectful, director of Gianlorenzo’s French adventure. During Bernini’s stay in Paris, the artist, through his son Pier Filippo, sent precious



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gifts to the cardinal, including a drawing of Alexander VII and a bronze crucifix, tangible signs of the friendship and gratitude that also appear to emanate from the cited passage of Arte della perfezion cristiana.115 Pallavicino’s anecdote offers vivid testimony to a personal and intellectual closeness, and, as such, it contains many elements that would have pleased Bernini. Defined as the “greatest sculptor of our age,” and then later “a man of quick and sharp wit,” not only Gianlorenzo’s singular and specific artistic abilities were being recognized, but more generally his gifts of intellectual vigor. The context of the event, in the company of a pope and cardinal, was certainly nothing to be ashamed of. Yet above all Bernini must have been pleased with the implicit comparison between himself and Michelangelo, even if both were defeated by the simplest living creations of nature. However, both served as examples of the many perfect things that can spring from the mind, even before the hands, of an artist. The anecdote reappears, with notable differences, in Domenico’s Vita, in the chapter that offers a number of examples to demonstrate “the esteem of Alexander VII, and that of the Roman court, toward the Cavaliere.”116 Domenico had the pontiff attest to Bernini’s natural “strength of genius,” while Pallavicino defined him as a “phoenix of the ingenious ones” at the conclusion of a lively exchange.117 Alexander VII and Cardinal Pallavicino, the latter an illustrious representative of the “court,” also both appear in Domenico’s rewriting of the anecdote of the fly: And one time an event occurred that is certainly worthy of a tale in all respects. Having finished at table, a number of painted and drawn portraits of the pontiff were presented to him that had been made by the most distinguished professors of Rome. Some of the portraits were of him in profile, some face-on, some of him seated, some of him standing. The greatest virtuosi of Rome were at the time used to attending and surrounding the prince, who cherished their conversation as noble and delightful distraction from his chores, which was just as noble as it was delightful. Among these were always Cardinal Sforza Pallavicino and our cavalier Bernini. Now at the appearance of the portraits mentioned above, each gave his opinion of which seemed most similar to the original, who was present there. By chance a fly happened to turn up on the pope’s table, and as soon as he saw it, Bernini said, “This is more similar in strength and beauty than any mute portrait by an extremely talented painter.” Alexander and Pallavicino, who penetrated the



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cavalier’s profound insight right away, applauded immediately at what he said. The philosophical explanations that were then deduced by the cardinal in a long address were quite noble, and demonstrated the uniformity of motion, the position of the parts, the proportion of operations, and the sensibility of external and internal organs, which in principle made that tiny living animal and that living monarch much more similar than any other senseless canvas of well-arranged, yet dead, colors.118 Almost a half century after the Arte della perfezion cristiana, Domenico, without citing his source, introduced a number of variants in the story, redistributing the main characters’ parts, and decontextualizing the passage from Pallavicino. Here, not the cardinal, but Bernini himself, is credited with the subtle consideration of the fly’s greater perfection, while Pallavicino is given the task of systematically explaining the accuracy of the artist’s witty observation. However, what counts most is that the superiority of the fly is confirmed not with regard to Bernini’s statue of Alexander, but rather compared to “painted and drawn portraits . . . made by the most distinguished professors of Rome.” The fly, Domenico repeats in his biographic tale, was much more similar to the pope “than any mute portrait by an extremely talented painter,” even if it was created with “well-arranged, yet dead, colors.” Perhaps incapable of understanding the refined implications that tinged Pallavicino’s passage, or perhaps preoccupied with restoring his father’s wavering fame with simple and direct examples, Domenico omitted the cardinal’s highest praise for Bernini’s art. As has been noted, Pallavicino’s praise did not fit into the fabric of Domenico’s Vita, where Gianlorenzo’s greatness is defined, almost obsessively, by his extraordinary ability to give life to stone, to create “breathing” portraits and statues. Perhaps knowingly establishing a comparison between the arts, Domenico considers the fly more similar to Alexander VII with respect to the painters’ silent portraits, yet certainly not to the lively statues by Bernini, the new Amphion and newborn Orpheus.119 Pallavicino’s version in the Arte della perfezion cristiana is most likely true.120 Since the artist was still alive in 1665, and with the presence of an extremely authoritative witness, the cardinal could have never publicly appropriated a shrewd observation if it were really Bernini’s. Furthermore, as Chantelou’s diary attests, in those years Bernini seemed to perceive quite clearly the limits of his own art and, more generally, of any imitative



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product. He even joked about his abilities to render his works living and speaking (“The Cavalier said that another two sittings would suffice; however, if the king wished to come more often, the portrait would not only resemble him, it would speak”).121 Yet when Colbert praised the extraordinary similarity of the bust of Louis XIV, so as to warrant comparison to the king of flesh and blood, Bernini, according to Chantelou, could only respond to him “that it was always unfair to compare a piece of sculpture or even a painting, which has the advantage of natural coloring, with the living thing, which possesses life and movement.”122 Bernini obviously had no difficulty admitting that each sculpture could not compete with an original endowed with life and movement. Paradoxically, Pallavicino declared that a fly, exactly because it is supplied with life and movement, was more similar to Alexander than the statue portraying Alexander that Bernini had admirably sculpted. It does not seem to have been noticed that Pallavicino’s brilliant paradox is perhaps based on a passage from Galileo’s Massimi sistemi, at the end of the first day, just before the famous “intensive-extensive” distinction that would be targeted by ecclesiastical censorship. Before launching into praise of human understanding, which, through the mathematical method, is able to reach at God’s universal and intuitive certainty of knowledge, however with great difficulty and in limited fields, and before numbering the marvelous arts and inventions, topped by writing, that spring from man’s genius, Galileo recognizes the need to balance his undoubtedly bold argument. He recalls the infinitely superior power and wisdom of the “divine omnipotence” that manifests itself in the most simple workings of nature, “to the point,” judges the interlocutor Sagredo, “that divine knowledge is infinite times infinite.” Confirming this conclusion, his partner Salviati weighs in with an example as well: Do we not say that the art of discovering a beautiful statue in a block of marble has elevated the genius of Michelangelo far, far above the ordinary minds of other men? Yet this work is nothing but the copying of a single attitude and position of the external and superficial members of one motionless man. Then what is it in comparison with a man made by Nature, composed of so many members, external and internal, of so many muscles, tendons, nerves, bones, that serve so many and such diverse motions? And what shall we say of the senses, of spiritual power, and finally of the understanding? May we not rightly say that the making of a



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statue yields by an infinite amount to the formation of a live man, even to the formation of the lowest worm?123 The concluding line loses most of its paradoxical content if we consider that in 1624 Galileo sent Federico Cesi a microscope that he himself had perfected, inviting Cesi to observe with the instrument the wonderful anatomy of the most minute “little animals,” such as “the flea,” “the mosquito,” and “the moth,” with the goal of “infinitely contemplating the greatness of nature and how subtly she works and with how much indescribable diligence.”124 It cannot be excluded, also, that Galileo’s argument may have filtered into Arte della perfezion cristiana through Ciampoli. In his Prose, in a discourse exalting the perfection of the human body as a matchless work of God, Ciampoli had maintained the inferiority of each perfect sculpture with respect to the live richness of the human body. He emphasized forcefully, closely following the page from Massimi sistemi, how sculpture is not able to go beyond the exterior surface of the complex machine of the body, nor enter into the changing multitude of thoughts and dreams: Sculpture’s privilege is incomparable over every other art. In this respect the first title in the created world that could be applied to God is that of Sculptor, who wished that there would first be a clay statue rather than a man of flesh. Yet how much, how much different is the work of the omnipotent than that of art? What do the images of sculpture have to do with those originals from nature? . . . I saw in an anatomy chart, separately delineated, five internal people, who unite inside an external person to form an entire man: one of bones, one of muscles, one of veins, one of arteries, one of nerves. These five, embraced and entwined together, naturally live under the surface of the skin, administering themselves with their own ability and helping each other for their common preservation. Now of these six people, sculpture imitates only the exterior, and of that, only its most simple features. I know then, that the movement of the heart, the distribution of blood, the agility of the spirit, and the nourishment of it are all left to be desired in a cut stone! I will omit the abyss of thoughts, the school of speculations, let alone the chaos of dreams. Innumerable things, because of which, a living head will never accept to be mirrored in a sculpted head.125



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That the fly from Arte della perfezion cristiana quite probably evolved, perhaps by way of Ciampoli, from the “lowest worm” mentioned in the Massimi sistemi, is not only suggested by the similar argument, but above all by the common reference to Michelangelo. So even in anxious times, seemingly hostile toward the new science, the Massimi sistemi could have still provided the material for a brilliant dialogue between the greatest artist of his age, a cardinal trained at the Lincei, and a certainly curious pope. In the inventory of books at the Bernini house, we find three Galilean texts: a manuscript of Mecaniche, an early work; Discorsi e dimostrazione matematiche intorno a due nuove scienze, published in Leiden in 1638; and above all the prohibited Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo.126 The motivation for owning these volumes can be attributed equally to Gianlorenzo and his brother Luigi Bernini, an accomplished mathematician who was familiar with the problems of hydraulics and an able inventor of machines. Yet it seems likely that among the cunning puns on the Arabic Phoenix—among baldachins, busts of popes, and lively flies—the intensive exchange between Bernini and Sforza Pallavicino, both “phoenixes of the ingenious ones,” could have also turned at times toward the “celestial novelties” announced by Galileo. notes 1. DB, 99; “Or cominci novello ordin di cose,” in Tasso, Gerusalemme liberata, 8.73. 2. Tasso, Jerusalem Delivered, 267. 3. See the Prolegomena to this volume. 4. DB, 105. 5. Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, 1.12. 6. Dante, Purgatorio, 1.32, 5. See Segre, “Repertorio linguistico,” 73. 7. See Montanari, “Bernini e Cristina di Svezia”; Montanari, “Gianlorenzo Bernini e Sforza Pallavicino”; Montanari, “Fortuna poetica di Bernini”; Montanari, “Bernini, Pietro da Cortona”; Delbeke, “Fenice degl’ ingegni”; Delbeke, “The Pope, the Bust.” 8. Haskell, Patrons and Painters, 36. Also Harris, “Dittatura di Bernini.” 9. DB, 115– 47; FB, 40 –53; FB-1948, 111–27; FB-1966/2006, 45– 61. 10. See D’Onofrio, Scalinate di Roma, 28 – 54. Also Lavin, Bernini e il Salvatore, 67– 80. 11. FB, 23; FB-1948, 94; FB-1966/2006, 29. 12. D’Onofrio, Roma vista da Roma, 165– 87; Thoenes, “Bernini architetto”; Soussloff, “Imitatio Buonarroti.” Also Montanari, “Gianlorenzo Bernini e Sforza Pallavicino,” 58 – 60. The Michelangelo-Bernini comparison is also made in a letter of Fulvio Testi to Francesco Fontana, Rome, 29 January 1633, in Fulvio Testi, Lettere, ed. Maria Luisa Doglio (Bari: Laterza, 1967), 1:432 –33. 13. Chantelou/Stanic´, 46, 49; Chantelou/Blunt, 15, 20. 14. Montanari, “Bernini e Cristina di Svezia,” 400 – 403.



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15. On Barberini Rome, see, for instance, Nussdorfer, Civic Politics; Hammond, Music and Spectacle in Baroque Rome; Fosi, All’ombra dei Barberini. On its literary culture, see Fumaroli, L’École du silence, esp. 53–142; Bellini, Umanisti e Lincei. On Mascardi, see Bellini, Agostino Mascardi. On Ciampoli, most recently, Bellini, “Federico Borromeo, Giovanni Ciampoli”; and especially Favino, “Deux dialogues retrouvés”; Favino, “Sforza Pallavicino editore”; Favino, “‘Quel petardo di mia fortuna’”; Syska-Lamparska, “Giovanni Ciampoli.” An important document on Barberini Rome is Allacci, Apes Urbanae. 16. On the notion of ingegno, see Battistini, Barocco, 131– 42; Grassi, “Mania ingegnosa”; Gensini, “L’ingegno e le metafore.” 17. DB, 5, 58, 54. On Bernini’s theatrical activity, see D’Onofrio, Fontana di Trevi; Bernini, L’impresario; Lavin, Bernini and the Unity of the Visual Arts, 146 –57; Tamburini, “Sullo spazio scenico berniniano.” 18. DB, 95; Chantelou/Stanic´, 46;Chantelou/Blunt, 15. Also Stanic´, “Génie de Gianlorenzo Bernini.” 19. McPhee, “Bernini’s Books”; Quondam, “Barocco e la letteratura.” See also Rossella Pantanella, “Nota de’ libri,” in Fagiolo Dell’Arco, L’immagine al potere, 377– 81. 20. Harris, “Bernini and Virginio Cesarini,” 19 n. 6. This scholar considers the drawing “a good copy of a lost original,” although it is considered autograph by Vitzthum, Barocco a Roma, caption to pl. 28 and Montanari, “Gianlorenzo Bernini e Sforza Pallavicino,” 44– 45. 21. See Bellini, Umanisti e Lincei, 85–243; Bellini, Agostino Mascardi, 3–111, 129 –30, 170 –77 and 205–10. 22. Mascardi, Discorsi morali, 320 –21. On Mascardi’s text, see Benedetti, Itinerari di Cebete, 323– 68; Bellini, Agostino Mascardi, 68 –99. 23. See Montagu, Roman Baroque Sculpture, 155– 63. 24. Raimondi, “Paesaggi e rovine,” 64 n. 20; Cropper, Ideal of Painting, 158 – 60; also Montanari, “Prolegomeni a un ‘corpus’ berniniano,” in Bernardini and Fagiolo dell’Arco, Gian Lorenzo Bernini: Regista del Barocco, 458. 25. The bust is attributed to Bernini in Harris, “Bernini and Virginio Cesarini,” where (p. 23) she unconvincingly argues that Bernini dissociated himself from the work because of Cesarini’s close connections to the condemned Galileo. Also in favor of an attribution to Bernini is Montanari, “Gianlorenzo Bernini e Sforza Pallavicino,” 43. It is attributed to François Duquesnoy by Nava Cellini, “Aggiunte alla ritrattistica berniniana,” 27–28; and Freedberg, “Van Dyck and Virginio Cesarini.” 26. See Bellini, Umanisti e Lincei, 1– 84, 245–309. On Mascardi’s oration, see ibid., 265–77. 27. On the persistency of the topos, see, for instance, Marino, Galeria, 1:269 –96. 28. See DB, 133–34: “Tenne un costume il Cavaliere, ben dal commune modo assai diverso, nel ritrarre altrui ò nel Marmo, ò nel Disegno: Non voleva che il figurato stasse fermo, mà ch’ei colla sua solita naturalezza si movesse, e parlasse, perche in tal modo diceva ch’ei vedeva tutto il suo bello, e ‘l contrafaceva, com’egli era, asserendo, che nello starsi al naturale immobilmente fermo, egli non è mai tanto simile a sè stesso, quanto è nel moto, in cui consistono tutte quelle qualità, che sono sue, e non di altri, e che danno la somiglianza al Ritratto.” Compare with FB, 70; FB-1948, 144; FB-1966/2006, 77–78. The implications of these statements are discussed in Delbeke, “The Pope, the Bust,” 216 –21. 29. DB, 48. See also the passage on the bust of Montoya in DB, 16; FB, 6; FB-1948, 76; FB-1966/2006, 11. 30. “Loda la bella Dafne / così al vivo scolpita / da chi porge anco a’ marmi e senso, e vita; / sol tu lodarla puoi, / tu, che Tracio Cantor, Cigno Tebano / sembri co i carmi tuoi: / ecco scultor sovrano, / perché, novo Anfion, novello Orfeo, / del tuo canto al trofeo / tu tragga arbori, e sassi, or la trasforma / d’una in un’altra forma, / e la mostra cortese a la tua



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cetra,/ or in pianta conversa, et ora in pietra,” in Bruni, Veneri, 1.34. The numerous analogies suggest that Bruni emulated Marino’s madrigal “Anfione di marmo”: “Quel Musico Thebano, / lo cui soave canto / a le pietre diè vita, / or son di pietra imagine scolpita. / Ma ben che pietra, io vivo, io spiro, e ‘n tanto / così tacendo io canto. / Or ceda ogni altra il pregio alla tua mano, / Fabro illustre e sovrano, / poich’animar la pietra / sa meglio il tuo scarpel, che la mia cetra,” in Marino, Galeria, 1:279 (emphasis mine). On Bruni, see Gino Rizzo, introduction to Bruni, Epistole eroiche, 9 – 63. On the relation between Bruni and Mascardi, see Bellini, Agostino Mascardi, 33– 48. 31. See the bibliography in Montanari, “Fortuna poetica di Bernini,” to which should be added Ferrari, “Bernini e i letterati” and Ferrari, “Poeti e scultori nella Roma seicentesca.” 32. Ludovico Leporeo’s poem is in Ferrari, “Poeti e scultori nella Roma seicentesca,” 152. On Leporeo, see Leporeo, Leporeambi. 33. “Quisquis amans sequitur fugitivae gaudia formae / fronde manus implet baccas seu carpit amaras.” 34. “Sol per venire al lauro onde si coglie / acerbo frutto, che le piaghe altrui, / gustando, afflige più che non conforta,” in Petrarch, Rerum vulgarium fragmenta, 6.12 –14. 35. On this poem, see D’Onofrio, Roma vista da Roma, 273–77, 303–7; Montanari, “Fortuna poetica di Bernini,” 130 – 33; Kristina Herrmann Fiore, “‘Apollo e Dafne’ del Bernini”; Anna Coliva, “Apollo e Dafne,” in Coliva and Schütze, Bernini scultore: La nascita del barocco, 262 – 63. The analogies and differences between Marino’s and Bernini’s treatment of the myth are highlighted in Battistini, Barocco, 156 – 60; Bolland, “Desiderio and Diletto.” 36. “Perché, Bernin, scolpisci / nel metallo tonante / del grande Urban l’imagine spirante? / S’egli tragge co i carmi / i più lontani sassi, / perché dunque non fassi / la scultura ne’ marmi? / Ah, ben veggio il mistero. / Del nostro sacro Giove, onde già trema / di spavento e di tema / de la Tracia l’Encelado più fiero, / tu di scolpir sei vago / quivi l’augusta imago; / perché ha la man di Giove eguale il zelo / pur di tonar dal Ciel, se regge il Cielo,” in Bruni, Veneri, section 1, 253. On the image of “Giove tonante,” see Petrarca, Rerum vulgarium fragmenta, 24:1–2: “Se l’onorata fronde che prescrive / l’ira del ciel, quando ‘l gran Giove tona”; and Tasso, Gerusalemme liberata, 17, 11: “Apelle forse o Fidia in tal sembiante / Giove formò, ma Giove allor tonante.” On Urban’s bronze statue for Saint Peter’s, see Martinelli, Ritratti di pontefici, 36; Wittkower, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, 1981, 19899; Schütze, “‘Urbano inalza Pietro, e Pietro Urbano,’” 257– 67. 37. See Matthias Winner, “Veritas,” in Coliva and Schütze, Bernini scultore, 290 –309. 38. Ibid., 299 –300. 39. See McPhee, Bernini and the Bell Towers, 165– 89. 40. McPhee, “Bernini’s Books,” 446 n. 85. On the European diffusion of the Cortegiano, see Burke, Fortunes of the ‘Courtier.’ 41. Chantelou/Stanic´, 45: “Le Cavalier a fait son compliment au Roi avec une honnête hardiesse, et a dit à S. M., comme il avait fait à M. Colbert, les sujets qui l’avaient principalement engagé de venir en France.” Chantelou/Blunt, 12. 42. See Castiglione, Libro del cortegiano, 80. 43. Chantelou/Stanic´, 156; Chantelou/Blunt, 167. Since the letter from Castiglione and Raphael to Leo X on the antiquities of Rome was only published in Padua in 1733, in Castiglione’s Opere volgari e latine, it seems improbable that Bernini referred to it. See Teodoro, Raffaello, Baldassar Castiglione. 44. Gentile, “Veritas filia temporis,” in Gentile, Giordano Bruno; Saxl, “Veritas filia temporis”; Panofsky, “Il Padre Tempo”; Garin, “La storia nel pensiero”; Ginzburg, “Contributo ad un dizionario storico”; Cannatà Fera, “‘Veritas filia temporis.’” 45. Plutarch, Aetia Rom., 12.266f. 46. Gelio, Noctes Atticae, 12.11.7.



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47. Euripides, Hippolytus, vv. 435–36. 48. Cicero, Philippics, 12.2.5. 49. Mascardi, Discorsi morali, 230 –34. See Bellini, Umanisti e Lincei, 238 – 43. 50. FB, 36; FB-1948, 107; FB-1966/2006, 41 n. 41. 51. The theme of the unveiling of truth is also discussed in Ilana Dreyer, “Time and Truth,” in Lavin, Drawings by Gianlorenzo Bernini, 95–103. 52. Mascardi, Dell’arte istorica, 1636, 120 –21. The image of Saturno tecnofago already appeared on the frontispiece of Mascardi, Discorsi morali. 53. DB, 30. 54. FB, 71; FB-1948, 144– 45; FB-1966/2006, 78. “Soleva dire, che nell’imitazione è tutto il diletto de’sensi nostri, e davane per esempio il gran gusto, che apporta il veder ben dipinta una rancida, e schifosa vecchia, che viva, e vera ci apporterebbe nausea, e ci offenderebbe.” 55. Lavin, Bernini and the Unity of the Visual Arts, 6 –15. 56. FB, 69; FB-1948, 143; FB-1966/2006, 76 –77. 57. Lavin, Bernini and the Unity of the Visual Arts, 9. 58. DB, 28. 59. Mascardi, Discorsi morali, 248. “Xeusi ebbe un giorno a dipingere una vecchiarda mal fatta; adoprò tutti gli sforzi dell’arte; fella con un naso né intero né secco, muccosa, distorta, con gli occhi lagrimosi, co ‘l ceffo ragrignato, con una bocca cagnesca, e tale in somma che movea stomaco; ma nondimeno non fu mai veduto maggior miracolo nella pittura; in modo che, postosi egli medesimo a considerare il lavoro de’ suoi pennelli, in così sfrenate risa proruppe che ridicolosamente morì. E che voleva più fare al mondo, avendo posto con quel lavoro il confine all’eccellenza dell’arte? . . . Certo è che in quella vecchia vive più che mai giovine la fama di quel grand’uomo; e fino al dì d’oggi si può dire che se bella non era in natura quell’opera, racchiudendo tanti difetti, era bellissima in arte.” “Pictor Zeusis risu mortuus, dum ridet effuse pictam a se anum γραυν (crau`n),” in Marcus Verrius Flaccus, M. Verrii Flacci Quae extant et Sex. Pompei FESTI De verborum significatione, libri XX. (n.p.: Apud Petrum Santandreanum, 1593), 164; Festi, De verborum, 228. Zeuxis’s cause of death is also discussed in Dati, Vite de’ pittori antichi, 17: “Incerta pure è la lunghezza della vita; assai stravagante si fu la morte. Aveva egli dipinto una vecchia, la quale poi attentamente riguardando rise tanto di cuore, ch’e’ si morì, come anche d’altri si legge essere adivenuto.” In “postilla” 20 to the Vita di Zeusi, ibid., 40 – 41, Dati extensively quotes Festus’s passage. On the philology of De verborum significatione, see Moscadi, Festo Farnesiano. 60. Preimesberger, “Themes from Art Theory,” 12. 61. Ibid., 13. Also Rudolf Preimesberger, “David,” in Coliva and Schütze, Bernini scultore: La nascita del barocco, 218 –19. 62. Preimesberger, “Themes from Art Theory,” 12 –13; Delbeke, “Fenice degl’ ingegni,” 67– 85. 63. Ciampoli, “Poetica sacra” (Rome, 1648); all citations are from this edition. A slightly different edition is Ciampoli, “Poetica sacra” (Bologna, 1648). The poem was probably written during the first years of Urban’s pontificate. See the events referred to in Ciampoli, “Poetica sacra,” 341– 47. On the Poetica sacra, see Guglielminetti and Masoero, “Lettere e prose inedite,” 144– 46; Frare, “Tesauro teorico,” 146 –55; Frare, “Poetiche del Barocco,” 64– 69. 64. Ciampoli, “Poetica sacra,” 272 –74. 65. Ibid., 277, 302. 66. “Infallibile editto, / o Muse, a voi promulgo: / non m’esponete al vulgo / mai Cristo e Giove in un medesmo scritto,” ibid., 287. On Ciampoli’s polemic with Marino, see Bellini, Umanisti e Lincei, 120 –29; Bellini Agostino Mascardi, 70 –73; Delbeke, “A Poem.”



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67. “sol di veraci divi / in marmi e in tele effigiati i volti”; “Talor nei carmi, ove il diporto ha sede / di numi, o falsi o sacri, / d’introdur variamente i simolacri / libertà si concede,” Ciampoli, “Poetica sacra,” 284– 86. 68. Ibid., 282, 312. 69. Ciampoli, Prose, 115–16. 70. “Certo il pennel dell’Arno, / ornando in Vatican muri ammirati, / con destra immitatrice / non desiava indarno, / mentre il ver coloria, palma inventrice. / Con apparenze nuove / verisimil trofei / tu sai con quale ingegno ei finse dove / il giudicante Iddio fulmina i rei,” in Ciampoli, “Poetica sacra,” 274–75. 71. “Da non creduta ampiezza / di consagrato albergo / sorge a suprema altezza, / quasi concavo monte, / di grandi archi in su ‘l tergo / cupola d’or con luminosa fronte: / di marmi vari e bianchi / su ‘l piè le splende oriental durezza, / e armandole i fianchi / il sasso tiburtin l’età disprezza: / ma dove lascio voi, bronzi dorati, / alle cui glorie vinto / l’antiche palme sue cede Corinto? / Con due colonne in mar se già si vide / a i vascelli spalmati / porre i confini Alcide, / qui del gran tempio in maestevol parte, / quattro colonne con stupor ben raro, / quasi termine all’arte, / dal magnanimo Urbano al ciel s’alzaro,” in Ciampoli, “Poetica sacra,” 340 – 41. On the image of Urban as “sacro Alcide,” see Schütze, “‘Urbano inalza Pietro, e Pietro Urbano,’” 235–37. 72. See Favino, “‘Quel petardo di mia fortuna,’” 866 –72. 73. See ibid., 870 – 82. 74. See Affò, Memorie degli scrittori, 5:98 –102; de Backer and Sommervogel, Bibliothèque, 6: col. 120 – 43. 75. Affò, Memorie degli scrittori, 5:101–7. 76. This gap in Pallavicino’s activity emerges from Scotti, “Nota bibliografica,” 40 – 41. 77. Pallavicino, Del Bene, esp. 483, where Pallavicino lauds Giulio Rospigliosi, the former secretary of “Urbano VIII, di cui ora celebriamo l’esequie”; Pallavicino, Ermenegildo martire; Pallavicino, Considerazioni sopra l’arte dello stile; Ciampoli, Rime; Ciampoli, Prose; Pallavicino, Vindicationes. 78. Scotti, “Nota bibliografica,” 35–37, 43. 79. Pallavicino, “Principio de’ Fasti sacri del . . . marchese Sforza Pallavicino, composti avanti che si facesse prelato e ch’entrasse nella Compagnia di Giesù.” The title given to the Fasti here dates the poem too early; Pallavicino actually continued to work on the poem in the years 1630 –36. 80. “Or qui de la tua mano opre ammirate / Urban gli sguardi a vagheggiar prepara; / quattro colonne, anzi pur torri aurate, / ove l’arte col fasto ha nobil gara, / di vincer la natura, e in un l’etate, / emule antiche sue qui l’arte impara; / queste colonne al fasto imposer meta, / varcar più oltre anche ai gran re si vieta,” see Pallavicino, “Principio de’ Fasti sacri,” 335. Also quoted in Montanari, “Gianlorenzo Bernini e Sforza Pallavicino,” 44. 81. Pallavicino, Fasti sacri, 1–142. 82. “Discorso intorno al seguente poema,” in Pallavicino, Fasti sacri, 1–25, with the quoted passage on p. 2. 83. Pallavicino, Fasti sacri, 31. 84. “Sorger farò più d’un moderno Apelle, / che stupir faccia i secoli futuri: / che d’iride i colori e de le stelle / renda con l’arte del pennello oscuri. / E de l’eterna man l’opre più belle / saran dipinte in consacrati muri: / dentro a i marmi di Paro e di Numidia / scolpirà sagre istorie arte di Fidia,” in Pallavicino, Fasti sacri, canto 1, 69; Pallavicino, “Principio de’ Fasti sacri,” 174. Compare with Ciampoli, “Poetica sacra,” 313–14. 85. Ovid, Metamorphoses, 7.251–93. 86. “Taci in dar pregi, o menzonier Parnaso / a magico liquor d’empia Medea; / ch’a i vecchi membri estinti in caldo vaso / la vita, e ‘l fior di gioventù rendea. / Bene a i



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servi di Cristo in su l’occaso / nuova vita immortale in ciel si crea, / per la virtù di quel beato umore, / ch’a Giesù crocifisso uscì dal core,” in Pallavicino, Fasti sacri, 51; not published in Scelta di poesie italiane. 87. Chantelou/Stanic´, 183; Chantelou/Blunt, 202. 88. DB, 170; FB, 61– 62; FB-1948, 134 – 35; FB-1966/2006, 68 – 69. See Lavin, Bernini e il Salvatore, esp. 15– 40; also Montanari, “Bernini e Cristina di Svezia,” 394–96; Gaia Bindi, “Il Sanguis Christi,” in Bernardini and Fagiolo Dell’Arco, Gianlorenzo Bernini: Regista del Barocco, 443– 48. 89. Buonarroti, Rime (1623). The dedication to Barberini is dated Florence, 10 February 1622, the imprimatur 2 November 1622. 90. See Girardi, “Nota filologica,” 508 –9. 91. “O carne, o sangue, o legno, o doglia strema, / giusto per vo’ si facci el mie peccato, / di ch’i’ pur nacqui, e tal fu ‘l padre mio,” Buonarroti, Rime, 162 (translation mine). 92. “Ma pur nel sangue tuo par si comprenda, / s’egual per noi non ebbe il tuo martire, / ch’oltre a misura sian tuoi cari doni,” Buonarroti, Rime, 489 (translation mine). 93. “Scarco d’un’importuna e greve salma, / Signore mie caro, e dal mondo disciolto, / qual fragil legno a te stanco rivolto / da l’orribil procella in dolce calma. // Le spini e chiodi e l’una e l’altra palma, / col tuo benigno umìl pietoso volto, / prometton grazia di pentirsi molto, / e speme di salute a la trist’alma. / Non mirin co’ iustizia il tuo sant’occhi / il mio passato, e ‘l gastigato orecchio; / non tenda a quello il tuo braccio severo. // Tuo sangue sol mie colpe lavi e tocchi, / e più abondi quant’ i’ son più vecchio / di pronta aita, e di perdono intero,” Buonarroti, Rime, 484 (translation mine). 94. See Montanari, “Fortuna poetica di Bernini,” 135–38. On Alexandrine Rome, see Krautheimer, Rome of Alexander VII. 95. See Bellini, Umanisti e Lincei; Bellini, “Galileo e le ‘due culture.’” 96. On Cesarini’s Carmina, see Bellini, Umanisti e Lincei, 51–52 n. 72, 302 –5. 97. Bellini, Umanisti e Lincei, 1–2, 306 –9. On Agostino Favoriti (1624– 82), Pallavicino’s pupil, Latin poet, and churchman, see Dizionario biografico degli Italiani, s.v. “Favoriti Agostino.” On his poetry, see Montanari, “Fortuna poetica di Bernini,” 138 –52. 98. On Pallavicino and Galileo, see Costantini, Baliani e i Gesuiti, 95–109; Bellini, “Scrittura letteraria,” 178 – 89; Favino, “Sforza Pallavicino editore,” 308 –15. 99. Altieri Biagi, “Il ‘Dialogo’ di Galileo,” 69 and 74; Altieri Biagi, “Venature barocche.” 100. Montanari, “Gianlorenzo Bernini e Sforza Pallavicino,” 48 – 58. On Roberti’s presence during Bernini’s stay in France, see Chantelou/Stanic´, 374– 82 and ad indicem. 101. Bellini, “Scrittura letteraria,” 181– 87; Favino, “Sforza Pallavicino editore,” 309 –15. On the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century discussions on mathematics, see De Pace, Matematiche e il mondo; Gatto, Tra scienza e immaginazione; Baffetti, Retorica e scienza, esp. 90 –103. 102. Rome, Biblioteca Casanatense, Ms. 4983: Lettere del cardinal Pallavicino, alle quali per più rispetti non s’è data la luce della stampa, ff. 1r–73v. The letter to Roberti, undated but conserved between two letters of 1665, on f. 38r–v. Published in Affò, Memorie degli scrittori, 1:110 –11. A copy in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (ms. ital. 1514, c. 40) is published in Favino, “Sforza Pallavicino editore,” 310 n. 120. 103. The letters are published in Altieri Biagi and Basile, Scienziati del Seicento, 9 –38, with the citation p. 38. 104. Ibid., 38 n. 1. 105. On the image of the telescope in seventeenth-century literary culture, see Battistini, “Il cannocchiale”; Battistini, Barocco, 109 –19. 106. Sforza Pallavicino, “Lettere del cardinale Sforza Pallavicino. Edizione corretta e accresciuta sopra i mss. casanatensi,” in Pallavicino, Opere edite ed inedite, 1844 – 48, 3:239 – 41.



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107. Affò, Memorie degli scrittori, 5:109. 108. Published in D’Onofrio, “Note berniniane 1: Un dialogo-recita.” On Guidiccioni and Bernini, see Guidiccioni, Latin Poems. On the dialogue, see Delbeke, “Fenice degl’ingegni,” 33–39. 109. On Querenghi, see Motta, Antonio Querenghi. 110. D’Onofrio, “Un dialogo-recita,” 130. 111. Ostrow, Art and Spirituality, 180 – 83, 240 – 44; Ostrow, “Cigoli’s ‘Immacolata.’” On the synergy between painters and sculptors in the Pauline Chapel, see Preimesberger, “Themes from Art Theory,” 4. 112. D’Onofrio, Scalinate di Roma, 44– 47; Montanari, “Bernini e Cristina di Svezia,” 383–90. 113. Pallavicino, Arte della perfezion cristiana, 69. 114. Ibid., 70 –72. Pallavicino and Alexander VII knew each other since 1629 –30; see De Luca, “Lettere inedite.” 115. On Bernini’s gifts to Pallavicino, and the latter’s dealings with the artist on behalf of Hugues de Lionne, see Montanari, “Gianlorenzo Bernini e Sforza Pallavicino,” 46 –51; Montanari, “Bernini e Cristina di Svezia,” 344– 45. 116. DB, 95. Pallavicino’s text has been identified as Domenico’s source in Montanari, “Gianlorenzo Bernini e Sforza Pallavicino,” 57– 58. On the art-theoretical implications, see Delbeke, “The Pope, the Bust.” 117. DB, 95, 97. Domenico also quotes Pallavicino’s praise for the Baldacchino; DB, 40 – 41. On Pallavicino’s presence in the two biographies, see Delbeke, “The Pope, the Bust,” 223 n. 142. 118. DB, 95–96. 119. See Delbeke, “The Pope, the Bust,” 214–23. 120. For a different view, see the Prolegomena in this volume. 121. Chantelou/Stanic´, 127–28; Chantelou/Blunt, 131. 122. Chantelou/Stanic´, 139; Chantelou/Blunt, 146, which omits the key words at the end of Bernini’s statement, “où est la vie et le mouvement.” 123. Galilei, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, 102. See also Galilei, Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi, in Opere, 7:127–28; Galilei, Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi, 1998, 1:111. 124. The letter, dated 23 September 1624, in Galilei, Opere, 13:208 –9. 125. Ciampoli, Prose, 22 –23. 126. McPhee, “Bernini’s books,” 444 – 45, nrs. 23, 52, 61; see also the remarks in Quondam, “Barocco e la letteratura,” 117, 127–29. Also Pallavicino’s papers at the Biblioteca Casanatense in Rome contain a copy of Galileo’s Mecaniche, see Galilei, Mecaniche, CLXI–CLXII.



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TEN costanza bonarelli: biography versus archive Sarah McPhee

In 1900 Stanislao Fraschetti, Bernini’s first modern biographer, wrote the following about the portrait bust of Costanza Bonarelli (fig. 39): This woman gave Bernini her favors, and it was then that the lover, returning her affections, made her portrait first in painting and then in marble, to perpetuate the memory of their happy hours. Then, perhaps because the beautiful sinner sought affection and pleasures elsewhere, he decided to do her the vulgar affront of which we will speak below. In such a state of mind the artist could no longer abide the precious portraits, which were placed aside. The painting—as Domenico [Bernini] affirmed—was preserved in the house.1 Fraschetti goes on to say that he thinks he can identify the painted portrait among the items listed in the inventory of the artist’s belongings made in 1706. One entry reads, “Two portraits in a single canvas: one the portrait of the Cavaliere and the other a half-portrait of a woman. [The canvas] has been cut in half and two have been made.”2 For Fraschetti, the female figure in the portrait could only be Costanza Bonarelli, the famous mistress of Bernini whose passionate affair with the artist ended with the slashing of her face.3 Fraschetti continues, “Our artist had painted a portrait of the beautiful Costanza, joined to his own, and when he, exasperated, violently divided his spirit from that of the voluptuous woman, he wanted equally to divide with a cut of the scissors the two portraits that love and art had beautifully joined.”4 The biographer Fraschetti was captivated by the drama of the violent slashing. It led him to interpret the inventory, and to find a second slashing in a painting in Bernini’s collection.

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fig. 39 Gianlorenzo Bernini, Costanza Bonarelli, ca. 1636 – 38, marble, front view. Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence.

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fig. 40 Gianlorenzo Bernini, Self-Portrait, ca. 1635, oil on canvas. Galleria Borghese, Rome.

With time, Fraschetti’s interpretation has gathered momentum and taken hold as fact. Objects and documents have accrued to it, offered by enterprising investigators to fill out the contours of his narrative. For example: a self-portrait by Bernini in the Galleria Borghese has recently been declared half the double portrait in question (fig. 40). A jagged edge along the right side of the canvas is explained as evidence of cutting performed by Bernini before his marriage to Caterina Tezio in 1639.5



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But occasionally the process is interrupted. A fact surfaces that interrupts the scheme. In 1996 Valentino Martinelli published an earlier inventory of Bernini’s belongings, made in 1681—just after the artist’s death.6 The document had been misplaced for over a century and had not been available to Fraschetti. Here lay an unavoidable conflict, for in neither inventory is the woman in the painting identified, and in 1681 the two halves of the double portrait have yet to be cut apart. Fraschetti’s romantic image of Bernini violently shearing himself from his lover dissolves. Although the 1681 inventory clearly states that the double portrait was intact at the time of Bernini’s death, scholars overlooked the discrepancy because it did not jibe with the standard narrative. This was not a deliberate omission, but a habitual one, and it shows how deeply a story can settle into historical understanding. This kind of elision of biographical incident and documentary evidence is the imperative of narrative life writing. It demonstrates the power of a sweeping narrative to subsume historical evidence and mold it to its own purposes. It also shows the way objects are read retrospectively according to biographical accounts. The bust of Costanza Bonarelli is a case in point. The young woman preserved in this portrait was an important figure in Bernini’s life. He made this marble image to preserve her likeness. That likeness has a celebrated status because of Bernini’s virtuosity in carving marble but also because of the identity of the sitter. But the woman who sat for this portrait appears very differently when seen through the lens of Bernini’s biographers and through that of archival research. The biographies shape evidence to suit the narrative needs of the artist’s life, while archival research devoted exclusively to her life presents important alternatives. This essay explores these two descriptive modes and their power to affect what we see. Bernini’s marble bust of Costanza Bonarelli (figs. 39 and 41), today in the Bargello Museum in Florence, is roughly life size, standing 283/4 inches high (72 cm.). Bernini shows the young woman in a disheveled state. Costanza’s head is turned slightly to the left, her large eyes focused on a distant point. Her lips are parted, revealing a shadowed glimpse of her teeth and tongue. Her eyes are opened more widely than normal, and the edges of the cornea are incised, with the area beneath the pupil hollowed out to catch the shadow and sharpen her gaze. Her eyebrows form graceful arcs, her brow is large and smooth; her hair is thick and youthfully coarse, it frames her face in a tousled crown, falling away in tresses of different lengths that are gathered



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fig. 41 Gianlorenzo Bernini, Costanza Bonarelli, ca. 1636 – 38, marble, back view. Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence.

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at the back in a coiled braid. At her left temple Bernini has carved an eddy of hair, curling to form a cowlick. As Filippo Baldinucci remarked, Bernini has included “poco busto,” or but a small portion of her torso.7 Costanza is loosely clothed in a chemise, edged with ribbon, and open at the front revealing the swelling contour of her right breast. Among Bernini’s portrait busts, Costanza’s closest relative is the famous “speaking likeness” of Scipione Borghese, which Bernini carved twice in 1632 (figs. 20 and 21). The jaunty cardinal is shown arrested in speech, his lips parted, his eyes caught in a bemused moment of thought. Despite the status of the cardinal, his portrait bust is intimate, informal, and bespeaks his friendship with Bernini.8 Bernini made his bust of Scipione on commission for the pope. Costanza he made for himself. And in this sense she is unique. Not a single image of his wife survives, nor one of his mother, his sisters or his daughters. Costanza remains because Bernini chose to sculpt her portrait in marble. Bernini’s bust of Scipione is a study in character, and well-known biographical facts about the colorful cardinal animate the viewer’s response to the personality displayed. But who was Costanza Bonarelli? Why do we know so little about her? And how does our ignorance limit what we are able to see? The portrait bust of Costanza Bonarelli is generally dated to the years between 1636 and 1638, the approximate dates of their affair.9 To date, what is known of Costanza derives principally from two archival documents that supply shocking details. One, an anonymous account, preserved among Baldinucci’s papers in Florence, recounts the story of the affair. In a tone betraying rivalry, amidst a series of sniping attacks on the artist we read: Bernini was in love with a woman called Costanza, the daughter of a footman and the wife of the sculptor Matteo from Lucca. It was said that [Bernini’s] brother frequented her [as well] and wanting to clarify the situation [Bernini] said one evening that he [was going] the following morning to the country. . . . In the morning he had the carriage engaged and instead of going outside of Rome he went to the rooms where he worked which are behind Saint Peter’s across from the house of Signora Costanza . . . Bernini . . . took up a position from which he could watch to see if anyone came out of [her] house. He had not been there long before his brother appeared, accompanied by the lady, half dressed for having just come from bed. . . . Having seen this, Bernini followed his brother and finding him in Saint Peter’s, beat him badly with



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an iron rod breaking two ribs. . . . But it did not end here. Returning home he immediately called a servant, to whom he gave two flasks of Greek [wine] and a razor, telling him “go on my behalf to the Signora Costanza and present her with these and when you have the opportunity, slash her.” So he did. For this [Bernini] was condemned [to pay] 3000 scudi but was absolved by Pope Urban VIII. The portrait of this woman made by [the artist] in marble, was given by him to Signor Cardinal Gio[vanni] Carlo de’ Medici, and today can be found in [his] gallery. The eyes were painted black by the author and the hair is chiseled so that one does not recognize there the manner of the master.10 The second document, found among the Barberini papers at the Vatican, is an undated letter sent by Bernini’s mother, Angelica Galante, to Cardinal Francesco Barberini. It gives a different version of events. Sir, Angelica Bernini, most humble servant of your eminence . . . entreats you anew, setting forth how the Cavaliere her son, having respect for neither Justice nor the authority of your eminence, yesterday came armed, with other men, to kill his brother Luigi. And after having entered the house, forcing the door, and failing to heed her tears, and the little decorum with which the mother threw herself at his feet, and after having looked everywhere, he [left] and entered without any respect into Santa Maria Maggiore with sword in hand, and searched the entire rectory with contempt for God, and for the [church], almost as if he were the Master of the world. This most grave error, she does not exaggerate to your eminence, and what scandal and amazement it gave to all of those who saw him running with naked sword in hand, after his brother. . . . Nor were there a scarcity of priests who wanted to defend the sacred rights of the Church, seeing him kick with scorn at the doors, but for the fear of his great power . . . they didn’t dare; the more because [they] see that all things pass by him unpunished. . . . She begs you therefore . . . to take pity on a mother so disconsolate as she, and rein in the impetuous actions of this her son.11 Both of these startling documents were published by Cesare D’Onofrio in 1967.12 The letter from Bernini’s mother had first appeared in print in 1949.13



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Over time, the bust of Costanza and the few documents related to her have inspired a host of imaginings on the part of art historians. For Fraschetti, Costanza is “the powerful woman, with violent eyes and a swollen breast, [who] reigns still in marble with the burning sensuality of her dazzling beauty. . . . [She has] . . . lips furious with passion, enchanting with voluptuous promises.”14 For Rudolf Wittkower, writing in the 1950s, Costanza is “a woman of the people,”15 “fierce and sensual . . . shown in the grip of passion.”16 For Howard Hibbard, in 1965, Costanza is “a feral creature” “a petrified fragment of passion.” “Her lips are parted; the hair has been swept back loosely in a bun and falls in easy loops and, possibly, rather dirty strands.”17 In John Pope-Hennessey’s more sober view Costanza is “the Latin sister of Saskia and Hélène Fourment.”18 For the Fagioli dell’Arco, “Costanza is similar to the gods of ancient myth.” “More heroic than the superb Mathilde of Canossa in Saint Peter’s,” they declare, “[Costanza] could be a Juno.”19 Most recently, Charles Avery has gone so far as to pair Costanza with Bernini’s Medusa, suggesting that in a parallel fashion to his earlier blessed and damned souls, Bernini refashions Costanza as Medusa in the wake of their affair.20 There is a certain uniformity among the scholarly appraisals. The heated observations of Fraschetti, writing in 1900, are no less elaborate than those of Avery in 1997. The complexities of Costanza’s character are not an issue for these interpreters. They accord her a mythic status as an object of desire and leave it at that. The uniformity of modern scholarship is explained to some extent by the reticence of the seventeenth-century biographers. Editing the life of the Cavaliere for hagiographic purposes, these biographers say little about her. Baldinucci, for example, mentions the bust casually, in a single phrase. In the course of describing the Countess Mathilde in Saint Peter’s, Baldinucci remarks that “the two putti above the coat of arms were carved by Matteo Buonarelli another of Bernini’s pupils and husband of that Gostanza [sic] whose portrait in a head with a small bust made in marble by Bernini, is seen in the Royal Gallery of the Most Serene Grand Duke.”21 Yet it is among Baldinucci’s papers in Florence that the anonymous account of the slashing appears. Baldinucci, the biographer, has intervened to suppress the scandal.22 Seventeenth-century biographies were idealized accounts of noteworthy men. Biographers composed life stories to present their subjects as exemplary rulers, divines, geniuses. The historical record was less significant than was the moral meaning of the great man’s life. Events were reshaped,



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successes dramatized, embarrassing details elided or suppressed. Stock anecdotes were employed to show an individual’s prowess or character. One wrote a life for posterity.23 As Baldinucci reflects at the end of his text: “I wish to make it clear to everyone that, before setting out to write not only of Bernini but of any celebrated man, I made a pact with my pen that it must, as if it were an amorous bee, follow the trail of the mellifluous parts of the flowers, leaving the opposite course to some poisonous spider, born in filth and nourished by garbage, who now or after I have published my account wants to sink his teeth into the less appetizing . . . and feed upon it.”24 Bernini’s son Domenico, who published his life of the artist in 1713, had different aims. As he states at the start of his text, “It is our intention to write in this book with that faithfulness that is necessary to he who would describe things, which almost all of those who are living were spectators of themselves, and who can check the accuracy of the accounts and contradict this writer whenever, in order to make himself more admirable in the stories, he exaggerates successes, and strays from the truth, which is the only prize of history, and that alone is history.”25 Domenico published his life thirty-one years after Baldinucci, and seems to offer it for print in 1713 as a corrective. He has more to say about Costanza, suggesting, perhaps, that interested parties had found Baldinucci’s account wanting.26 He writes: “That highly praised [portrait] of Costanza one sees today in Casa Bernini, and the bust and head in marble of the same woman, in the gallery of the grand duke, both are of such good taste and lively manner that in these same copies one can see how much in love the Cavaliere was with the original.”27 Domenico goes on in much detail. Costanza is used to enhance his father’s reputation rather than to diminish it. “This was the woman, for whom he lost his head at the time, and if it left him guilty in part, nor did it deny him the credit of being declared a great man and excellent in Art; Since either jealous of her or for some other reason carried away, because love is blind, he ordered his servant to make I don’t know what kind of affront upon her, which he did, and because it was public and damaging, he should have been punished with a not inconsiderable penalty.”28 Domenico explains that Bernini’s servant was banished from Rome, but that the pope, apprised of the facts, sent his cameriere to the Bernini house with a parchment absolving him of any wrong doing. It addressed the artist as: “Rare man, sublime genius, born according to a divine plan for the glory of Rome and to bring light to this century.”29 The marginal gloss at this section of the text simply states: “The singular demonstration of the pope’s esteem for the Cavaliere.”30 In Domenico’s account, then, the few details that allude



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to the trouble with Costanza are included to set the record straight. They are intended to clarify the character of the father, and to demonstrate through the pardon they elicit from the pope, the high esteem in which the artist was held. Fully twenty-five pages later in his text, Domenico relates that Urban VIII urged Bernini to marry. At Bernini’s request the pope selected his wife for him. Costanza is not mentioned. In fact the marriage took place within a year of the affair, rapidly succeeding Bernini’s crime. After the violent break with Costanza, Bernini settles down, buys a house, becomes deeply religious, and produces eleven children.31 For Domenico, Costanza is the narrative vehicle for expressing his father’s passionate youthful nature, but after their affair his passion is restricted to his work. If one pauses for a moment over the language of Domenico’s text, one can see the way that verbal structures reinforce this idea. Domenico’s words channel his father’s passion into stone. When describing Costanza, Domenico uses the phrase: “of such a lively manner that in the copy one can see how much in love the Cavaliere was with the original.”32 The act of copying the beloved alludes to the way the artist worked the stone. Early in the text, Domenico quotes his father using similar language to describe the act of sculpting. He explained: “That in working he felt so inflamed by, and so much in love with what he was doing, that he did not work the marble, but devoured it.”33 Elsewhere he describes: “that indefatigable working, . . . and particularly that continuous working in marble, in which he was so dedicated that he seemed actually ecstatic, and in the act of sending through the eyes the spirit to make the stones live.”34 In his treatment of his mother, Domenico’s sculptural metaphors persist. Caterina Tezio, Bernini’s wife, is a foil for Costanza. She is the most beautiful woman in Rome. A perfect nobleman’s wife. “She is submissive, without blame or fault,” Domenico writes, “prudent and without wiles; beautiful without affectation;” and “with such a mixture of gravity, pleasantness, and diligence that one could well say of her that she was a gift preserved by heaven for such a great man.” Employing the ancient topos of Pygmalion and Galatea, Bernini is quoted as saying “that he could not have chosen better had he made her to his taste in wax.”35 No portraits of this paragon survive. However, Domenico tells us that a portrait of Costanza, not his mother, was still to be seen in the Casa Bernini long after the artist’s death. Costanza was Bernini’s mistress; she betrayed him for his younger brother; she was the victim of a violent reprisal. These facts derive from documents and have informed interpretations of her bust. Costanza



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appears briefly in the biographies, where she functions as a symbol of Bernini’s passionate, even reckless, youth. The end of their affair marks the arrival of reason in the life of the artist and youthful passion is thereafter channeled into a passionate engagement with work. Beyond these details, Costanza’s “speaking likeness” is mute. Bernini’s biographers preserve Costanza within the context of the artist’s “life.” Archives rupture the scheme and provide an alternative portrait.36 In the National Museum in Stockholm traces of Costanza survive in the material left behind by Nicodemus Tessin the Younger, the Swedish architect who was for a time a student of Bernini.37 A prolific diarist, Tessin is invaluable as an oral conduit for the stories current in the Bernini studio. Traveling through Florence, Tessin stopped to see the collection of the grand duke, and on folio 3 of his notebook he wrote: “[I saw] another bust, made by the Cavaliere Bernini, a portrait of his most beautiful favorite who was the wife of a painter. And after he had tired of her he had her face slashed. She was very rich, and after her death she had a magnificent catafalque.”38 The first half of Tessin’s comment is not surprising. He had been told a version of the Costanza story in which the slashing was attributed to fatigue or disgust. More interesting is the news that Costanza Bonarelli, Wittkower’s “woman of the people” was “richissima” and had a “superbissimo” catafalque at her death. How could she be so obscure if she were incredibly rich? Where was this catafalque? In the Roman archives we catch up with Costanza in 1631. She was indeed the wife of Matteo Bonarelli, and the records for the parish where they lived, indicate that Costanza was born around 1614. At the time of her affair with Bernini she was about twenty-four years old. Her husband Matteo was thirty-four, five years younger than Bernini. Matteo Bonarelli died in January of 1654 after “an extremely lengthy and troubling illness,” at the age of fifty-five. The parish priest remarks that he bore his suffering with “singular patience, and that his extraordinary generosity, known to the entire world, astonished everyone.”39 In his will he described Costanza as “mia dilettissima moglie” “my most beloved wife” and he left her his universal heir.40 Costanza died eight years after Matteo, leaving behind a sevenyear-old daughter.41 Tracking Costanza through the archives one finds surprising details. In 1640, two years after the slashing, Matteo and Costanza are living in a large house at the foot of the Quirinal hill where both would reside until their deaths. In fact, as the years passed the house and its inhabitants became a point of reference in the topography of the neighborhood. Known



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as: “la casa dove fanno le statue” or “the house where they make the statues,” the house served as a point of orientation in phrases such as: “nearby Signor Matteo,” or “ascend the stairs facing [the house of ] Signora Costanza.” Costanza lived in this house as a widow, with her daughter and two female servants, for the last eight years of her life. The inventory of the contents of this house, made at the time of Costanza’s death, is the most important evidence that has come to light regarding her tastes and character. It describes the structure, room by room, painting by painting, sculpture by sculpture.42 An inventory of possessions is, in a sense, its own narrative. A product of the legal code in early modern Italy, an inventory made after death determined an individual’s net worth. But it also revealed relationships with family, religious institutions, members of the papal court. Its contents established the stature of the deceased, but could also give a sense of individual taste. While Costanza’s inventory is bound by the specific limitations of the documentary form, it provides the greatest insight to date into the character and personality of the woman depicted in Bernini’s bust. What the interpreter finds therein will, of course, be subject to the imperatives of narrative writing, but unlike the Costanza of Bernini’s biographies and the documentary “finds” that have accrued to them, this inventory has the distinct advantage of having been produced solely in relation to her. Working through the inventory one learns that Costanza’s house had three stories with a loggia at the top floor. From the street one entered a corridor lined with marble statues in various states. The corridor led to a courtyard where sixteen pots held citrus fruits, and sixty others held flowers. Hunks of marble and pieces of columns were scattered everywhere. On the ground level were the remains of Matteo’s bottega. Here lay a Venus needing restoration, a pair of marble heads, a tall piece of marble, roughed out in the form of two figures; two dolphins with five other pieces of marble, a drill, three wooden sideboards attached to the wall, a marble lion without its head or its tail, a leg of plaster, and “una forma di leone rotta con suoi ferri” (the broken mold of a lion with its irons). Studio assistant of Bernini, cuckolded husband of Costanza, Matteo Bonarelli does not even merit an entry in the Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani.43 We know the following: Matteo was a pupil and assistant to Bernini on projects such as Mathilde of Canossa in Saint Peter’s. He worked in the crossing on the relief above the Saint Longinus statue, and on the marble incrustation of the nave piers. But Matteo was also a restorer of sculpture, and among his clients were the Pamphili family. Indeed the corridor, courtyard, and workshop are littered with marbles “da restaurare.” Matteo cast



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replicas of antique marbles such as the famous Hermaphrodite on the orders of Velázquez, and fashioned twelve bronze lions for the Spanish king. In fact, the detail of the “broken mold of the lion with its irons” confirms Jennifer Montagu’s surmise that Matteo Bonarelli both designed and cast his own bronzes.44 Returning to the house and ascending the stairs, one passed two marble statues on a landing, to arrive at the piano nobile and a large hall. The second floor was composed of four principal rooms with a few smaller service areas. The goods listed in the inventory suggest that these four rooms were the main living and receiving spaces of the house, particularly those of Costanza. The rooms include: a large hall, a sala, a stanza facing the street, and a galleria. A second stair led to the third floor, which essentially repeated the layout of that below. At the attic level there were four small rooms, one of which opened onto a loggia. Nicodemus Tessin was indeed correct about Costanza: she appears to have been very rich. A small sideboard nearby the fireplace of her sala contained magnificent women’s clothing in silks and brocades. A small strongbox with sides of alabaster, adorned with ten columns, contained some fifty pieces of jewelry, among them crowns for her hair, a necklace of fifty-seven round pearls, and another pearl necklace of two strands. In addition, there were diamond brooches and diamond rings, a sapphire, and service for ten in silver. A striking feature of the inventory is the number of works of art the house contained. Every stairway, landing, and room— even those on the fourth level— contained busts, statues or statuettes. While the ground floor was the exclusive province of sculpture, the upper floors were covered with paintings. There were 108 paintings, three drawings, three mirrors, and seventy-five statues (among them seven terracottas, two terracotta reliefs, and a single bronze). In addition to scores of marble heads, there were twenty-six marble portrait busts displayed on wooden pedestals. The numbers do not do justice to the collection, for an alternative narrative, indeed a personality, emerges from the listings in the individual rooms. Working from the attic floor down, a small room at the summit of the house contained a painting of Fortune, while in another larger room on the floor below was a painting with two figures representing Time, both common reflections on the uncertain course of human life. In the sala on the third floor, which seems to have functioned as a dining room, among various tables, chairs, buffets and sideboards, there were painted portraits of Matteo and Costanza, a portrait of Matteo’s patron, the prince Pamphili, while he was still a cardinal, and a large painting of Lot.



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On the second floor one entered what seems to have been the mistress’s realm. Here one found the galleria, Costanza’s bedroom, a sala, and the kitchen. In Costanza’s bedroom there were paintings of a seascape, an angel, a small Saint Francis, and a nativity, along with a terracotta statuette of Saint Agatha. The largest painting in the room, however, was a bacchanal. The gallery had twenty-four paintings lining its walls, and a second statue of Saint Agatha, this one in bronze. Among the paintings, landscapes predominated, but there was also a head of Saint Teresa, a Madonna, a Saint Mary of Egypt, and a Magdalen. Secular works included a night scene, a copy of a painting of the plague, and three more bacchanals. A pattern emerges here, of revelry, saintliness, and prostitution. Agatha, Mary Magdalen, and Mary of Egypt were all either prostitutes or women who spent time in brothels. The most common subjects in the house are Mary Magdalen and the bacchanal. Costanza owned four bacchanals and five paintings of the Magdalen. Costanza had a particular connection to the Magdalen. In her will she asked to be forgiven “for the grave sins that I have committed in my life” and she left a third of her worldly possessions to the church and convent of Santa Maria Maddalena delle Convertite, now destroyed, but once located on the Corso in the center of Rome.45 Founded in 1520 by Pope Leo X, Santa Maria Maddalena was a convent for reformed prostitutes and “immodest women or criminal women who live dishonestly.” According to the statutes of the convent, in exchange for a third of their worldly goods at the time of their deaths, these women could be absolved of even the most egregious sins. On the same floor as the galleria, her bedroom and the kitchen, was Costanza’s sala, which seems to have been a private precinct for there were but two red leather chairs. The room was lined with three hundred red leather panels, tooled in gold, and had a large fireplace with a copper screen. The walls were lined with eight mixed marble busts bearing heads of white marble. Four paintings adorned the walls. With respect to the other rooms in the house, the decoration of the sala seems carefully meditated and deliberate. The four paintings that hung against the rich leather walls of this room comprise a further portrait of Costanza. In the assembly of their subjects they function as a mirror for the mistress, an autobiographical reflection on the unusual course of her life. If for Bernini’s biographers and later, art historians, Costanza was “a youthful indiscretion,” “a jilted mistress,” “a woman of the people,” the contents of her sala provide a different and much more dramatic rendition of her story, authored by Costanza herself.



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In the room hung a large painting of Venus, another of similar dimensions of Susanna, and a third of Mary Magdalen. The fourth and final work was a portrait of Costanza herself. It is impossible not to read these women—symbols of love and beauty, of chastity and the predation of men, and of a fall from grace, of sin, and of redemption — in connection to Costanza. Costanza was a sensual beauty, courted by the most famous artist in Rome, fourteen years her senior. She betrayed her husband to become his lover, and then her lover for his younger brother. She sinned, she was defaced, and eventually she turned to the church. In any society these events would seem extreme, but in Counter-Reformation Rome, where noblewomen were instructed to avoid even speaking to unrelated men, Costanza’s choices were exceptional.46 Bernini, of course, went on to public triumph. But remarkably, Costanza did not merely survive, she prospered. Returning for a moment to the pictures in her gallery, one catches a glimpse of the hardnosed businesswoman Costanza later became. The copy of the painting of the Plague, listed in the gallery, seems to refer to Nicolas Poussin’s Plague at Ashdod, which Costanza and her husband Matteo Bonucelli are thought once to have owned. The discovery of the inventory helps to nail this down. Traveling through Rome in 1647, André Félibien visited the collection of “le Sr Mathei.” There he saw the “La Peste” or Plague at Ashdod, but also Poussin’s “Parnasse,” the first originally from the collection of Fabritio Valguarnera.47 As Henry Keazor has recently pointed out, Elpidio Benedetti, Mazarin’s agent in Rome, had attempted to buy Poussin’s Plague for Mazarin in 1660. But the widow of “Matteo scultore” refused to sell for less than one thousand scudi. The work was later purchased, for the asking price, by the duc de Richelieu;48 today it hangs in the Louvre. At the time of the sale, Costanza seems to have had a copy made to hang in the gallery. Among the documents that have surfaced are notices of scores of receipts, letters and memoranda related to this enterprising couple, vestiges of a thriving business in both contemporary and ancient sculpture, and perhaps also in painting. “Matteo scultore” was more successful than has been previously considered. But his unusual wife may also have been a woman of independent means. In fact, as has long been known, but is rarely remarked, at the end of Baldinucci’s life of the artist, among a list of Bernini’s works, the bust of Costanza Bonarelli is cited as that of Costanza Piccolomini,49 and it is by that noble name that she was known. The precise branch and origin of her family remains to be established, but in the documents, Costanza is consistently referred to as a “Signora,” and while her



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husband was buried in the parish church, she was buried in the ancient basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore. If we can trust Tessin, at her death she had a large catafalque to celebrate her standing. Along with her paintings, sculptures and jewels, Costanza left behind a seven-year-old daughter. In her will she names two men to act as tutors and guardians to the child. Both were secretaries to the reigning Pope Alexander VII Chigi. This fact alone suggests the powerful church connections she enjoyed. Among the objects listed in Costanza’s bedroom was a silver seal, and the red wax sealing her will in the archives is impressed with the Piccolomini arms. Costanza was Bernini’s great passion. Their houses still stand a fiveminute walk apart, equidistant from the Trevi Fountain. Both lived in the area from the 1640s until their deaths, and both were buried in Santa Maria Maggiore. Though the sources are silent on the nature of their ties after the famous affair, Matteo continued to work for Gianlorenzo until his death in 1654. Costanza Piccolomini was no “woman of the people,” with “dirty hair” and a “feral gaze.” As we loosen the narrative grip of Bernini’s biographers it becomes possible to see her portrait anew. Bernini has included different features of this remarkable woman when she is seen from different angles. The riveting gaze of the face seen full indeed gives the impression of immediacy and focus, and her décolletage signals her sensuality and her intimacy with the artist (fig. 39). But the left side view softens into an almost matronly comeliness, Costanza’s generous double chin echoed in the loop of hair gathered in the braided coil at the back of her head. Bernini includes a single curl, drilled through, at the nape of the neck. From a three-quarter angle, seen from the right, Costanza’s neck is long and swanlike. She is a youthful beauty in a ruffled blouse. But the rear view is the most unexpected (fig. 41). The hollow of the bust is rough and unadorned, not normally intended to be seen. Above it the tousled hair resolves itself into a formal and quite elaborate braided coiffeur, similar to that of the noble woman kneeling in the foreground of Vouet’s Birth of the Virgin.50 Bernini has doubled the braid. The portrait bust of Costanza Bonarelli is transformed by what we are told. The seventeenth-century biographical narratives either suppress her or cast her as the unbridled passion of the youthful artist; Costanza has a narrative purpose that renders her a stereotype. Archival documents recovered in the 1960s accrue to these biographical narratives in the manner of Fraschetti’s double portrait, confirming Costanza as the wanton mistress of the Bernini brothers and the cause of a blood feud. But further archival



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research adjusts the centrality of those events, revealing Costanza to be of noble birth, well-connected, and a hard-headed business woman who became quite rich. And an inventory of her household goods adds an autobiographical dimension; Costanza places herself within a visual narrative of female beauty and moral complication. A “speaking likeness” is meant to capture what is characteristic of a sitter, engaging the viewer in dialogue with the image. But that dialogue and what is found to be characteristic are in part determined by what is known. Bernini’s biographers spin narratives for the life of the great man. Art historians find the documents to support them. But in the case of Costanza, a return to the archives with a set of different questions allows her and her portrait to stand apart from the shaping influence of Bernini’s life story, and begins to provide a likeness that could be her own.

appendix a: last will and testament of costanza piccolomini (d. 30 november 1662) Note: A question mark in brackets [?] indicates an undecipherable word and/or uncertainty as to the the meaning of a word. Drawn up 11 February 1659. Opened 4 December 1662 Archivio di Stato, Rome, Notai AC, Testamenti, vol. 57, fols. 312r – 315v; 328r–329r. [fol. 312r] Aperitio Testamenti Constantia Piccolominea Stante obitu D. Constantia Piccolominea Viterbiensis Vidua relicta q. Mathei Bonucelli Lucensis seguto die 30 9bris pti, ut ex fide subscripta a R. P.re Parochi, sive Curato Ven. Ecc.le S.S. Vincentii et Anastasii in Trivio de Urbe tenon. ad requisitione et instantiam D. Ludovici Biraghi . . . coram testibus infradicendis exhibui testamentum quondam Constantiam conditus et clausus, et sigillatus mihi Noto consignatus sub die 11 februarii 1659 seu et ad ulteriores eiusque D. Ludovici atque et vig.te facultatus in illius consignan.e ut supra facta mihi Noto concestar. et als omni attento obitu pto, et ut mens d. q. Constantia executori demandetur coram eisdem testibus dissigillavi, apervi, et p. legi, et publicavi tenoris super quibus.



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Actus Roma in Palatio Apostolico in M.te Quirinali, et instantiis solitis Ill.mi et R.mi D. Abb. Salvetti presentibus Ill.mo et R.mo D. Octavio Buccapadulio nob. Romano Basilica S. Maria Maioris Can.co et Ill. et R. D. Joanne Bissaiga testibus. [fol. 313r] Fidem facio ego F. Alexander Furlanus Curatus SS Vincentii, et Anastasii in Trivio, qualit. in liber mortuorum fol. 32 invenit. infrascripta partita. A di 30 Nov: 1662 Passò da questa à meglior vita la sig.ra Costanza Picolomini verso le 16 hore Moglie del q. Sig.r Matteo Picolomini [sic], havendo prima ricevuti devot.e li santissimi sacramenti della Confessione, Comunione et Estrema ontione, con la raccomandatione dell’Anima, et fu portato il suo Corpo a S.a Maria Maggiore, cosi per Testamento, et il primo Decembre fu sepolto in detta Basilica. In prova fidem haec die 3 Decembris 1662 Idem qui supra F. Alexander Furlanus Curatus manu propria [fol. 314r] In Nome della S.ma Trinità Considerando Io Costanza figliola del q. Leonardo Piccolomini da Viterbo e moglie già del q. Matteo Bonucello Lucchese non esserci al Mondo cosa più certa della morte, benche sia incerta l’hora di quella, E volendo io disporre delli miei beni perche doppo la mia morte non nasca lite alcuna sopra quelli. Di qui è che adesso essendo per gratia di Dio sana di mente, e di corpo, ho risoluto di fare il presente testamento quale dichiaro voler esser nuncupativo e sine scriptis, e di valermi della presente scrittura per prova di quello, e non per solennità, ne sustanza d’esso, di modo che colla mia sola sottoscrittione vaglia benche scritto per mano di persona mia confidente. E perche l’Anima è del corpo, e di tutte l’altre cose la più degna, e la piu nobile, cominciando dunque da quella con tutto il cuore, e colla maggior humilità, e devotione che posso, e che devo la raccommando à Iddio, supplicando S.D.M. che per l’infinita sua missericordia, e per li meriti della passione di Giesù N.ro Sig.re, e Redentore, et anco per li meriti dell’Immaculata



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Vergine Maria Avvocata de Peccatori, e di tutti li Santi del Cielo, voglia perdonarmi li gravi peccati che da me saranno stati commessi nella mia vita, e darmi la perpetua fede, e carità, e nel punto della mia morte quella gratia che sarà necessaria per salute dell’Anima mia. E quando piacerà à Iddio, che Io passi á miglior vita, voglio, che il mio corpo sia sepellito nella Chiesa di Santa Maria Maggiore ò di S.ta Bibiana Chiesa pertinente alla medesima Basilica di S.ta Maria Maggiore. Lascio Iure Institutionis, et in vim privilegiorum et Amore Dei, et als omni melior modo, et noie al Ven. Monastero delle Convertite di Roma la terza parte di tutti i miei beni, pregando le Monache del sudetto Monastero ad intercedere colle loro orationi la salute dell’Anima mia. Lascio, che fra sei mesi doppo seguita la mia morte si faccino celebrare doi mila messe per salute dell’Anima mia nelle Chiese che parerà agl’infrascritti signori essecutori di questo mio testamento. Quattrocento delle quali si debbiano celebrare frà un’mese, e cento il giorno medesimo della mia morte, et una nell’istesso giorno, e l’altro appresso all’Altare privilegiato di S. Lorenzo fuori delle Mura. Item lascio Iure Institutionis et als omni meliori modo, et noie à Michele Piccolomini mio fratello scudi cento per una sola volta. Item lascio Iure institutionis, et als omni meliori modo, et noie ad Anna Maria mia Sorella Carnale scudi cento. Lascio per ragione di legato à Marc’Antonio Tolomei figlio di Cleria Piccolomini altra mia sorella, e di Gio. Tolomei suo marito scudi doi cento simili, quali però non se gli debbano dare se non quando haverà compiti anni vinti dell’età sua, e caso che detto Marco Antonio morisse avanti d’haver finito detto tempo voglio, ordinò, e commando, che in questo legato succeda quella Chiesa, dove sarà sepellito il mio corpo, qual Chiesa sia tenuta investire li detti scudi 200 in due luoghi di Monti non vacabili, censi perpetui, o stabili à suo arbitrio, et ogn’anno in perpetuo far celebrare in essa venti messe per suffraggio dell’Anima mia, e dell’Anima del q. Matteo Bonucelli mio marito, e quando li predetti 200 scudi non bastino per li doi luoghi di Monti si supplisca al di più colla robba della mia heredità.



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Lascio per raggione di legato à Madonna Fiora Corsi Romana scudi vinticinque di moneta. Lascio per raggione di legato à Monsignor Illustrissimo Rasponi secretario della Sacra Consulta et à Monsignor Illustrissimo Salvetti segretario della Cifra di N.ro S.re Papa Alessandro Settimo, li dui quadri di Prospettive fatte da Viviano colle loro Cornici, cioè uno per uno, pregandoli à non sdegnare questa picciola dimostratione della mia devotione verso di loro. Desidero, e cosi ne prego colla maggior efficacia, che posso li sopradetti Illustrissimi Monsignori Rasponi, e Salvetti, che seguita la mia morte, quanto più presto si potrà faccino vendere tutti li miei beni mobili, quadri, statue, argenti, et altro, che le Sig.rie Loro Ill.me giudicheranno non puoter servire per uso dell’infrascritta mia herede, et il prezzo d’essi, sodisfatti che saranno li miei debiti, e legati fatti come sopra si debbia investire in luoghi de Monti non vacabili, censi perpetui, e beni stabili à benefitio dell’infrascritta mia herede ad arbitrio delle Signorie Loro Ill.me. E quando per la mala congiontura de tempi non si trovasse à far esito di detta robba per prezzi raggionevoli (che di questo in tutto, e per tutto me ne rimetto al giuditio e parere di detti Illustrissimi) avanti il tempo concesso dalla legge à sodisfare li sopradetti legati, in tal caso ordinò, e voglio, che detti legatarij non possano pretendere se non tanta della mia robba, quanta importeranno li legati fattagli come sopra conforme saranno d’accordo con detti Illustrissimi essecutori. In tutti e singoli miei beni stabili, mobili, e semoventi d’ogni sorte, e conditione, ori, argenti, gioie, raggioni, attioni, pretentioni, o crediti di qualsivoglia sorte, et in qualsivoglia luogho, tanto in Roma, quanto fuori esistenti, et à me spettanti, e che in qualsivoglia modo per l’avvenire potessero spettare, et appartenere, et in tutta la mia universale heredità, e successione con la mia propria bocca nomino, instituisco, faccio, e voglio, che sia mia universale herede Olimpia Caterina mia figlia se sopraviverà à me, e caso morisse prima instituisco la sopradetta Chiesa dove sarà sepellito il mio Corpo con obligo di dire tante Messe da morti in perpetuo per salute dell’anima mia, e dell’anima del detto q. Matteo Bonucelli mio marito, e della medesima Olimpia Caterina mia figlia, che parerà alli medesimi Monsignori Illustrissimi Rasponi, e Salvetti, e caso che loro non dechiarassero quella quantità che capitolarmente secondo la loro conscienza



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giudichera il Capitolo di S.ta Maria Maggiore, et i Canonici di quella, e li PP. Domenicani Penitentieri in essa Chiesa, à quali lascio in caso che debbiano prendere tal briga, e non altrimente scudi venti per una sola volta, e per il pensiero che haveranno di favorirmi. E caso che detta Olimpia Caterina mia figlia morisse prima di farsi Monacha, o di maritarsi senza figlioli [“leggitimi e naturali” is crossed out] [Costanza has added above, in her own hand:] piccolomini, in tal caso gli sostituisco la medesima Chiesa dove Io sarò sepolta coll’obligo detto di sopra. Tutori, e per tempo Curatori di detta mia figlia et herede, lascio, e prego che siano li medesimi Monsignori Rasponi e Salvetti; e ciasched’uno di loro in solidum, quali anco lascio essecutori di questa mia ultima volontà con tutte le maggiori facoltà, et autorità solite e consuete e che Io gli posso concedere, pregandoli che per l’innata loro gentilezza mi voglino favorire d’accettare questo peso, e proteggere detta mia figlia, et herede, e fare puntualmente esseguire quanto si contiene in questa mia dispositione. Dichiaro in oltre, e voglio che detti Ill.mi Sig.ri Tutori non siano obligati à render conto se non di quello che ciascheduno di loro havera maneggiato. In oltre dò facoltà alli medesimi Sig.ri Tutori in solidum in caso di loro morte (che Iddio non voglia) di puoter elegere, o deputare uno ò più Tutori, e per tempo Curatori di detta mia figlia, li quali habbiano l’istesse facoltà, e prerogative che Io ho concesse alle Sig.ri Loro Ill.me. E questa dico, voglio, che sia la mia ultima dispositione e testamento, quale voglio, che vaglia per raggione di nuncupativo testamento (che per raggione Civile si dice senza scritti) come sopra, e se come tale non valesse, voglio, che vaglia per raggione di Codicillo ò per titolo di donatione per causa di morte, ò per qualsivoglia altra ultima volontà, e dispositione, et in ogn’altro meglior modo, e forma che di raggione, et anco di consuetudine possa valere. Cassando, annullando, et irritando qualsivoglia altro testamento, codicilli, donatione per causa di morte, o altra ultima volontà, che in qualsivoglia modo Io havessi fatta sino al presente giorno con qualsivoglia clausole e cautele etiam derogatorie alle future dispositioni, volendo che questa prevaglia à tutte le altre in ogni miglior modo. In fede questo di 23 gennaro 1659. [In Costanza’s hand:] Costanza Piccolomini testo come nelli retroscritti



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fogli, et instituisco erede detta Olimpia Caterina, quale morendo senza figli sustituisco come nelli detti fogli. English Translation

[fol. 313r] I, F. Alexander Furlano, Guardian of SS. Vincenzo e Anastasio at Trevi, attest that in the Book of the Dead, at foglio 32, will be found the following entry. 30 November 1662 Costanza Picolomini, wife of the late Signor Matteo Picolomini [sic], passed from this to a better life toward the 16th hour, having first devotedly received the most holy sacraments of Confession, Communion, and Extreme Unction, with the committing of the soul. Her body was taken to Santa Maria Maggiore, as requested in the will, and the first of December was buried in that basilica. In faith, this day, 3 December 1662 The same as above, F. Alexander Furlano, Guardian, by his own hand [fol. 314r] In the name of the most Holy Trinity I, Costanza, daughter of the late Leonardo Piccolomini of Viterbo, wife of the late Matteo Bonucelli of Lucca, considering that there is nothing in the world more certain than death, although the hour is uncertain, and wanting to dispose of my goods so that after my death no argument arises concerning them, by the grace of God being of sound mind and body, I have resolved to make the present will and testament which I declare wanting to be nuncupative and sine scriptis, and to make use of the present text as proof of that, and neither for solemnity nor the substance of it, in such a way that with my signature alone it may be considered valid even though written by the hand of a person trusted by me. And because the Soul is, of the body and all other things the most worthy and the most noble, beginning therefore with that, with all my heart and with the greatest humility and devotion that I can and I must, I commend it to God, beseeching S.D.M. that by the infinitude of his mercy, by the



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merits of the passion of Jesus, our Lord and Redeemer, and also by the merits of the Immaculate Virgin Mary Protectress of Sinners, and all of the Saints of Heaven, to pardon the grave sins that I have committed in my life, and to give me perpetual faith and charity, and at the time of my death that grace that will be necessary for the health of my soul. And when it pleases God that I pass to a better life, I desire that my body be buried in the church of Santa Maria Maggiore or in Santa Bibiana, belonging to the same basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore. I leave, by rightful arrangement and in force of the privileges and love of God and in every better way, and name to the venerable monastery of the Convertite in Rome the third part of all of my goods, asking the nuns of the above mentioned monastery to intercede with their prayers for the health of my soul. I leave that within six months of my death two thousands masses for the health of my soul be celebrated in the churches that seem appropriate to the executors mentioned below of this my testament. Four hundred of these masses must be celebrated within a month, and one hundred the day of my death, and one the same day and another the following day at the privileged altar of S. Lorenzo fuori delle Mura. Further, I leave by rightful arrangement and every better way, and name to Michele Piccolomini, my brother, one hundred scudi one time alone. Further, I leave by rightful arrangement and every better way, and name to Anna Maria, my blood sister, one hundred scudi. I leave as a bequest to Marc’Antonio Tolomei, son of Cleria Piccolomini, my other sister, and of Giovanni Tolomei, her husband, two hundred scudi, which, however, should not be given to him until he has reached the age of twenty. And in the case that Marco Antonio dies before this age, I wish, order, and command that this bequest pass to the church where my body is buried, which church is held to invest these 200 scudi in two luoghi di Monti non vacabili [inalienable bonds], censi perpetui [fixed and binding loans], or stabili [real estate], of its judgment, and each year in perpetuity celebrate there twenty masses for my soul and for that of my late husband Matteo Bonuccelli. And in case the aforementioned 200 scudi are not



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enough for two luoghi di Monti the difference will be made up with the goods of my estate. I leave as a bequest to Madonna Fiora Corsi, a Roman woman, twenty-five scudi in coin. I leave as a bequest to the Illustrious Monsignor Rasponi Secretary of the Sacra Consulta [Holy Council], and to the Illustrious Monsignor Salvetti Secretary of the Cifra [cipher] of Our Lord Pope Alexander VII, the two perspective paintings made by Viviano [Codazzi] with their frames, that is one for each, asking them not to refuse this little demonstration of my devotion to them. I desire, and thus I ask with the greatest efficacy that I am able the abovementioned most Illustrious Monsignors Rasponi and Salvetti that after my death, as soon as possible, all of my personal property, paintings, statues, silver, and other things that these Illustrious Sirs judge not to be useful to my heir, named below, be sold and that having satisfied my debts and the bequests as made above, that they invest the yield from these sales in inalienable bonds, fixed and binding loans, and real estate for the benefit of my heir—named below—following the judgment of these most Illustrious Sirs. And if, because of the bad circumstances of the times, one is unable to sell these goods for reasonable prices (in this as in all other matters I yield to the judgment and opinion of these Illustrious men) before the time conceded by law to satisfy the abovementioned bequests, in that case I order, and wish that these legatees are not able to claim more of my belongings than the value of those described in the bequests made above in compliance with the judgment of these illustrious executors. All of my real estate, and personal property of every sort and condition, gold, silver, jewels, accounts, stocks, claims, or assets of any kind, and in any location, whether in Rome or elsewhere, and belonging to me or that in any way could belong to me in the future, in all of my universal inheritance and succession with my own mouth I name, institute, make, and wish that my universal heir shall be my daughter, Olimpia Caterina, should she outlive me. And in the case that she dies first I institute the abovenamed church where my body will be buried with the obligation to say as



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many masses for the dead in perpetuity for the health of my soul and the soul of the late Matteo Bonuccelli my husband, and of the same Olimpia Caterina my daughter as seem appropriate to the same Illustrious Monsignors Rasponi and Salvetti. And in the case that they do not declare that which, according to their conscience, the Chapter and Canons of Santa Maria Maggiore and the Penitentiary Dominican Fathers of this church judge to be necessary, and in the case that they should take on this trouble, and not otherwise, I leave a one-time bequest of 20 scudi for the thought they take in favoring me. And in the case that said Olimpia Caterina, my daughter, should die before becoming a nun, or should marry without children [“legitimate and natural” is crossed out][Costanza has added in her own hand:] piccolomini, I substitute as heir the same church where I shall be buried with the obligation stated above. As tutors, and for a time guardians, of my daughter and heir I leave and ask that they be the same Monsignors Rasponi and Salvetti; and each one of them in trust [in solidum], also I leave as executors of this my last desire with all of the other power, and usual and customary authority that I can give them, asking them that through their innate kindness they will favor me by accepting this burden to protect my daughter and heir and to carry out punctually that which is contained in this my will. Further, I declare and desire that these Illustrious tutors not be obliged to account for anything beyond that which each of them has managed. Further, I empower the same tutors [in trust] in case of their deaths (God forbid) to elect or deputize one or more tutors and for a time guardians of my daughter, who would have the same power and prerogatives that I have conceded to these most Illustrious men. And this I say, I want to be my last will and testament, which I desire to be valid as a nuncupative testament (which according to civil law is called “unwritten” or an oral statement of intention) as stated above, and in case this is not considered valid, I wish it to be valid by reason of codicil, or by title of donation by reason of death, or for any other last wish and disposition, and in every other better way, and form that by law, and also of custom may be valid. Canceling, annulling, and alienating any other testament,



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codicil, donation by reason of death, or other last will, that in any way I have made until the present day with any precautions and even overriding clauses to future dispositions, desiring that this prevail above all others and in every better way. In faith this day 23 January 1659. [In Costanza’s hand:] Costanza Piccolomini attests as in the preceding pages, and institutes as heir the said Olimpia Caterina who, dying without children, I substitute as in the said pages.

appendix b: inventory of the contents of costanza’s house Archivio di Stato, Rome, Notai AC, vol. 4992, fols. 624r– 629v; 652r– 657r. Notes: 1. A question mark indicates an undecipherable word and/or uncertainty as to the meaning of a word. 2. Numbers that follow inventory items indicate their monetary worth in scudi and baiocchi. [fol. 624r] Inventario, e stima de mobili, et altro spettante alla heredità della q.m Costanza Piccolomini ritrovatti nella sua Casa Nell’ Antrone Una statua di marmo in piede grande Cinque altre diverse da restaurare Un pezzo di colonna con un busto di marmo, e testa Tre pezzi di pietra rustica Un pezzetto di colonna sottile Due Colonne di giallo mischie Otto bariloni di legno da lavorarci sopra Una scala à piroli rotta Nel Cortile Sedici Vasi d’agrumi diversi Sessanta altri Vasetti diversi Una brocca di rame da inaquare Un pezzo di colonna rotto in due pezzi



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Due tagli di Colonna di pietra mischia Nella bottega Una Colonna gialla Una Venere di marmo da restaurare Una forma di Leone rotta con suoi ferri Otto Vettinelle invetriate diverse vote Tre teste di Marmo [fol. 624v] Un pezzo di marmo alto sbozzato con due figure Una scala grande, et una piccola a piroli Due gambe piccoline di marmo Tre Caldare di rame diverse Una botte in piedi sfondata con vinaccie Un altra Testa di marmo, et una serpe Un manticetto rotto Un Trapano Tre Credenzoni diversi d’albuccio attaccati al muro Una Cassa grande d’Albuccio Un altro manti cetto piccolino Due delfini con cinque altri pezzi di marmo Due pezzi di marmo in Tavola Un pezzo di Colonna di marmo scandellata Un Leone di marmo senza Testa, e senza coda Un Caldarozzo [?], et una conca di rame rotto Una gamba di gesso

0- 30 10-4 01-20 01- 20 02-80

01-

In Cantina Mezza botticella vota Otto Vettinelle d’invetriate diverse vote Quattro passa di legna in circa

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A mezze Scale Un tavolino basso con tiratore [fol. 625r] Due Statue di marmo sopra due scabelli di legno



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In Capo alle Scale Un buffetto dino[?] con corame rosso sopra Due sedie di Vacchetta rossa con oro, e francie verde Due scabelletti di noce coperti di cataluffo Una tenda di tela torchina con suo ferro alla finestra Un portiera di corame con suo ferro Un scabellone tinto di noce con fregio d’oro Due statue in piedi una con piedistallo di porfido e l’altra con un pezzo di marmo Un busto con una Testa di mora, e suo peduccio nero Un altro con peduccio, e petto mischio Cinque paesetti piccoli con cornice dorate Due altri paesi da Testa con cornice simili Un quadro da Testa con tappeto, e l’altro con cornice à foglie dorate Un paese di 4 palmi con diverse figure, et animali con cornice dorata Un altro p l’alto con figura Un altro di tela d’impannata con N.S. ch’apparisce alla Madalena cornice dorata

01- 50 0501- 50 -80 01- 50 01

In Sala Il parato di corame rosso, et oro con cinque portiere simili in tutto pelle n.o 300 in circa E più cinque ferri per le dette Portiere [fol. 625v] Otto busti di mischio diversi con sue Teste di marmo bianco con suoi peducci sopra otto scabelloni di pietre diverse commesse Un Statuetta di marmo bianco sopra un scabellone di legno dipinto Un boffetto di porfido con suoi piedi di legno Un boffetto di noce con due tiratori Un quadro grande con un fiume, et una Venere con cornice dorata Un altro simile di Susanna con cornice tinta di noce profilata d’oro Una Madalena in Tela di testa con cornice dorata Il Retratto della defonta con cornice rabescata d’oro



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Tre Scabelli coperti di cataluffo comp[agn]i degl’altri Un focone con sua gabbia di rame intagliato Una Colonnetta Scandellata tinta di noce con oro Due Sedie di Vacchetta rossa con francia verde

0202-40 0104-

Nel Credenzino dentro il Camino Un Ungarina di Velluto piano nera foderata di lastra colorata con bottoni d’argento, e seta Una veste con suo busto di drappo colorato con merletto d’argento Un altra di panno d’olanda color di foco con merletto d’oro Un altra bianca fondo raso guarnita di zagana d’argento e nera [fol. 626r] Un altra di Restagno leonato Un altra simile torchina Un altra simile argentina Un altra simile color di panza di monaca Una veste con suo busto di ferandina nera Una veste con suo busto, e calzoni di taffettano incarnato con merletto d’argento, e seta nera Una veste con busto di spumiglia nera Due Camisciole di Seta, et oro una delle quali è rotta Una veste senza busto di sagra griscia con merletto d’argento Sette Casacchine diversi di robba, e colori Un paro di calzoni color di foco vecchi Una trabecca d’ormesino giallo con sei bandinelle, e tornaletto con francia torchina, e gialla Una scattola tonda con panispalle, et altro Un altra longa simile Due canne di sagia nera Due para di mezze maniche Due para di maniche di tela bianca Una scattola quadra con panispalle, et altre bagaglie due de quali lavorati di seta, et Oro Tre camiscie diverse da donna Un studioletto d’ebano intersiato d’avorio, che ne manca un tiratore Un altro studiolo di lavoro all’indiana con dieci colonette



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[fol. 626v] e facciatelle d’alabastro coperto di corame rosso

15-

Dentro Nove forchette, e dieci cocchiari d’argento libre 2 on. 4 Cinque cortelli con maniche d’argento Diverse fettuccine in un tiratoro Una corona di corvo nero, una di pastiglia, e ortatrina d’oro, e seta nera Un secchietto d’argento per l’acqua Santà on. 7 d. 21 Un vezzo di perle tonde n.o 57, 9.4 l’una Un altro à due fila di perle scoramazze d.i 27 Due smanigli simili à quattro fila d: 25 Un paro di pendenti à navicella d’oro con p.le di mistura Un paro di smanigli di pietre diverse leg. in oro Una Rosetta di brilli Un altra Rosetta con un Diamantino in mezzo Due Gioielletti con n.o 26 diamantini in tutto, con fettuccia nera per smaniglio Due smanigli di fettuccia nera con coppietta d’argento Un scattolino colorato con dentro Una coppia? d’oro piccola con un coretto attaccato con diamantini Un paro di pendenti d’oro con n.o trenta cinque diamantini diversi con due p.le à paro à uno de quali manca una lagrima [fol. 627r] Un anello fatto a core con n.o dieci Diamanti diversi Un paro di pendenti d’oro con una pietra verde in mezzo e sette perle scaramazze diverse per Ciascuno Un altro scattolino tondo inargentato dentro Una Catena d’oro à mattoncini pesa scudi trenta d’oro Un anello d’oro con un Zaffiro smaltato Un altro con tre pietre bianche à specchio Un cordoncino d’oro con una schricolita? sbusciata, e due lenguette legata d’oro Un cortello, et una forchetta con maniche di matreperla in una guaina di velluto rosso con torchina, e granate? con puntale, e brutaglia d’argento dorato



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Un borsa di punto francesese [sic] con dentro un acoraro d’avorio, Una schiavetta d’argento, sei bottoni d’oro segnaroli d’una Coroncina di smalto Una pietra verde leg.a in argento diversi Christalli et un reliquaretto d’argento in tutto Un temporino con manico d’argento Un altro con manico di tartaruca Un reliquario d’osso nero con pietre, e rosette d’argento Un orologgietto con cassa di Cristallo leg. in ottone dorato Un altro Cassettino con tre medaglie d’argento diversi Coralli sfilati, una pietra con oro comesso a cinque pietre [fol. 627v] rosse, Un altra pietra verde leg.a in oro, et uno stucetto di legno con una forbietta guarnito d’oro

-03- 50 -60 0- 40 -04-

-02-

Nella stanza verso la strada Una lettiera di ferro con sue Colonne nere con sue tavole tre matarazzi, Un capezzale?, e due cuscini, con trabocca di damasco, et ormesino con sua coperta, e tornaletto Il Parato di broccatello di due colori di tela n.o sedici Due scabelloni di Albuccio intagliati depinti di color di noce, et oro Sopra dd. una testa d’una mora con suo peduccio di pietra rossa, et un altra di marmo bianco con sua pieduccio di pietra mischia Un quadro di 3 palmi in circa con un Angelo che apparisce con cornice dorato Un altro Quadro grande di Marina con diverse figure e cornice dorata Un altro un poco più grande con un baccanale, e cornice all’Indiana Un Presepio di tre palmi per traverso con cornice dorata Un quadretto piccolo con un S. Francesco à penna con cornice nera Un specchio Un Crocifisso di metallo di due palmi in circa con croce, e piede di legno tinto di nero [fol. 628r] Una tela torchina con suo ferro alla fenestra



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Un tavolino di pietra nera, e gialla con suo piede di legno nero con suo tiratore Dentro detto tiratoro un temperino con manico nero con due lumi, e sigillo d’argento. Un pettine d’avorio bono? due rotti uno de’ quali e fermato con una piastrina d’argento, Un occhialone, Un Cristallo in triangolo, et altre bagagliole in tutto Un inginocchiatoro à Credenzino di noce Nel tiratore di d.o Una pietra si dice di belzuano? una piastra e due testoni Un altro tiratoretto con una doppia di Spagna, e pedoli? trenta sette, e mezzo d’argento in tutto In un altro sei patenti, di Monti sussidio, a S. Bonaventura n.o venti luoghi Vi sono altri luoghi dieci del Monte sussidio, de’ quali parro? non è spedita la patente Un Vasetto d’argento d’un oncia in circa Una statuetta di S. Agata di terra cotta dorata con suo piedestallo di pietra nera Un tappetto di lana di diversi colori da Tavolino

-01- 50 -02-01- 65 -06- 85

-0101-01-

Nell’altra stantiolina verso le scale Un parato di corame rosso, et oro conforme la sala di pelle n.o 100 in circa [fol. 628v] Un Cimbalo con suoi piedi coperto di corame

-10-10-

In Cucina Una tavola à telaro con tre altri tavolini diversi Un Credenzino d’albuccio al muro Una Mattara con sua spianatora di legno da far pane Mortale di marmo con suo pistello, pile, e piatti Un paro di capofochi di ferro con poracenere, graticola spidi tre piedi, et altre bagaglie di cucina Un baccile d’ottone Due Candelieri d’ottone con suoi smoccolatori



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Il mortale di metallo con suo pistello Rami diversi di cucina lib. 611/2 Altri con ferri lib. 27 Una bilancia stadera con fondo di rame Una cassa di legno con serratura

-01- 40 -09-02-60 -50

Dentro Camiscie diverse da Donna n.o quattordici tra bone, e rotte Otto zinali diversi Due para di sotto calzoni di fustagno Undeci sciogatori diversi Dieci sette foderette diverse Due para di calzette di filo, et uno di tela Un zinale novo con merletti alto [fol. 629r] Un altro simile usato Due Cuscinetti di broccato con odoi Un Credenzone di noce con due pezzi Nella parte superiore otto lenzuole diverse Un guardello di bombaccina stampato à fiori Sei libre, e mezzo di filato in una Savonia Due zinali novi sotto calzette diverse Altro filato in matasse lib. 11/2 Una tovaglia lunga Una tovaglietta Due altre piccole Nella parte di sotto filo crudo in matasse lib. 41/2 Un cortinaggio di tabi torchino a onda con sua coperta con freggio, et tornaletto di punto francese In faccia alla Seconda Scala Due statue di marmo in piedi sopra due scabelli coloriti di noce Due piedi stalli tondi di pietra mischia Sette teste diverse, e tre altre piccoline Due pezzi d’Alabastro



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Nella dispensatta [fol. 629v] Robbe diverse, Vetri, Conocchie, scope, e sapone

-04-

Nella Galleria Cinque sedie di Vacchetta rossa come l’altre Due sediole basse di Vacchetta simile Un Credenzino di noce con scritture Due buffetti d’alabastro senza piede con cornice tinta di nero di legno senza piedi Una tavola di pietra nera con suo piede, e tiratore di noce Un tavolino di misura fiorato con suo piede di noce Quattro scabelletti di Cataluffo Due scabelloni d’Albuccio intagliati, e dorati Due busti di marmo mischio con sue teste di marmo Quattro scabelloni di pietra commesse Un busto piccolo d’Alabastro con testa di marmo e suo pieduccio nero Una S. Agata di metallo alta palmi due Due teste di marmo con suoi pieducci Due altre teste con suoi pieducci gialli Una figurina di terra cotta sopra un pieduccio di marmo mischio Due Vasetti di terra cotta con fiori finti con le sue campane di vetro Un quadro di fiori in tela dà testa con cornice intagliata, e dorata [fol. 652r] Due paesetti piccoli con cornice dorata Un quadretto piccolo per traverso con una Madalena, e due Angioli con cornice dorata Una copia del quadro rappresentante la peste con cornice dorata grande Un ritrattino piccolo con cornice di noce Un quadro di diverse figure con cornice dorata à mordente Un paesetto con cornice d’ebano Un quadro di notte con cornice all’Indiana Una Santa Teresia in tela da testa con cornice dorata Un baccanale in tela da Imp.re con cornice dorata à mordente Un quadro di frutti con cornice all’Indiana



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Un quadro da testa con una Madonna cornice dorata Una Santa Maria Egittiaca grande con cornice dorata Due quadri per traverso di battaglia con cornice dorata Un paesetto piccolo con cornice nera Un altro da testa con cornice dorata Un baccanale à guazzo per traverso con cornice dorata Un quadro da testa con fontana, e figure con cornice intagliata, e dorata Un altro con cornice simile con diverse figure Un paese di tre primi? [palmi] con anticaglie con cornice dorata Un altro più grande con un Cavallo cornice dorata [fol. 652v] Un altro baccanale à guazzo con cornice dorata Una portiera di corame con suo ferro Due tende di tela torchina per le finestre con suoi ferri, e cordoni Un tappeto di lana di diversi colori à fuggia di punto francese Un bambino a sedere à foggia di Lucca Un Credenzino di noce con quattro tiratori

-02-02-01-07-

Nel primo Canne tre, e mezzo di drappo incarnato in pezzo Canne tre simili torchino Palmi undeci, e mezzo di damasco Cremesino Un collare di velo bianco con merletto Palmi quattro, e mezzo di lastra berrettina

-06-05-04-02-03-

Nel 2.o Un berrettino di drappo nero con sue penne? Canne tre in una di Cambraia

-02-05-

Nel 3.o niente, et nel 4.o Un paro di lenzuole di cortina Una pettiniera di cortina Due fazzoletti simili Undeci salviette diverse Palmi nove di bombacina

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Nella Sala di sopra Un mezzo armario di noce [fol. 653r] Dentro

-10-

Un Canestrella d’argento trasforata | Tre sotto coppe | Una Cocchiglia con suo vaso | pesono in tutto Due Candelieri | lib. 21 Una Saliera tonda | Un Vaso per l’acqua Santa | . . . . . . . . . . 222- 50 Un Vaso per refreschare con suo coperchio | Un granchio di rame dorato -01Un baccile. Un paro di Candelieri tondi, et un paro quadri con due smoccolatori tutti d’ottone inargentato -08Un stuccetto di christallo con suoi ferri -02Quattro lib. di filato in matasse -01- 50 Candele di cera da tavola, et altre lib. 65 -13Zucaro in pani? lib. 19 -03- 80 Una veste con suo busto di taffettano color mattoni con bottoni di seta nera, et argento -03 Altre simili di taffettano bianco con bottoni simili -07 Quattro portiere di corame foderate di pelle con suoi ferri -10Un paro di capofochi di ferro con palle d’ottone -03Tre sedie di vacchetta come l’altre -07Tre scabelletti compagni dell’altri -01- 50 Un tavolino in ottangolo di pietra nera con cornice di rame dorato con piedi di legno à fogliami dorato con suo corame rosso [fol. 653v] Sei scabelloni di pietra come l’altre Sei busti sopra Tre scabelloni di legno dipinto di noce, e profilo d’oro con suoi busti, e teste sopra Cinque pieducci di pietra, e forme diverse Un busto d’alabastro con testa di marmo staccata Due figure di terra cotta sopra due piedestalli di pietra nera



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Un busto piccolino con sua testa, e peduccio di marmo bianco Due Vasetti di frutti di mestura con sue campane di vetro Un buffetto di mestura fiorato di bianco con piede di legno tinto nero Un specchio grande con cornice nera Due quadri di prospettiva tela d’impannata à traverso con cornice dorata Un quadro con animali, e paesi cornice simile Un S. Girolamo in tela d’impannata cornice nera, et oro Un paese in tela di tre palmi in circa cornice simile Un paese in tela da testa con due figure, e cornice dorata Un quadro di lot, ò altro con tre figure, e paese tela d’impannata con cornice dorata Un retratto della Defonta Un quadro di frutti in tela d’imperatore con cornice nera et oro [fol. 654r] Un basso relievo di terra cotta dorata con cornice nera Due quadri di fiori in tela di testa con cornice dorata Un altro con Ucellami, et altro in tela da imperatore con cornice nera, et oro Due quadri di paesi con figure in tela simili con cornice intagliata, e dorata Il retratto del Principe Panfilio quando era Cardinale in tela da testa con cornice dorata Il retratto, cioè la testa del q.m Mattheo Bonucelli con cornice torchina, et oro Un paese in tela d’imp.re con un Cavallo, e diverse figure con cornice dorata Una figura d’un vecchio, et altro in tela da testa per traverso con cornice nera, et oro Un bauletto di ferro con dentro scudi quaranta nove, e baiocchi 55 in piastre, e mta bianca Due tele torchine con li suoi ferri alle finestre Nella Camera verso la strada Una lettiera di ferro con sue tavole due matarazzi pagliariccio in due pezzi suo capezzale, due lenzuole, due coperte di



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lana usate con cortinaggio di taffettano bianco, e rosso con sua coperta, e tornaletto simile e francie di seta Due scabelli Compagni degl’altri [fol. 654v] Due sedie di punto francese Una tela torchina con suo ferro alla finestra Un buffetto di porfido con suo piede di noce, e tiratore Una cassa d’albuccio con dentro diversi fiori di seta, e Vasi di vetro Un piedestallo quadro di pietra nera Due vasi d’argento intagliati da fiori di peso lib. sette in tutto Un quadro con due figure in tela da imperatore con cornice dorata Un assunta piccola con cornice nera, et oro Un quadretto in rame di S. Giovanni Un paesetto con due figure, e cornice dorata Un disegno in carta con la Madonna, et altre figure con cornice nera, et Oro Un quadro da testa con la Madalena con cornice nera, et oro Due quadretti con bamboni con cornice dorate Due quadri di marine di palmi quattro in circa con cornice dorate Una pietá di palmi 5 in circa con cornice dorata, et intagliata Un Istoria con diverse figure, paese, e Marina con cornice dorata

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Nell’altro Camerino Un letticciolo, banche, e tavole, pagliaccio, matarazzo, capezzale, due lenzuole, due coperte di lana bianca, et un panno colorato [fol. 655r] Quattro sedie di damasco verde senza bracciali Un buffetto di pietra nera con cornice di pietra colorata con piede di tavola dipinta Due scabelloni di Tavola dipinti con due putti, e sopra due figure di terra cotta Una tazza di Christallo rotta con una Venere, e due tritoni di metallo dorato sopra una lastra d’argento, che rappresenta



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una Marina con piede stallo di legno nero sopra quattro cipolle di rame dorato con sua Campana di vetro Un specchio con cornice nera Due scabelloni di legno tinti di color di noce con oro, e due putti di marmo sopra Due altri simili con due teste di marmo piccole con suoi pieducci di pietra Un tavolino di mistura fiorato con suo piede nero, e tiratore Entro del quale quattro para di calzette di seta nove grandi di diversi colori Un altro paro da Donna con oro Un altro paro giallo Un altro paro di filo bianco nove Due panispalle alla Persiana novi con recami di seta, et oro Un altro di velo di diversi colori rigato d’oro [fol. 655v] Quattro altri diversi usati Un fagottino con merletti, e passamani d’oro, et argento in più pezzi Un vezzo di Christallo Due figure di terra cotta d’un palmo dorate Una portiera di corame come l’altro con suo ferro La tela torchina con suo ferro per la finestra Un quadro tela d’imparare con ghirlanda di fiori, e due figorine in mezzo con cornice intagliata, e dorata Una prospettiva di tre palmi con cornice dorata Un altra simile con cornice all’Indiana Una testa di S. Anastasio con cornice simile Un Paesetto per traverso con cornice dorata Due tondini piccoli con cornice simile Una Madonna con altre figure in tela da mezza testa con cornice dorata Un paese con due figure rappresentanti il tempo con cornice all’Indiana tela d’Imperatore Un altro rappresentante l’acqua acetosa con cornice color di noce, et oro in tela simile Un paese per traverso di tre palmi in circa con cornice dorata Un altro un poco più grande con diverse figure, et animali con cornice dorata



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[fol. 656r] Una figura in tela da testa senza cornice Un quadro da testa con una donna, due putti, et un Cane cornice dorata Un altro più grande della Madalena cornice dorata à mord.te Un quadretto d’un palmo con diverse figure, e cornice dorata Un quadro, che rappresenta un Sacrificio in tela d’imperatore con cornice all’Indiana Un S. Bastiano in tela da mezza testa con cornice dorata Due testine di retratto in carta con cornicetta rabescata Un Credenzino d’Albuccio con una serratura, e diversi vasi di Christallo, e bicchieri

-01-

Nel primo soffitto per andare alla loggia Un quadro di cinque palmi in circa con diverse teste con cornice bianca Un retratto di palmi quattro con cornice nera, et oro Un quadro un poco più grande di tela da testa con la Santissima Annuntiata cornice dorata Un retratto di Donna con cornice nera, et oro Un paese con diverse figure in tela d’Imperatore cornice bianca Un altro simile con due mezze figure cornice dorata Due retratti di testa con cornice profilate d’oro Un quadro di tre palmi con la Madonna, e bambino che dorme con cornice dorata [fol. 656v] Un altro un poco più grande con un Cavallo, et altre figure cornice simili Un paese con una Venere cornice nera, et oro Una cassa d’Albuccio grande scorniciata di noce con sua serratura, e dentro Tre Camiscie nove da Donna Tre altre usate Tre altre di huomo usate Tre tovaglie da tavola Due Canne di tela si stoppa



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Due Salviette nove Un rotoletto di tela nova canne cinque Un rotoletto di salviette di stoppa lib. otto Un altro di filo indorate lib. sei, e mezzo Un guarnello di bambacina Un altro simile vecchio Un Casacchino di bambacina Un sciogatoro bianco usato Una cassetta d’albuccio con sua serratura, e diversi Cristalli dentro

-30 -02-02- 50-03- 50 -01- 50 -60 -50 -30 03- 50

Nello sotto tetto verso la strada Una lettiera di ferro con sue colonne senza tavole, e senza vasi [fol. 657r] Due para di banche, e tavola d’Albuccio Un tre piede di ferro grosso Una Campana di piombo da stillare con il piombo di rame Un Artigliana di metallo piccola due ? con canestri, et altre bagaglie in tutto

-07-02- 50 -80 -01-04-

Nell’altra stanza contigua Un S. Antonio di Padova ovato con cornice nera, et oro Due retratti senza cornice Un quadro della fortuna senza cornice Un quadro di Nostro Signore all’orto sfondato Nell’altra sotto tetto Due vettinelle invetriate Pigname, fiaschi, et altre bagaglie

-01-01-

English Translation

[fol. 624r] Inventory and estimate of the personal property and other [items] belonging to the estate of the late Costanza Piccolomini found in her house.



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In the Entrance Hall A large standing statue of marble Five other various [marble statues] to be restored A piece of a column with a marble bust and head Three pieces of rustic stone A small piece of a slender column Two columns of flecked yellow stone [brescia?] Eight large wooden barrels to work upon A ladder, broken In the Courtyard Sixteen pots of different citrus fruits Sixty other various small pots A copper watering jug A piece of column broken in two pieces Two sections of column of flecked[?] stone

8 4 0- 80

In the Workshop A yellow column A marble Venus to be restored A broken mold of a lion with its irons Eight different glazed jars, empty Three marble heads [fol. 624v] A tall piece of marble roughed out with two figures A large ladder, and a small one Two small legs of marble Three different copper cauldrons A standing barrel without a bottom with the residue of pressing grapes Another head of marble, and a snake A small broken bellows A drill Three different large cupboards of silver poplar wood attached to the walls A large chest made of silver poplar wood



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Another little bellows Two dolphins with five other pieces of marble Two slabs of marble A piece of a fluted marble column A marble lion without its head, and without its tail A deep basin and a large copper bowl, broken A plaster leg

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In the Cellar A little half-barrel, empty Eight different glazed jars, empty About four pieces of dried firewood

0- 60 0408

On the Landing A small low table with a drawer [fol. 625r] Two marble statues on two wooden pedestals

01

At the Head of the Stairs A sideboard [?] with a dressed red leather top Two red cowhide chairs with gold, and green fringe Two small pedestals of walnut covered with striped linen A deep blue cloth curtain with its iron [rod] at the window A door curtain of dressed leather with its iron A large pedestal stained walnut with a frieze of gold Two standing statues, one with a porphyry pedestal and the other with a piece of marble A bust with the head of a Negress, and a black base Another with a base, and a bust of mixed stone Five little landscapes with gilded frames Two other landscapes da Testa [canvas size: ca. 30 × 25 cm] with similar frames A painting da Testa with a rug, and the other with a gold leaf frame A landscape of 4 palmi [1 palmo = .2234 meter] with various figures, and animals, with a gilded frame



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Another landscape in vertical format with a figure Another of canvas d’impannata [reinforced with cloth or paper] with Our Father who appears to the Magdalen, gilded frame In the Living Room Wall coverings of dressed red leather and gold with five similar door hangings in all about 300 skins And in addition five irons for the said doors [fol. 625v] Eight busts of various mixed stones with their white marble heads and their bases above eight pedestals of various inlaid stones A small statue of white marble above a large pedestal of painted wood A porphyry buffet with feet of wood A buffet of walnut with two drawers A large painting with a river, and a Venus with a gilded frame Another similar one of Susanna with a frame dyed walnut, edged with gold A Magdalen in Tela di testa with a gilded frame The portrait of the deceased with a frame decorated with golden arabesques Three pedestals covered with striped linen like the other ones An engraved copper fire screen A small fluted column stained walnut with gold Two chairs of red cowhide with green fringe

-25

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0202- 40 0104-

In the Little Cupboard Inside the Hearth An Ungarina [three-quarter-length Russian-style jacket, with sleeves open in the front] of flat black velvet lined with colored panels with buttons of silver and silk A dress with its bodice of colored cloth with silver lace Another [dress] of Dutch linen the color of fire with gold lace Another [dress], of white satin, trimmed with a border in silver and black [fol. 626r] Another [dress] of thick cotton the reddish blonde color of a lion’s coat



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Another similar [dress] in deep blue Another similar [dress] of silvery color Another similar [dress] the color of a nun’s belly A dress with its bodice of black ferandina A dress with its bodice and bloomers of rose-pink taffetta with silver lace and black silk A dress with bodice of black spumiglia Two undergarments of silk and gold, one of which is damaged A dress without a bodice of gray twill with silver lace Seven little jackets of various cloth and colors A pair of bloomers the color of fire, old A canopy or pavilion of light yellow silk with six curtain panels, and a tornaletto with turquoise and yellow fringe A round box with panispalle, and other [things] Another long [box] similar Two canne [1 canna = 10 palmi or 2.234 meters] of black twill Two pairs of oversleeves Two pair of sleeves in white cloth A square box with panispalle and other things, two of which are worked in silk and gold Three different woman’s shirts A small cabinet of ebony inlaid with ivory, that is missing a drawer Another cabinet of Indian work with ten little columns [fol. 626v] and sides of alabaster covered with dressed red leather

06060602- 50 08030906050118010102-70 -80 0301- 50 03-

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Inside Nine forks, and ten spoons of silver, [weighing] 2 libre, 4 oncie [ca. 12.36 ounces (350 g)] Five knives with handles of silver Various ribbons in a drawer A crown of black horn, one of paste, and of gold worked like lace and black silk A small silver pail for Holy water oncie 7 d. 21 A necklace of round pearls, numbering 57, 9.4 each Another [necklace] of two strings of baroque pearls d. 27 Two similar bracelets of four strings d: 25



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A pair of pendant earrings in the shape of small gold boats with a mixture of pearls A pair of bracelets of various stones set in gold A rosette of brilli Another rosette with a small diamond in the center Two small jewels with 26 small diamonds in all, with a black ribbon as a bracelet Two bracelets of black ribbon with a silver coppietta A small colored box within which: A small gold coppia with a coretto attached, with small diamonds A pair of pendant earrings in gold with number thirty-five different small diamonds with two pear-shaped pearls, one of which is missing a drop [fol. 627r] A ring made in the shape of a heart with number ten different small diamonds A pair of pendant earrings in gold, each with one green stone in the center and seven different baroque pearls Another small round silver-plated box within which: A gold chain a mattoncini [small squares] weighing thirty scudi of gold A gold ring with an enameled sapphire Another [ring] with three white stones a specchio A cord of gold with a [?], and two [?] attached with gold A knife and a fork with handles of mother of pearl in a sheath of red velvet with deep blue and garnet with a tip, and a brutaglia of gilded silver A purse of French stitching within which: a [?] of ivory, a [?] of silver, six gold buttons for signal points on a small enamel rosary, a green stone set in silver, various crystals, and a small silver reliquary in all A knife with a silver handle Another [knife] with a turtle handle A reliquary of black bone with stones and silver rosettes A small clock with a crystal case fastened with gilded brass Another small container with three silver medals, various pieces of coral unstrung, a stone with gold joined to five red stones, [fol. 627v] another green stone set in gold, and a



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stucetto of wood with a small pair of scissors garnished with gold

-02-

In the Room Toward the Street A bedstead of iron with its black columns with its planks, three mattresses, a bolster, and two pillows, with a canopy of damask and light silk, with its cover and tornaletto 16 hangings of brocatel [a heavy figured fabric usually of silk and linen] of two colors of cloth Two pedestals of carved silver poplar wood painted the color of walnut, and gold Above these a head of a Negress with its base of red stone, and another of white marble with its base of mixed or flecked stone A painting of about three palmi with the apparition of an angel that appears with a gilded frame Another large painting of a seascape with various figures and a gilded frame Another a little bit larger with a bacchanal and a frame in the Indian style A Nativity three palmi in width with a gilded frame A small picture in pen and ink of St. Francis, with a black frame A mirror A metal crucifix of about two palmi with a cross and base of wood dyed black [fol. 628r] A deep blue curtain with its iron at the window A small table of black and yellow stone with its base of black wood and a drawer Inside the said drawer a knife with a black handle with two lights and a silver seal. A comb of ivory in good condition, two broken, one of which is closed with a little plate of silver, a large magnifying glass, a triangular crystal, and other things, in all A prie-dieu in the form of a dresser of walnut In the drawer of said [prie-dieu]: a stone which is said to be from belzuano, a piaster [equivalent to a scudo romano] and two testoni[ a large silver coin worth, a quarter of a gold ducat]



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Another small drawer with a Spanish doppia, and thirty-seven and a half silver pedoli [?] in all In another six certificates for sustaining bonds for S. Bonaventura, no. twenty There are another ten sustaining bonds for which it seems the certificate was not sent A small jar of silver weighing about twenty grams A little statuette of S. Agatha of gilded terracotta with its pedestal of black stone A wool table rug of various colors

-06- 85

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In the Other Small Room Toward the Stairs Wall covering of dressed red leather and gold like that of the room of the skins, about 100 [fol. 628v] A cymbal with its feet covered in dressed leather

-10-10-

In the Kitchen A trestle table with three other various small tables A small sideboard of silver poplar wood against the wall A rolling pin with its wooden flattener to make bread Marble mortar with a pestle, pans, and plates A pair of iron andirons with an ashcan, grate, three-pronged spit, and other kitchen goods A brass basin Two brass candlesticks with their snuffers A metal mortar with its pestle Various copper items for the kitchen, 611/2 libre Others of iron, libre 27 A scale with a copper base A wooden chest with a lock

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Inside Various women’s shirts, fourteen, some in good condition, some damaged Eight different aprons



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Two pair of cotton under pants Eleven different towels Seventeen various little coverlets Two pair of socks of cotton, and one of linen One new apron with lace at the top [fol. 629r] Another similar one, used Two little cushions of brocade with scents A large cupboard of walnut in two sections In the upper part eight different sheets One guardello di bomabaccina [paper or cloth made from hemp and linen] printed with flowers Six and a half libre of wool from Savona Two new aprons various under stockings Another skein of yarn weighing 11/2 libre One long towel One small towel Two other small [ones] In the lower part, a skein of raw yarn weighing 41/2 libre Bed hangings of billowing deep blue tabi with their cover with a frieze, and tornaletto of French stitching

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Facing the Second Stair Two standing marble statues on two pedestals of walnut color Two round pedestals of mixed or flecked stone Seven different heads, and three other small ones Two pieces of alabaster In the Pantry [fol. 629v] Various things, glasses, distaffs, brooms, and soap

-04-

In the Gallery Five chairs of red cowhide like the others Two low seats of similar cowhide A small sideboard of walnut with documents



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Two small buffets of alabaster without bases, with a wooden cornice painted black without bases A black stone table with its base and drawer of walnut A small table [?] flowered with its base of walnut Four small pedestals draped with striped linen Two large pedestals of carved and gilded silver polar wood Two busts of mixed marble with their heads of marble Four large pedestals of inlaid stone A small bust of alabaster with a head of marble and its small black base A Saint Agatha of metal two palmi high Two heads of marble with their small bases Two other heads with their small yellow bases A small figurine of terracotta on a small base of mixed marble Two small vases of terra cotta with artificial flowers with their bell jars A painting of flowers in tela da testa with a carved and gilded frame [fol. 652r] Two small landscapes with a gilded frame A small horizontal painting with a Magdalen and two angels with a gilded frame A copy of the painting of the plague with a large gilded frame A small portrait with a walnut frame A painting with various figures with a gold leaf frame A small landscape with an ebony frame A painting of a night scene with a frame in Indian style A Saint Teresa in tela da testa with a gilded frame A bacchanal in tela da imperatore [canvas size ca. 135 × 85 cm] with a gold leaf frame A painting of fruit with a frame of Indian style A painting da testa with a Madonna, gilded frame A large Saint Mary of Egypt with a gilded frame Two horizontal paintings of battles with gilded frames A small landscape with a black frame Another [painting] da testa with a gilded frame A bacchanal in gouache in a horizontal format with a gilded frame



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A painting da testa with a fountain and figures with a carved and gilded frame Another [painting] with a similar frame and various figures A landscape of three palmi with antiquities and a gilded frame Another larger one with a horse and a gilded frame [fol. 652v] Another bacchanal in gouache with a gilded frame A door-curtain of dressed leather with its iron rod Two curtains of deep blue at the windows with their iron rods and cords A wool carpet of various colors worked with a kind of French stitch A seated baby in the fashion of Lucca A small sideboard of walnut with four drawers

-02-02-

-01-07-

In the first Three canne and a half [ca. 75/8 yd ( 7 m)] of rose-pink cloth in a roll Three canne of similar cloth in deep blue 111/2 palmi of crimson damask A collar of white voile with lace 41/2 palmi of lastra berrettina [type of stiff cloth from which caps are made?]

-06-05-04-02-03-

In the second A small cap of black cloth with its feathers Approximately three canne of fine linen [from Cambrai]

-02-05-

Nothing in the third, and in the fourth A pair of sheets for bed hangings A small box to hold combs Two similar handkerchiefs Eleven various napkins Nine palmi of bombacina [a type of paper or cloth made of hemp and linen]



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In the room above A half cupboard of walnut [fol. 653r] Inside

-10-

A basket of pierced silver | Three saucers | A shell with its vase | Weighing in all Two candlesticks | libre 21 A round saltcellar | A vessel for holy water | . . . . . . . . . . 222- 50 A vessel for refreshing with its cover | A crab of gilded brass -01A hand basin. A pair of round candlesticks, and a pair of square [ones] with two candle snuffers, all of silver-plated copper -08A stuccetto of crystal with its irons -02Four libre of yarn in skeins -01- 50 Wax table candles, and others 65 libre -13Sugar in cakes 19 libre -03- 80 A dress with its bust of taffetta in the color of brick with buttons of black silk and silver -03 Other similar [dresses] of white taffetta with similar buttons -07 Four door hangings of dressed leather lined with fur with their iron rods -10A pair of iron andirons with brass balls -03Three seats of cowhide like the others -07Three small pedestals like the others -01- 50 A small octagonal table of black stone with a cornice of gilded copper with wooden legs covered with gold leaf with its red leather [fol. 653v] Six large pedestals of stone like the others Six busts on them Three large pedestals of wood painted to look like walnut outlined in gold, with their busts and heads above Five small bases of stone, and various forms A bust of alabaster with a detached head of marble



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Two terra cotta figures on two pedestals of black stone A small bust with its head, and base of white marble Two small vases of mixed fruit with their bell jars A white buffet decorated with a mixed floral pattern with a wooden base painted black A large mirror with a black frame Two perspective paintings on tela d’impannata of a horizontal format with gilded frames A painting with animals and landscape with a similar frame A St. Jerome on tela d’impannata with a black and gold frame A landscape on canvas of about three palmi with a similar frame A landscape in tela da testa with two figures, and a gilded frame A painting of Lot, or another with three figures, and a landscape, tela impannata with a gilded frame A portrait of the deceased [Costanza] A painting of fruit in tela d’imperatore with a black and gold frame [fol. 654r] A bas-relief of gilded terra cotta with a black frame Two paintings of flowers in tela di testa with a gilded frame Another with a quantity of birds, and another in tela da imperatore with a black and gold frame Two landscape paintings with figures in similar sized canvases with carved and gilded frames The portrait of Prince Pamphili when he was a cardinal in tela da testa with a gilded frame The portrait, that is the head of the late Mattheo Bonucelli with a frame of deep blue and gold A landscape in tela d’imperatore with a horse and various figures with a gilded frame A figure of an old man, and another in tela da testa of horizontal format with a black and gold frame An iron case containing: 49 scudi and 55 baiocchi in piastre and white money Two deep blue curtains with their iron rods at the windows In the Room Toward the Street A bed of iron with its planks, two mattresses, straw mattress in two pieces, its bolster, two sheets, two used blankets of wool



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with bed hangings of white and red tafetta with their matching coverlet and tornaletto and fringe of silk Two pedestals, like the others [fol. 654v] Two chairs of French stitching A deep blue curtain with its iron rod at the window A sideboard of porphyry with its base of walnut and drawers A chest of silver poplar wood with various silk flowers and vases of glass inside A square pedestal of black stone Two vases of silver carved with flowers weighing seven libre in all A painting with two figures in tela da imperatore with a gilded frame A small Assumption with a black and gold frame A small painting on copper of St. John A small landscape with two figures and a gilded frame A drawing on paper with the Madonna and other figures with a black and gold frame A painting da testa with the Magdalen with a black and gold frame Two small paintings with big babies with gilded frames Two marinescapes, about 4 palmi in size, with gilded frames A pietá of about 5 palmi with a carved and gilded frame A history painting with various figures, landscape, and seascape with a gilded frame

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In the Other Small Room A small bed, benches, and planks, straw mattress, mattress, bolster, two sheets, two white wool blankets, and a colored cloth [fol. 655r] Four chairs of green damask without arms A sideboard of black stone with a cornice of colored stone, with a painted panel for a base Two large wooden pedestals with two putti painted on them, supporting two figures of terra cotta A broken crystal cup with a Venus and two tritons of gilded metal on a silver plate which represents a seascape with a



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pedestal of black wood on top of which are four bulbs of gilded copper with its bell jar A mirror with a black frame Two large pedestals of wood stained the color of walnut with gold, supporting two putti of marble Two other similar ones with two small marble heads with their bases of stone A small table decorated with a pattern of various flowers with its black base and drawer Inside of which four pairs of large new silk socks of various colors Another pair of women’s [socks] with gold Another pair in yellow Another pair of white cotton, new Two new panispalli of Persian style with embroidery of silk and gold Another of voile of various colors with gold stripes [fol. 655v] Four others, various, used A little bundle with bits of lace, and gold and silver braid A necklace of crystal Two gilded terra cotta figures a palmo in height A door hanging of worked leather like the other with its iron rod The deep blue curtain with its iron rod at the window A painting in tela d’imperatore with a garland of flowers and two figures in the center with a carved and gilded frame A perpective of three palmi with a gilded frame Another similar [one] with a frame in Indian style A head of S. Anastasio with a similar frame A small landscape in horizontal format with a gilded frame Two small tondos with similar frames A Madonna with other figures in tela da mezza testa with a gilded frame A landscape with two figures representing Time with a frame in Indian style, tela d’imperatore Another representing the Acqua Acetosa with a frame the color of walnut and gold in a canvas of similar size A landscape in horizontal format, about three palmi wide, with a gilded frame



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Another, a little larger, with various figures and animals with a gilded frame [fol. 656r] A figure in tela da testa without a frame A painting da testa with a woman, two putti, and a dog, gilded frame Another larger [one] of the Magdalen with a gold leaf frame A small painting measuring a palmo with various figures, and a gilded frame A painting that represents a sacrifice in tela d’imperatore with a frame in Indian style A St. Sebastian in tela da mezza testa with a gilded frame Two small portrait heads on paper with a little frame decorated with arabesques A small sideboard of silver poplar wood with a lock, and various vases of crystal, and glasses

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In the First Attic, Giving onto the Loggia A painting of about five palmi with various heads, with a white frame A portrait of four palmi with a black and gold frame A painting a little larger than tela da testa with the Most Holy Annunciation, gilded frame A portrait of a woman with a black and gold frame A landscape with various figures in tela d’Imperatore, white frame Another similar [one] with two half figures, gilded frame Two portrait heads with frames outlined in gold A painting of three palmi with the Madonna and sleeping child, with a gilded frame [fol. 656v] Another a little larger with a horse and other figures, similar frame A landscape with a Venus, black and gold frame A large chest of silver poplar wood trimmed in walnut with its lock and inside: Three new women’s shirts Three others, used



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Three other men’s [shirts], used Three tablecloths Two canne of tela di stoppa [crude cloth made from the combing waste of linen and hemp, used for stuffing and padding] Two new table napkins A small roll of new cloth, five canne A small roll of napkins of stoppa, 8 libre Another of golden thread, libre six and a half A guarnello of bambacina [fabric made from hemp and linen?] Another similar [one], old A 3/4 length jacket of bambacina A white towel, used A small chest of silver poplar wood with its lock and various crystals inside

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In the Attic Toward the street An iron bed with its columns without planks, and without capitals [fol. 657r] Two pair of benches and a table of silver poplar wood A large trivet of iron A lead bell to be covered with the weight of copper A small armament of metal two [?] with baskets and other things in all

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In the Other Contiguous Room An oval St. Anthony of Padua with a black and gold frame Two portraits without frames A painting of Fortune without a frame A painting of Our Father in the garden, damaged In the Other Attic Two glass jars Pots, flasks, and other things

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notes 1. “Codesta signora gli concedette dunque le sue buone grazie, e fu allora che l’amante riamato condusse prima in pittura e poi in marmo il ritratto di lei, a perpetuare il ricordo delle ore felici. Poi, forse perchè la bella peccatrice cercava altrove affetti e piaceri, egli si decise a farle l’affronto volgare di cui si parla più sopra. In tale stato d’animo l’artefice non dovette certo più curarsi dei ritratti preziosi, che furono messi in disparte.” Fraschetti, Bernini, 48. 2. “Due ritratti in una tela vi è dipinto il Ritratto della bo: me: del Sig.re Cav.re e l’altro una mezza testa di donna, quale è stato tagliato, e se ne sono fatto due.” ASR, Not. AC, 16 January 1706, cited in Fraschetti, Bernini, 48. 3. On Costanza Bonarelli, see Oreste Ferrari, “Busto di Costanza Bonarelli,” in Bernardini and Fagiolo dell’Arco, Gian Lorenzo Bernini: Regista del Barocco, 307– 8, with earlier bibliography. 4. “Il nostro artista aveva dipinto il ritratto della bella Costanza unito con quello proprio, e quando egli esasperato divise violentemente l’anima sua da quella della voluttuosa femmina, volle ugualmente dividere con un taglio di forbici le due effigi che l’amore e l’arte avevano bellamente congiunto.” Fraschetti, Bernini, 48. 5. Kristina Herrmann-Fiore, “Tre ritratti dipinti da Gian Lorenzo Bernini nella Galleria Borghese,” in Coliva and Schütze, Bernini scultore: La nascita del barocco, 236 and esp. note 31. 6. Martinelli, L’ultimo Bernini, 255. The notarial entry reads: “Due Ritratti in una tela vi è dipinto il Ritratto della bo: me: del Sig.r Cav.re, e l’altro una mezza Testa di Donna.” 7. FB, 16; FB-1948, 86; FB-1966/2006, 21. 8. On the portrait bust of Scipione Borghese, see Anna Coliva, “Scipione Borghese,” in Coliva and Schütze, Bernini scultore: La nascita del barocco, 276 – 89; and Coliva, Bernini scultore: La tecnica esecutiva, 216 –33. 9. A terminus post quem is suggested by the fact that Costanza’s husband only begins to work for Bernini in 1636 (see Pollak, Kunsttätigkeit unter Urban VIII, 2:505), and a terminus ante quem by the fact that Luigi Bernini disappears from the Fabbrica rolls at Saint Peter’s in November 1638 when he is banished to Bologna, marking the end of the affair (see McPhee, Bernini and the Bell Towers, 62). 10. “Il Bernino era innamorato d’una donna che di nome si chiamava Gostanza figliuola d’uno staffiere di . . . [sic] e moglie di matteaccio scultore Lucchese. Fulli detto che il suo fratello v’andava, del che, e ne volse chiarire per tanto [“ordinò che” is crossed out here] disse una sera di voler andar la mattina seguente in campagna, al qual fine fece la mattina attaccare la carrozza, e invece d’andar fuor di Roma andò alle sue stanze dove lavorava, che son poste dietro S. Pietro, incontro alle quali era la casa della Signora Gostanza. Ivi giunto dette ordine al cocchiere che che [sic] stesse in un luogo determinato fino a tanto che egli non ricevesse ordine in contrario, e si messe a luogo proporzionato a [“aspettare” is crossed out here] osservare se vedeva uscire alcuno. Non stette molto che il fratello usci di casa, essendo accompagnato dalla dama meza vestita [“come era us” is crossed out here] per essere allora uscita del letto fino alla porta. Veduto cio ando il Bernino dietro il fratello e trovatolo in San Pietro con un pal di ferro malamente gli dette arrivandoli a romper due coste, e forse li averebbe ammazato, se [non] gli era levato di sotto. Ma non fini qui che andato a casa immediatamente chiamò un servitore, al quale dandoli due fiaschi di greco e un rasoio disseli “va da parte mia alla signora Gostanza, e presantali questo e quando vedi il bello sfregiala.” Tanto fece, ne duro troppa fatica perche la trovò nel letto, nel quale era tornata dopo aver servito il fratello fino alla porta. Per questo fu condannato in 3000 scudi de’ quali da Papa Urbano fu assoluto. Il ritratto di questa donna fatto da lui di marmo fu da lui pure donato al Signor Cardinal Gio: Carlo de’ Medici, il quale oggi si ritrova in Galleria: ha gli occhi che dall’autore furno dipinti di nero e i



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capelli sono gradinati, ne’ quali non vi si riconosce punto che vi sia maniera da maestro.” Biblioteca Nazionale di Firenze, ms. II. II, 110, fol. 50. This account, first published by D’Onofrio, Roma vista da Roma, 131, is found among Baldinucci’s papers in Florence and probably dates from the 1670s. Judging from other documents included in the manuscript, penned by the same hand, this account was written by someone gathering research on artists for Baldinucci. The document must be used with care as the account of the events described is obviously second hand and several details are incorrect. D’Onofrio observes that the author is likely to have been a sculptor because of his final statement. This idea is supported by the fact that he refers to Matteo Bonarelli as “Matteaccio,” suggesting that he knew him. 11. “All’Em.mo et Rev.mo Signore Cardinal Barberino, Em.mo Sig.re, Angelica Bernina humilissima serva di Vostra Eminenza, benche altre volte habbia supplicato per le viscere di Xsto la sua pieta, acciò volesse rimediare, all’iminenti suoi gran pericoli, hora di nuovo la supplica esponendole, come il Cavaliero suo figlio, non havendo nessun respetto ne alla Giustitia, ne al Authorita di V.E. hieri venne armata mano, con altri huomini seco per uccidere il suo fratello Luigi, e doppo di essere entrato in casa sforzando le porte, e poco curando le sue lagrime, che con poco decoro di madre li versava à i piedi, e doppo haver cercato per tutto, entrò senza nessun rispetto in s. Maria Maggiore con la spada in mano, e cercò per tutta la canonica con disprezzo di Dio, e de loro Padroni, quasi che lui sia il Padron del mondo. Che sia l’errore gravissimo, non starà ad esagerarlo à V.E., e quanto scandalo, e maraviglia habbia dato à tutti quelli che lo vedevano correre con la spada nuda in mano, dietro a suo fratello, quale incontrò verso la strada di s. Bibiana e seguitò sino à s. Maria Maggiore; nè mancorno molti preti, che volevano diffendere il ius sacrosanto della Chiesa, vedendo dar de calci con disprezzo alle porte, ma per timor della sua gran potentia, quale pare che hoggi arrivi à segno di non temer più Giustitia, non hebbeno tanto ardire; tanto più che si vede che tutte le passa impunite con suo rammarico estremo, e maraviglia di tutta Roma. Supplica dunque di novo per le viscere di Xsto che voglia servirsi di quella authorità che le a dato Dio, non ad altro fine che per far la giustitia à tutti, e li si getta à piedi tutta piena di lagrime, accio voglia moverse à pieta di una madre così sconsolata, come è lei, e raffrenare l’impeto di questo suo figlio che hoggimai si fà lecito ogni cosa, quasi che per lui non ci siano Padroni nè Giustitia. Che etc., Quam Deus etc.” “Al’Em.mo et Rev.mo Sig.re Cardinal Barberino.” Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Arch. Barberini, b. 23, fasc. 4. As transcribed in D’Onofrio, Roma vista da Roma, 133. The letter of Angelica Galante appears to place the events in the Bernini family house opposite Santa Maria Maggiore. There is, however, evidence to suggest that Bernini and his immediate family were living in the Borgo near Saint Peter’s in 1634, which would accord with the location given in the document in the Biblioteca Nazionale of Florence. See Masetti-Zannini, “Gian Lorenzo Bernini e un incendio a Santa Marta.” Costanza was actually living in the area of the Quirinal at the time of the affair. Although Costanza was the putative cause of the conflict between the Bernini brothers, she is not mentioned in the letter. Fraschetti (Bernini, 104), unaware of the identity of the woman involved, published an avviso tying the two events together: “Di Roma li 28 Maggio 1639.—Il Cav.re Bernino restò così abbatuto quando vidde accoppiato suo fratello con la Donna che amava; che mai ha potuto trovare Requie, sinchè non li è riuscito di prendere per moglie la più bella giovane che habbia Roma et ch’è figliola di Paolo Tezio Procuratore di questa Corte.” 12. D’Onofrio, Roma vista da Roma, 131–33. 13. Pecchiai, “Bernini furioso.” 14. “Vive la possente donna, dagli occhi violenti e dal seno turgido, incontro al tragico Ecce Homo di Matteo Civitali e fra le gentillisime statuine del Giambologna nella sala del museo fiorentino. Ella impera ancora nel marmo con l’ardente sensualità della bellezza sua smagliante, ed ha i capelli leggieri della Dafne, che sembran filati dalle Grazie, ed ha le labbra furenti di passione e incantevoli di promesse voluttuose.” Fraschetti, Bernini, 49.



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15. Wittkower, Art and Architecture in Italy 1600–1750, 2:18. 16. Wittkower, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, 1981, 13. 17. Hibbard, Bernini, 101. 18. Pope-Hennessey, Italian High Renaissance and Baroque Sculpture, 123. 19. “Costanza Bonarelli (Firenze, Museo Nazionale) nella sua apparizione disarmata è ben più “eroica” della superba Mathilde di Canossa celebrata in San Pietro. La forza eroica è interna: come nelle divinità del mito (e anzi questa Costanza potrebbe perfino essere una “Giunone”).” Maurizio Fagiolo dell’Arco and Marcello Fagiolo dell’Arco, Bernini: introduzione al gran teatro, 149. 20. Avery, Bernini: Genius of the Baroque, 92. 21. “li due putti sopra l’arme furono intagliati da Matteo Buonarelli, altro discepolo del Bernino, marito di quella tale Gostanza, di cui si vede un ritratto, testa con poco di busto in marmo fatto dal Bernino, nella Real Galleria del Sereniss. Gran Duca.” FB, 16; FB-1948, 86; FB-1966/2006, 20 –21. 22. Late in his text, Baldinucci refers to Costanza obliquely as “a youthful romantic entanglement.” “Ma prima di parlare dell’ultima sua infermità . . . è da portarsi in questo luogo, che quantunque il Cavalier Bernino fino al quarantesimo anno di sua età, che fu quello, nel quale egli si accasò, fusse vissuto allacciato in qualche affetto giovenile, senza però trarne tale impaccio, che agli studi dell’Arte, e a quella, che il Mondo chiama Prudenza, alcun pregiudizio recar potesse, potiamo dire con verità, che non solo il suo matrimonio ponesse fine a quel modo di vivere, ma che egli fin da quell’ora incominciasse a diportarsi anzi da religioso, che da secolare, e con tali sentimenti di spirito, secondo ciò, che a me è stato riferito da chi bene il sa, ch’è poté sovente esser d’ammirazione a i più perfetti Claustrali.” FB, 61; FB-1948, 134; FB-1966/2006, 68. 23. See the Prolegomena to this volume. 24. FB, 110 –11; FB-1948, 184– 85; FB-1966/2006, 110 –11. For the Italian, see Montanari, note 84, in this volume. 25. “è nostra intenzione di scrivere in questo Libro, con quella fedeltà che è necessaria, a chi descrive cose, delle quali quasi ogniun che vive, è stato spettatore, e posson tutti farne smentire chi le scrive, ogni qualunque volta per rendersi ammirabile ne’ racconti, ingrandisca i successi, e si discosti dal vero, ch’è l’unico pregio nell’Historia, e che solo è l’Historia.” DB, 2. On the question of precedence, see the Prolegomena in this volume. 26. For alternative views, see Montanari and Levy in this volume. 27. “Quello tanto decantato di una Costanza si vede collocato in Casa Bernini, & il Busto, e Testa in Marmo della medesima nella Galleria del Gran Duca, l’uno, e l’altro di così buon gusto, e di così viva maniera, che nelle Copie istesse diede a divedere il Cavaliere, quanto fosse innammorato dell’Originale.” DB, 27. Maarten Delbeke has pointed out that this phrase is also used by Baldinucci to describe Bernini’s response to the crucifix of Sforza Pallavicino. FB, 74; FB-1948, 148; FB-1966/2006, 81– 82. The painting of Costanza to which Domenico refers is lost. 28. “Donna era questa, di cui egli allora era vago, e per cui se si rese in parte colpevole, ne riportò ancora il vanto di essere dichiarato un grand’huomo, & eccellente nell’Arte; Poiche ò ingelosito di lei, ò da altra che si fosse cagione trasportato, come che è cieco l’amore, impose ad un suo servo il farle non sò quale affronto, come seguì, che per essere stato pubblico, e dannevole, doveva con non dispregievole pena punirsi.” DB, 27. 29. “Huomo raro, Ingegno sublime, e nato per Disposizione Divina, e per gloria di Roma a portar luce a quel Secolo.” DB, 27. 30. “Dimostrazione singolare di Pontificia stima verso il Cavaliere.” DB, 27. 31. DB, 51ff. 32. See note 27.



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33. “Che nel operare si sentiva tanto infiammato, e tanto innamorata di ciò, che faceva, che divorava, non lavorava il Marmo.” DB, 18. 34. “Quel suo indefesso operare, quel suo non far cosa, che altre insieme unitamente non ne facesse, e tutte ardue, e particolarmente quel continuo lavoro in Marmo, in cui era così fisso, che sembrava anzi estatico, & in atto di mandar per gli occhi lo spirito per render vivi li Sassi.” DB, 48. 35. “non haverebbe potuto da se medesimo farsela meglio, se convenuto gli fosse lavorarla a suo gusto nella cera: Dolce senza biasimo, Prudente senza raggiri, Bella senza affettazione, e con una tal mistura di gravità, e di piacevolezza, di bontà, e di applicazione, che potea ben’ella dirsi dono conservato dal Cielo per un qualche grand’huomo.” DB, 51. 36. The following portrait of Costanza is based on a series of new archival discoveries that I have made in the past few years. Here I give a preview of what those documents reveal. I will publish all documentation in full in a book-length study of Costanza. 37. On Tessin, see Sirén, Nicodemus Tessin d. y; Kommer, Nicodemus Tessin der Jüngere; and now Laine and Magnusson, Nicodemus Tessin the Younger. 38. “Un altro busto fatto dal Cav: Bernini ritratto d’una sua favorita bellissima, la quale fù moglie d’uno pittore, la quale lui, doppo che se disgusto con lei, fece sfrisiare sul viso, lei è stata richissima, e doppo la sua morte ha havuta un catafalco superbissimo.” Laine and Magnusson, Nicodemus Tessin the Younger, 94. Tessin is mistaken when he refers to Costanza’s husband as a painter. Matteo Bonarelli was a sculptor. 39. Archivio del Vicariato, Libro dei Morti, SS. Vincenzo ed Anastasio II, 1654, 18 January: “Matteo Bonuccelli. Passò di questa à miglior vita il signor Matteo Bonuccelli Luchese, scultore havendo prima riceuuti con straordinaria divotione, e sentimento de suoi peccati, tutti li santissimi sacramenti soportata molestissima infirmità con singolar patienza e dispostosi al morire con generosissima intrepidezza, nel che si come fece stupire chiunq[ue] lo vidde, cosi è degno ch’à tutto il mondo sia nota la generosità del suo animo. Fù poi sepolto il giorno seguente in Parrocchia.” 40. A copy of Matteo’s will can be found at ASR, 30 Notai Capitolini, Ufficio 10, vol. 8, fol. 29r ff. I have not been able to locate the copy opened at the time of his death. Costanza took possession of the house and its contents on 19 January 1654. See ASR, 30 Notai Capitolini, Ufficio 10, vol. 211, fol. 159r–160r. 41. For Costanza’s will, see ASR, Notai AC, Testamenti, vol. 57, fols. 311r – 315v; 328r–329r. A full transcription appears as Appendix A of this essay. 42. For Costanza’s inventory, see Archivio di Stato, Rome, Notai AC, vol. 4992, fol. 624r– 629v; 652r– 657r. A full transcription appears as Appendix B of this essay. 43. Matteo Bonarelli was actually known during his own lifetime as Matteo Bonuccelli. Bonarelli, the name by which he is known in the scholarly literature, seems to be the result of an error in transcription. See Keazor, “A propos des sources littéraires,” 67 n. 13, for the variations of the name found in seventeenth-century documents. On the life and works of Matteo Bonarelli, see Bacchi, Scultura del ’600 a Roma, 787, with earlier bibliography. 44. Montagu, Roman Baroque Sculpture, 60. 45. On Santa Maria Maddalena delle Convertite, see Venuti, Descrizione topografica e istorica di Roma moderna, 123–24; Hibbard, Carlo Maderno, 205; Pietrangeli, Guide Rionali di Roma, Colonna, Pt. I., 68 –70. 46. What to make of these circumstances and where to place Costanza within the fabric of Roman society of her time is the subject of my book. For an essential discussion of sexuality and women in seventeenth-century Rome, see Cohen, “What’s in a Name?” 47. Delaporte, “André Félibien en Italie,” 202. 48. Keazor, “A propos des sources littéraires.”



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49. This has led some recent scholars to surmise that Costanza is listed as Piccolomini in order to hide her identity. See Oreste Ferrari, “Busto di Costanza Bonarelli,” in Bernardini and Fagiolo dell’Arco, Gian Lorenzo Bernini: Regista del Barocco, 307. I would draw rather the opposite conclusion. 50. The painting is located in Rome in the church of San Francesco a Ripa.



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List of Contributors

 Eraldo Bellini is professor of Italian literature at the Università Cattolica di Milano. In addition to a number of articles spanning the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries, he is the author of Studi su Ardengo Soffici; Il vero e il falso dei poeti: Tasso, Tesauro, Pallavicino, Muratori; Umanisti e Lincei: Letteratura e scienza a Roma nell’età di Galileo; and Agostino Mascardi tra “ars poetica” e “ars historica”. Heiko Damm received his PhD from Freie Universität Berlin, where he wrote a dissertation on “Santi di Tito and the Reform of Altar Painting in Florence.” He is now member of the DFG Research Group, “Signa and Res—Pictorial Allegories in the Renaissance (14th–16th centuries)” at the Freie Universität Berlin. Maarten Delbeke is a postdoctoral fellow of the Fund for Scientific Research– Flanders (Belgium) (F.W.O.) in the department of architecture and urban planning, Ghent University. Formerly a Scott Opler research fellow at Worcester College (Oxford), he is the author of several articles and a forthcoming book on Seicento art and theory. Evonne Levy is associate professor of art history at the University of Toronto. She has published a number of studies on Italian Baroque art, architecture and historiography, including Propaganda and the Jesuit Baroque. Her current project is a book to be entitled “Jesuit Style” and Baroque: Art History and Politics from Burckhardt to Hitler. John D. Lyons is Commonwealth Professor and chair of the Department of French at the University of Virginia. His book-length studies include Exemplum: The Rhetoric of Example in Early Modern France and Italy; The Tragedy of Origins: Pierre Corneille and Historical Perspective; The Listening Voice: An Essay on the Rhetoric of Saint Amant; and Kingdom of Disorder: The Theory of Tragedy in Seventeenth-Century France. His most recent book is Before Imagination: Embodied Thought from Montaigne to Rousseau. Sarah McPhee is associate professor of art history at Emory University. She is the author of Bernini and the Bell Towers. Architecture and Politics at the Vatican, and co-author of Filippo Juvarra. Drawings from the Roman Period 1704 –1714. She is currently completing a book about Bernini’s portrait of Costanza Bonarelli and the biography of the woman it represents. Tomaso Montanari is professor of art history at the Università di Roma Tor Vergata. Author of numerous studies on Bernini, Christina of Sweden, Sforza Pallavicino, and Giovan Pietro Bellori, he will soon publish his critical edition of Bernini’s biographies. Steven F. Ostrow is professor and chair of the history of art at the University of Minnesota. He is the author of Art and Spirituality in Counter-Reformation Rome: The Sistine and Pauline Chapels in S. Maria Maggiore and co-editor of

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Dosso’s Fate: Painting and Court Culture in Renaissance Italy. His current project is a book-length study on Bernini’s art theory and biographical construction. Rudolf Preimesberger is professor emeritus at the Freie Universität, Berlin. Over the course of his distinguished career he has published numerous studies on Bernini, Caravaggio and Seicento art theory. Robert Williams is professor of art history at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is a specialist in Italian Renaissance art and art theory and in addition to numerous articles, he is the author of Art, Theory, and Culture in Sixteenth-Century Italy: From Techne to Metatechne and Art Theory: An Historical Introduction.



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 Accademia del Disegno, 26, 65n. 133 Accademia della Crusca, 27, 89, 162 Accademia degli Intrecciati, 24, 54 Accademia degli Umoristi, 280, 281 Accademia dei Lincei, 55, 280, 293, 298, 307 Adonis (now identified as Meleager), 179n. 43 Affò, Ireneo, 300 Alberti, Leon Battista, 183 Alexander the Great, 98, 187 Alexander VII (Fabio Chigi), 24, 30, 52 –53, 54–55, 56, 58, 112, 133, 137n. 14, 145, 154, 158n. 21, 185, 186, 187, 188, 263, 272n. 69, 275, 276, 277, 298, 302, 303– 4, 305, 307 bust of, 56, fig. 14 tomb of (see Baldinucci, Filippo Vita, works; Bernini, Domenico Vita, works) Alexander VIII, 24 Algardi, Alessandro, 101, 131, 280 Allaleona, Paolo, 112 Ammannati, Bartolommeo, 84 Amphion, 279, 281, 283, 290, 308n. 28 Anzalone, Antonia, 25 Apelles, 187, 295, 311n. 84 apologia (general), 38, 68n. 198, 86 – 87 Aquinas, Thomas, 299 Arcadian Academy, 32, 246n. 56 Aretino, Pietro, 257 Ariosto, Ludovico, Orlando Furioso, 275 Aristides, 203 Aristotle, 203, 214–15, 300, 301 Poetics, 214, 288 art anima in, 170, 174, 201, 203, 215, 219n. 7, 222n. 61 (see also art theory, vivacità) as inferior to divine creation, 56, 58, 301– 6 and institutional identity, 35 moral content of, 181, 192 reform of, 239 – 40, 291, 294–96, 301–2, 305– 6 artist divinity of, 35, 36 –37, 58 universality of, 184 (see also themes in Baldinucci, Filippo, Vita; Bernini, Domenico, Vita; Bernini’s biographies; Chantelou, Paul Fréart de, Journal)

art theory (general), 101, 121–22, 130, 131, 181, 191, 268n. 29, 270n. 48 (see also art theory in Baldinucci, Filippo, Vita; Bernini’s biographies; Bernini, Domenico, Vita; Chantelou, Paul Fréart de, Journal) presence of in non-artistic texts, 55–58 terms and issues: ancients versus moderns, 28, 130, 131, 301; arte, 256, 257; contrapposto, 55, 256; difficoltà, 210; disegno, 183, 184, 185; facilità, 210; giudizio, 176n. 9, 215, 216, 268n. 22; giudizio dell’occhio, 55, 256, 257, 268n. 29; invenzione, 214; moto, 281, 305, 305– 6; proportion, 256; rules, transgression of, 251; vivacità, 124, 170, 179n. 43, 213, 214, 215, 217, 222n. 61, 279, 281, 283, 305 anecdote, genre of, 212, 244n. 19 Augustine, Saint, 83, 228 –29, 238 Aurelius Clemens Prudentius, 239 autobiography (general), 37–38, 80, 81, 82, 98, 133–34 apologia, relation to, 36, 38, 86 – 87 as authorized biography, 37, 81, 133 biography, relation to, 37, 80, 81, 133–34, 136 collaborative autobiography, 37 factual basis of, 82 Avery, Charles, 1, 121, 322 Azzolino, Cardinal Decio, 20, 24, 92 –93, 94, 112, 186, 198n. 61, 275 Bacon, Francis, 33 Baglione, Giovanni, 34, 40, 59n. 16, 65n. 139 Le Vite de’pittori, scultori et architetti, 40, 115, 120 Baiacca, Giovan (Giovanni) Battista, 71n. 256 Baker, Thomas, 112, 124, 137n. 9 bust of, 124 (see also anecdotes regarding Bernini’s works under Baldinucci, Filipppo, Vita; Bernini, Domenico, Vita; Chantelou, Paul Fréart de, Journal) Baldinucci, Filippo (Vita) as account of papal Rome, 92 –93, 147, 149

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index Baldinucci, Filippo (cont’d) anecdotes in: Bernini visits Villa Borghese with Cardinal Antonio Barberini, 82, 83, 114; Christina of Sweden on Bernini’s meager estate, 93, 107n. 106; Louis XIV stands still, 114, 155, 156; Maffeo Barberini holds mirror for Bernini, 147,150, 155–56; Paul V, encounter with, 48 – 49, 122 –23, 129, 182, 186, 261, 262, 271n. 58; Paul V, prophecy of, 48, 129, 132, 138n. 31, 261– 62, 271nn. 57, 61; Urban VIII’s remark upon election to papacy, 95 anecdotes regarding Bernini’s works in, 101, 113, 128, 139n. 60, 262; Fountain of Four Rivers, 52, 186; Louis XIV, 124; Pedro de Foix Montoya, 78 –79, 105n. 23, 212, 213, 217; Scipione Borghese, 68n. 185, 151, 168 –70, 186; Thomas Baker, 124 anecdotes regarding other works, in Pasquino, 125 as apologia, 20, 28 –29, 38 –39, 68n. 200, 42, 52, 114, 143, 145, 181; engravings accompanying apologia, 38 –39, 42, fig. 7 art theory in, 263; colore, 260; disegno, 182, 183, 185, 260, 263, 270n. 49, 272n. 72; rules, transgression of, 258, 261, 262, 264, 269n. 39, 271n. 65, 273n. 81; giudizio dell’occhio, 262, 265, 271n. 65; proportion, 271n. 65; vivacità, 174, 213, 217; ut pictura poesis, 183 Bernini on modern artists: Annibale Carracci, 128; Correggio, 128; Raphael, 128; Michelangelo, 128 –29, 140n. 68, 191, 198n. 71; Titian, 128 Bernini’s art theory in, 112, 129, 262, 263, 271n. 63, 288 – 89; on beauty, 125, 190 –91; on defects, 168, 178n. 39, 190, 192, 198n. 67; on disegno, 123; on grace, 129, 140n. 68, 177n. 14, 191, 198n. 71; on imitation, 48, 288, 310n. 54; on ordinazione, 262, 271n. 63; on painting, 288; on the paragone, 124, 191; on portraiture, 123–24, 162, 174, 177n. 14, 190 –91, 192, 198n. 69, 281; on proportion, 271n. 64; on rules, transgression of, 269n. 39 Bernini’s creative process, 150, 162, 189 –90, 258 – 63



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Bernini’s detti, 121, 269n. 39 Bernini’s voice in, 42, 112 –14; terms signaling speech, 113 chronology, 143, 147, 151; birth-to-death narrative, 112, 142, 144, 145, 147, 149; papal structure, 147, 149; non-sequential thematic portrait of Bernini, 145 as cultural artifact, 92, 153, 154–55 descriptions, presence of, 88, 96 –97, 147, 262, 271n. 62, 287– 88 editions of, xvii–xviii, 10, 13, 61n. 58, 114, 145 factual basis of, 13, 28 –29, 89, 100, 101–2 France, journey to, 91, 149, 154–56 intertexts for: Cellini, Vita, 95; Condivi, Vita, 52 –53; Vasari, Vita, 52, 182; Pallavicino, Arte, 57–58 literary genres in: apology, 87– 88, 91; artistic biography, 98; hagiography, 91 physical characteristics of: catalogue of works, 16, 97, 114, 143, 245n. 32, 329; frontispiece, 20, 23, 40, fig. 5; length, 13; pagination, 137n. 6, 144, 145, 149; title page, 40, 261, fig. 1; typography, 137n. 11, figs. 15, 16; italics, 113–14, 115, 120, 137n. 9; quotation marks, 114 Protesta dell’Autore, 89 –90, 102, 107n. 83, 134, 162, 190, 192 rhetoric in, 89, 97, 188 themes in: art versus nature, 191–92; bel composto, 182, 195n. 7, 251–52, 258 –59, 262, 263– 64, 269n. 39, 273n. 82; Bernini as absolute author, 277; Bernini as creator of painterly sculpture, 263– 64, 272n. 73; Bernini and his father, 108n. 130, 260, 262, 270n. 48, 277; Bernini as grand’uomo, 47, 70n. 229; Bernini as playwright, 182 – 83, 272n. 72; Bernini’s intimacy with power, 147, 150, 155; Bernini’s discipline and education, 259 – 61; Bernini’s giudizio, 188, 272n. 69; Bernini’s ingegno, 42, 44, 49, 185, 188, 190, 262, 271n. 64, 272n. 69; Bernini’s religiosity, 29; Bernini’s singularity, 90, 150, 153, 192, 264, 272n. 76; Bernini’s study of antiquity, 179n. 44, 259, 260, 270nn. 46, 49; Bernini’s study of moderns, 259 – 60, 270nn. 46, 49; Bernini’s style, 97–98, 108n. 130; Bernini’s unchanging nature, 44– 45,



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index 90, 97,149 –51, 156; Bernini’s universality, 128, 182, 183, 185– 86, 187– 88, 195n. 6, 196nn. 34, 42, 197nn. 47– 49, 259, 261, 262 – 63, 272nn. 69, 72; Bernini’s virtue, 112, 261, 262, 263, 264, 270n. 49; caricature, 263; imitatio Buonarroti, 28, 48, 100, 128 –29, 182, 260, 261– 64, 270n. 49, 271n. 57, 273n. 82 t opoi: artist’s wit, 191; precociousness, 48 – 49; recognition of the artist, 149, 155; self-criticism, 124 works: Aeneas and Anchises, 97–98, 108n. 130, 227; Apollo and Daphne, 97; Baldacchino, 88, 96, 260, 262, 270nn. 48 – 49, 271n. 62; Barcaccia, 87– 88; bell towers of Saint Peter’s, 88; Cornaro Chapel, 88, 273n. 82; Cathedra Petri, 88, 128; Costanza Bonarelli, 320, 322, 329; David, 97, 149 –50, 157n. 12, 173; equestrian statue of Louis XIV, 272n. 76; Fountain of the Four Rivers, 88, 96, 186; loggia della benedizione in St. Peter’s, 270n. 49; Mathilde of Canossa, 322; noise machine for Clement IX, 190, 192; Saint Lawrence, 172, 225, 227, 244n. 17; Saint Paul, drawing of, 129; Scala Regia, 124; Scipione Borghese, 168, 170, 261; St. Peter’s, Bernini’s involvement in, 271n. 62; tomb of Alexander VII, 96; tomb of Urban VIII, 96, 114; Truth, 44, 143 Baldinucci, Filippo (man), 5, 26 –29 as art critic and connoisseur, 26 –27, 98, 136 as art writer, 26 –29 and Christina of Sweden, 47, 48, 69n. 224, 74–75 and Cosimo III, 27 and Leopoldo de Medici, 26 –27 and Savignani, 29; biography of, 65n. 124, 75; biographical questionnaire, 27, 65n. 139, 67n. 176, 195n. 1 spirituality of, 29 Tuscan bias of, 27–28, 29, 92, 100 works: Apologia a pro delle glorie toscane, 92; Diario Spirituale, 65n. 124; La Veglia: Dialogo di Sincero Veri, 27–28; Lettera a Lorenzo Gualtieri, 27; Lettera a Vincenzo Capponi, 27, 98; Lezzione nell’Accademia della Crusca intorno alli pittori greci e latini, 28; Notizie dei professori



del disegno da Cimabue in qua, 13, 18, 27, 28, 61n. 58, 67n. 176, 95, 98, 100, 101, 102, 109n. 151; Vocabulario toscano dell’arte del disegno, 27, 243n. 14, 245n. 24, 252, 267n. 6 Baldinucci, Francesco Saverio, 17, 19, 20, 65n. 124, 27, 75, 76 Bandinelli, Baccio, 87 Barberini, Cardinal Antionio, 23, 82, 113, 249n. 67 Barberini, Cardinal Francesco, 278, 321, 373n. 11 Barberini, Maffeo, 31, 52, 78, 79, 94, 95, 105nn. 22 –24, 137n. 9, 138n. 27, 147, 149,150, 157nn. 7, 12, 170, 174, 180n. 57, 195n. 9, 212, 213, 215, 216, 217, 221nn. 44, 46, 222nn. 62, 64, 68, 244n. 18, 249n. 75, 253, 259, 261– 62, 267n. 11, 271n. 58, 276, 280, 283, 290, 294, 296, 312n. 89. See also Urban VIII Barocchi, Paola, 7, 100 Barolsky, Paul, 7– 8, 9 –10, 165 Bartoli, Danielo, 83, 94 Barton, Eleanor, 16 Battistini, Andrea, 81, 83, 86, 133 Bauer, George, 12, 112 bel composto, 16, 251–52, 257,258, 259, 262 – 66, 267n. 6, 273n. 82, 274n. 84 (see also themes in Baldinucci, Filippo, Vita; Bernini, Domenico, Vita) Bellarmine, Robert, 280, 299 Bellori, Giovan Pietro, 34, 53, 65n. 139, 93, 97, 100 –101, 120, 131, 162, 194 Vite de’ pittori, scultori e architetti moderni, 85, 88, 100 –101, 115, 120, 131, 194 Bellotti, Pietro, 67n. 177 Beltramme, Marcello, 22 Bembo, Pietro, 286 Bernabò, Angelo dal Verme, 66n. 161 Bernabò, Rocco, 22, 31, 66n. 161, 68n. 185 Bernini, Anna Teresa, 66n. 153 Bernini, Angela, 66n. 153 Bernini’s biographies (general, regarding Filippo Baldinucci, Vita and Domenico Bernini, Vita) as accounts of 17th-century religiosity, 145 as accounts of papal Rome, 42, 49,143 artistic theory in, 16, 58, 265, attribution, value for, 11, 12, 16 audience for, 182 authorship of, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 28, 73–74, 76 –77, 79 – 80, 87, 91, 175n. 2

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index Bernini’s biographies (cont’d) Bernini’s art theory in, 14, 251–52, 228 – 89 Bernini’s creative process in, 159 –75, 223–51, 252 – 66 Bernini’s voice in, 12, 37, 77, 80, 112, 113, 121, 122, 129, 132, 135, 136; as rhetorical device, 134–35 chronology in, 49, 154; birth-to-death narrative, 19, 40, 145– 46; papal structure of, 1, 33, 35, 40, 94, 143, 145 as cultural artifacts, 13, 49, 54–55, 156 dating, value for, 11, 12 description, presence in 11, 53, 96, 97 factual basis of, xiv, 1, 4–5, 11–12, 16, 33, 35, 58, 80, 82, 122, 135, 136, 212, 289, 318 as fiction, 143– 44 genesis of, 12, 17–20, 22 –23, 28, 50 –51, 73–77, 103– 4, 276; Bernini’s involvement in, 13, 37–38, 76, 77, 78, 80, 81, 111–12, 132, 133, 136; Carlo Cartari, 18 –19, 104; catalogue of works, 19, 22 –23, 64n. 100, 74, 80, 97, 104; Christina of Sweden, involvement in, 17, 18, 19 –20, 23, 74, 75, 76, 85, 92, 93, 94; Paris manuscripts, 18 –19, 80, 139n. 60, 252; Pier Filippo Bernini, 17, 18 –19, 20, 22 –23, 62n. 87; 74, 75, 76 –77, 79, 80, 84, 94, 96, 97, 131, 138n. 32; “priority,” 11–12, 13, 17, 111; Stockholm manuscripts, 19, 62n. 88, 252 historiography of, 1, 4, 5, 10 –17, 73, 251–52, 258, 265– 66, 285 intertexts for, 4, 5, 49 –50, 52 –59, 80, 85, 266; Baldinucci, Vocabolario, 28; Baldinucci, Notizie, 28; biography, artistic, 49 –53, 58; Condivi, Vita, 52 –53; contemporary literary culture, 53–58; Guidiccioni, dialogue with Bernini, 12, 55–56; Marino, vite of, 53; non-artistic biography, 53–54; Pallavicino, Arte, 55–58; poetry, 53; Vasari, Vita, 52 –53 literary genres, relation to, 32 –39, 112, 275– 81, 283, 285–96, 298 –307; apologia, 17, 18, 23, 33, 38 –39, 68n. 198, 78, 84–91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 104, 133, 276, 277; autobiography, 23, 33, 37–38, 76, 77, 78, 80, 81– 82, 83– 84, 95, 104, 112, 132 –34, 136; biography, 95, 143; biography, artistic, 33, 38, 135; eulogy, 34; hagiography, 33, 34–36, 135, 136; history, 33; poetry, 53–54, 55



physical characteristics of: chapters, 42; indices, 33; table of contents, 33; side notes, 33, 42; size, 40; typography of, 112; italics, xvi, 78, 120, 122; quotation marks, 113 quotation, use of, 42, 78, 79, 82 – 83 relation to each other, 4–5, 12, 13, 17–18, 22, 39, 40–45, 48, 50, 52, 53, 56 –58, 73–74, 77, 96, 103, 112, 144– 45, 159, 162 – 63, 181, 217, 251–252, 260 – 61, 276, 323 rhetoric in, 41, 97, 134–35 style in, 10 –11, 15–16 textuality of, xiv, 1, 4–5, 10, 11–12, 50, 120, 134, 136, 251, 265, 331 themes in, 39 – 42, 44– 45, 47– 49; Bernini and his father, 12; Bernini and his models, 155–56; Bernini as absolute author, 11, 12, 16, 69n. 196, 129; Bernini as courtier, 187; Bernini as theologian, 14, 61n. 62; Bernini’s discipline and education, 189; Bernini’s education, 145, 195; Bernini’s giudizio, 194; Bernini’s ingegno, 42, 44, 48, 53, 173, 181, 186, 187, 193, 194, 265; Bernini’s intimacy with power, 40 – 41, 43, 50, 71n. 252, 145, 186 – 87; Bernini’s relation to family, 145; Bernini’s relation to other artists, 145; Bernini’s religiosity, 12, 13–17, 37, 195; Bernini’s singularity, 11, 48; Bernini’s unchanging nature, 48 – 49; Bernini’s universality, 52, 94, 132,160, 181; Bernini’s virtue, 36, 44– 45; imitatio Buonarroti, 12, 37, 52 –53, 81, 94, 129 –30, 132, 276; time, 143– 44, 156; truth, revelation of, 4, 44– 45 topoi: artist’s wit, 185; precociousness of, 12, 34, 48 – 49, 111, 122; recognition by patrons, 30, 40; self-criticism, 16, 83, 84, 164 Bernini, Domenico (brother of Gianlorenzo), 30, 66n. 151 Bernini, Domenico Stefano (Vita) as account of papal Rome, 103, 146 – 47, 154 anecdotes in: abbot of San Martino, prophecy, 188; Alexander VII and fly, 56, 186, 190, 303– 4; Alexander VII’s visit to Bernini’s family palace, 29 –30; Bernini recognizes Louis XIV, 196n. 39; Bernini visits Villa Borghese

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index with Cardinal Antonio Barberini, 82, 83; Costanza affair, 163, 246n. 40, 323–24; Louis XIV stands still, 155, 156; Paul V, encounter with, 30, 48 – 49, 123, 129, 152 –53, 158n. 16, 164, 186, 253; Paul V, prophecy of, 48, 129, 132, 153, 158n. 18, 164, 170, 185, 253, 271nn. 57, 61 anecdotes regarding Bernini’s works in: Baldacchino, 55, 72n. 268, 82 – 83, 101, 128, 249n. 70, 255, 257, 262; Borghese sculptures, 83; Fountain of the Four Rivers, 52, 185; Pedro de Foix Montoya, 79, 105n. 24, 124, 174–75, 212, 213–17; Saint Lawrence, 4, 36, 71n. 253, 155–56, 172 –73, 189, 233–34, 226 –29, 236 –37, 240, 242, 244n. 16; Sant’Andrea al Quirinale, 83; Santa Bibiana, 82 – 83, 229; Scipione Borghese, 68n. 185, 164, 165, 168 –70, 185; Thomas Baker, 124 anecdotes regarding other works in: Belvedere Torso, 129; Michelangelo, Last Judgment, 129; Medici Venus, 191; Pasquino, 125, 129; Raphael, Logge, 129; Raphael, Stanze, 129 art theory in, 255–58; colorito, 259; contrapposto, 256, vago, 246n. 44; beauty, 125, 255; disegno, 259, 267n. 42, 272n. 72; grace, 255; giudizio dell’occhio, 255, 265, 268n. 23; rules, transgression of, 252, 255, 257, 258, 263, 272nn. 75, 77; paragone, 124; proportion, 255, 263, 264, 268nn. 22 –23; vivacità, 170, 174, 213, 204–5, 215, 221n. 53 Baldinucci’s apologia, reference to, 39, 40, 69n. 208 Bernini on modern artists: Annibale Carracci, 128; Correggio, 128; Raphael, 128; Michelangelo, 128, 129; Titian, 128 Bernini’s art theory in, 113, 288 – 89; on architecture, 190, 268n. 19; on art, limits of, 56; on beauty, 125, 190, 191, 255; on defects, 48, 163, 168, 169, 170, 177n. 24, 190, 192, 198n. 67; on disegno, 123, 185, 189; on imitation, 161, 163, 176n. 8, 257, 268n. 19, 288; on invention, 268n. 19; on giudizio dell’occhio, 256; on grace, 191; on moto, 220n. 28, 304, 308n. 28; on ordinazione, 255, 262, 268nn. 19 –20; on painting, 288; on the paragone, 288,



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303, 304; on portraiture, 123–24, 174, 190, 191, 192, 220n. 28, 281, 303, 208n. 28; on proportion, 268n. 20; on rules, transgression of, 252, 255, 256, 268n. 20; on tenderness, 268n. 19 Bernini’s creative process in, 36 –37, 159 – 65, 168 – 83, 175, 189, 190, 226 – 43, 251–53, 255–58 Bernini’s detti, 257, 269n. 31 Bernini’s voice in, 42, 112 –13; terms signaling speech, 113, 115 chronology in, 153, 164, 174, 253; birth-todeath narrative, 143, 144, 145, 146 – 47, 149, 253; papal structure, 146 – 47, 151–53 as cultural artifact, 103, 153, 154, 163, 177n. 27 dating, value for, 165, 174 descriptions, presence of, 69n. 208, 146, 152, 255–56, 257, 266 Domenico’s writing mirrors Gianlorenzo’s artistic practice, 30, 159 – 60, 163, 174–75, 175n. 3, 255 editions of, xvi, 13, 61n. 57 factual basis of, 102, 225–26, 323, 274n. 25 France, journey to, 91, 103, 149, 154–56 intertexts for: Baldinucci, Vita, 22, 50 –51, 77, 95, 323; Condivi, Vita, 48, 52 –53, 161– 62, 165, 172 –73, 175; Guidiccioni’s Ara Maxima Vaticana, 55–55; Pallavicino’s Arte, 55–58, 303– 4; Pallavicino, Trattato dello stile, 55, 256; Pier Filippo Bernini’s possible letter to reader, 26; Vasari, Vita, 52, 165, 257 literary genres, relation to: apologia, 39, 102 –3; hagiography, 234 physical characteristics of, 137n. 7; chapters, 147; frontispiece, 20, 23, 40 fig. 5; italics, 113, 115, 120; length, 13; pagination of, 137n. 7, 145, 149; title page, 40, fig. 2; typography of, 137n. 14, 246n. 39, figs. 17, 18 preface to the reader (“L’autore al lettore”), 102, 159 – 60, 173, 174, 175nn. 2 –3, 180n. 55, 228 rhetoric in, 55, 228, 255 textuality of, 165, 226, 228, 231, 253, 255, 256, 257, 260, 324, 325 themes in: art versus nature, 161, 174, 228; bel composto, 182, 196n. 19, 251–53, 256, 257, 258 –59, 260, 261, 262, 263, 264,



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index Bernini, Domenico Stefano (cont’d) 269nn. 33, 35, 39, 42 – 43; Bernini as absolute author, 170 –71, 173, 277; Bernini as creator of painterly sculptures, 272nn. 74–75; Bernini as grand’uomo, 45– 47, 70n. 230, 94, 185, 188, 258, 263, 269n. 36; Bernini as man with defects, 48, 163; Bernini as uomo raro, 39, 69n. 204, 187, 323; Bernini and his father, 161,162, 172, 176n. 8, 188, 189, 234, 232, 246nn. 42, 45, 260, 257, 269n. 31, 270n. 48; Bernini’s discipline and education, 189, 228, 253, 259, 260 – 61, 262; Bernini’s fiery temperament, 189, 193, 197nn. 55–56, 228, 234–35, 236, 241– 42, 281, 324, 275nn. 33–34; Bernini’s giudizio, 187, 194, 196n. 41, 257, 261, 269n. 36; Bernini’s ingegno, 42, 44, 48, 54, 160, 161, 163, 171, 185, 194, 241, 246n. 40, 257, 258, 269nn. 31, 37, 43, 270n. 48, 303, 323; Bernini’s intimacy with power, 147, 153, 154, 253, 255, 303; Bernini’s religiosity, 29, 36 –37, 68n. 193, 226 –31, 234, 242; Bernini’s singularity, 153, 159, 162, 171, 264, 266; Bernini’s study of antiquity, 162, 174, 171–72, 173, 189, 195n. 17, 234, 236, 240, 241– 42, 259, 261, 270nn. 44, 46, 271n. 54; Bernini’s study of moderns, 129, 162, 174, 234, 261, 270nn. 44, 46, 271n. 54, 272nn. 72, 74; Bernini’s unchanging nature, 151–53, 156, 193; Bernini’s universality, 34, 185– 86, 187– 88, 196n. 37, 197nn. 44– 46, 235, 257–58, 259, 261, 263, 264, 269n. 36, 277; Bernini’s virtue, 36, 44– 45, 113, 228, 228 –29, 232, 235, 239, 242, 253, 257, 258, 261, 263, 269n. 43; caricature, 288; chance, 255, 270n. 48; imitatio Buonarroti, 129, 164– 65, 168, 170, 172, 185, 253, 256, 257, 262 – 63, 271n. 57; time as revealer of truth, 44– 45, 70nn. 225, 228, 143 topoi: artist’s wit, 186, 304; precociousness, 48 – 49, 128; recognition by patrons, 257; self-criticism, 83, 124, 163, 164, 193, 241, 249n. 67 works: angels for Ponte Sant’Angelo, 178n. 42; Apollo and Daphne, 241; Baldacchino, 253, 255, 256, 263, 266, 269n. 34, 270n. 48; bell towers of Saint Peter’s, 103, 273n. 81; Cathedra Petri,



177n. 24; crossing of Saint Peter’s, 255; Costanza Bonarelli, 323, 324, 374n. 27; David, 241; equestrian statue of Louis XIV, 102, 272n. 75; Fountain of the Four Rivers, 83, 96, 185; loggia della benedizione in St. Peter’s, 255; marble head in Santa Potenziana, 128; noise machine for Clement IX, 181; Pluto and Proserpina, 241; Saint Lawrence, 225; Saint Paul, drawing of, 123, 164– 65; Saint Teresa, 124; Scipione Borghese, 165, 168, 170, 178n. 38, 253; tomb of Alexander VII, 96; Truth, 44– 45, 103, 143, 151–52, 285, 287 Bernini, Domenico Stefano (man): 4–5, 29 –32, 66nn. 152 –53, 155, 165, 67n. 166, 246n. 39 anecdotal presence in his Vita of Gianlorenzo, 30, 66n. 153 and Bernabò, 31 as book censor, 32, 66n. 163 as ecclesiastical historian, 31–32, 120, 136, 234 religious career of, 30 and Scarlatti, 30 works: Historia di tutte le Heresie, 20 –21, 31, 234; Memorie historiche di ciò che hanno operato li Sommi Pontefici, 31; Memorie historiche di ciò che ha operato contro i Turchi, 31; Tribunale della S. Rota Romana, 32; Vita del Cardinal D. Giuseppe Maria Tomasi, 246n. 39; Vita del venerabile Giuseppe da Copertino, 32, 120, 272n. 77 Bernini, Francesco, 25, 30 Bernini, Gianlorenzo art theory of (see art theory under Baldinucci, Filippo, Vita; Bernini, Domenico, Vita; Bernini’s biographies; Chantelou, Paul Fréart de, Journal) automythography of, 13, 100, 111, 122, 133, 212 Cavalierato di Cristo, 42 and Ciampoli, 277 critical pamphlets against: Costantino messo alla berlina, 85; L’atesia convinto, 85 critical reception of, 36, 68n. 189, 85 and Cureau de la Chambre, 91 decline in fortune of, 18, 45, 85, 86, 194, 276, 285, 293 esteem of, 41, 42, 50, 68n. 185, 187, 188, 275, 276, 303, 323, 324

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index fame of, 35, 68n. 185, 77, 86, 147, 153, 158n. 26, 235, 249n. 70, 304 France, journey to, 130, 145, 154–56, 201, 276 imitatio Buonarroti, 100, 101, 269n. 33, 291, 296, 303 inventories of Bernini’s possessions, 64n. 122, 315, 318 literary reception of, 24, 30, 52, 279 – 81, 283, 284, 287–96, 298 –307 and Louis XIV, 86 and Maffeo Barberini, 95 and Mascardi, 277 medal commemorating, 182, fig. 23 namesake, 172, 173, 177n. 30, 223–24, 226, 232 –33, 242, 243, 244n. 16 and Oliva, 14, 61n. 62 origins of: Neapolitan, 48, 70n. 233, 224; Tuscan, 48, 70n. 225, 224, 269n. 33 and Pallavicino, 14, 292, 302 portraits of: by Ottavio Leone, 40, 70n. 233; by Westerhout, 20, 23, 40, fig. 5, residence of, 25, 44, 80, 96, 244n. 15, 272n. 69, 285 religiosity of, 265, 296 as Roman citizen, 70n. 225 self-portrait of, 315, 317, 372n. 2, fig. 40 self-portraiture, 231–32 sculpture, spirituality of, 14, 16, 226 – 43 and Urban VIII, 276 workshop of, 16, 218 works, architectural: Cornaro Chapel, 251, 273n. 82; Louvre project, 131, 201, 276, fig. 24; Santa Maria Maggiore, tribune for, 24, 276; works, miscellaneous: mirror design for Christina of Sweden, 44, 69n. 224, fig. 11; Agostino Mascardi, drawing of, 278, fig. 33; Agostino Mascardi, painting of, 277; Sangue di Christo, 295–98 fig. 38 works, portrait busts: Alexander VII, 56, fig. 14; Tomas Baker, 124; Costanza Bonarelli, 315, 318, 321, 322, 325, 330, 372n. 10, 374nn. 19, 21, 375n. 38, figs. 39, 41; Blessed Soul, 232, 322, fig. 31; Damned Soul, 231–32, 322, fig. 30; Gabriele Fonseca, 14, fig. 3; Gregory XV, 42, fig. 8; Louis XIV, 201, 203– 4, 208, fig. 25; Medusa, 322; Pedro de Foix Montoya, 174, 212, 215,180n. 58, fig. 27; Scipione Borghese, 165, 178n. 40, 320: first



version, 169 –70, fig. 20; second version, 170, fig. 21; Virginio Cesarini (attrib.), 280, fig. 34 works, projects for Saint Peter’s: Baldacchino, 55–56, 67n. 166, 131, 257, 269n. 33, 292, 294, fig. 32; bell towers, 285, 293, fig. 37; Cathedra Petri, 24, 275; colonnade, 275; Constantine, 49, fig. 12; Longinus, 131; Mathilde of Canossa, 322, 326, 374n. 19; Scala Regia, 49, 275, fig. 13; tomb of Urban VIII, 283, 285, 309n. 36, fig. 36 works, sculptural: Apollo and Daphne, 281, 283, 290, 291, 308n. 28, fig. 35; David, 224, 289 –90, 291, fig. 19; equestrian statue of Louis XIV, 63n. 100, 76, 86, 87, 104, 131; Fountain of the Four Rivers, 285; Ludovica Albertoni, 14, 24; Saint Lawrence, 59n. 1, 224–26, 232, 236, 239, 242 – 43, 248n. 62, fig. 28; Saint Sebastian, 225; Santa Bibiana, 229, 245n. 30, fig. 29; Truth, 44, 45, 143, 285, fig. 10; Truth revealed by Time, modello for, 287 Bernini, Giovanni Lorenzo (grandson of Gianlorenzo), 66nn. 153, 165 Bernini, Luigi, 85, 277, 307, 320 –21, 324, 329, 330, 372nn. 9, 10, 373n. 11 Bernini, Paolo, 24, 25 Bernini, Pier (Pietro) Filippo, 20, 23–26, 30, 31, 52, 53–54, 64n. 122, 73, 76, 87, 92 –93, 302 –3 (see also Bernini’s biographies, genesis of ) works: madrigal on Saint Teresa, 24; poem on Fountain of the Four Rivers, 24; memoriale on colonnade of Saint Peter’s, 24, 87; Donna ancora è fedele, 25, 64n. 121; L’Onestà negli amori, 25, 64n. 120; Sant’Alessio, 25; Vita humana, 64n. 121 Bernini, Pietro, 12, 97, 123, 71n. 253, 97, 98, 108n. 130, 138n. 27, 161, 161, 172, 176nn. 8, 12, 180n. 61, 188, 189, 197n. 44, 233, 234,235, 227, 240, 242, 244nn. 16, 18, 246nn. 42, 45, 257, 260, 262, 269n. 31, 270n. 48, 277, 301 Bernini, Vincenzio, 67n. 166 Bibiana, Santa, 229, 230, 245nn. 28, 30, fig. 29 biography (general), 35, 60n. 33, 80, 81, 133–34, 135–36, 322 anecdote, use of, 323

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index biography (cont’d) apologia, relation to, 38 autobiography, relation to, 80, 81, 133–34, 136 factual basis of, 35, 244n. 19, 98 –99 as intertext, 53 quotations, use in, 134–36 rhetorical aspects of, 33 as subgenre of history, 33 textuality of, 6 biography (artists’), 5–10, 52, 99 –100, 226 anecdotes, value of, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 apologetic aspect of, 132, 226 conferences on, 10 as cultural artifact, 6, 7, 8, 9 factual basis of, 7, 8, 9, 99 –100 as fiction, 7– 8, 9 hagiography, relation to, 35 as intertext, 52 –53, 58 quotation, use in, 132, 134–36 rhetorical categories of, 8 –9 sociological perspective on, 6 –7 style in, 10 textuality of, 8 –9, 9 –10, 226 topoi, 8, 9; artist’s self– criticism, 84; artist’s wit, 185; relations between artists and patrons, 186 types, multi-artist (see under Baglione; Bellori; Malvasia; Passeri; Vasari); standalone: 34, 67n. 177, 226; see also Condivi; Vasari) typography, italics, 115, 120 Blunt, Anthony, 15 Boccaccio, Giovanni, 33, 176n. 9, 185 Bollandists, 35 Bona, Giovanni Pietro, Relatione delle ceremonie fatte per la coronatione, 84 Bonarelli, Costanza, 84, 246n. 40, 272n. 1, 320 –31, 372nn. 4, 10, 373nn. 11, 14, 374nn. 21–22, 28, 375nn. 36, 40, 46 bust of, 315, 318, 320, 321, 322, 323, 324, 325, 329, 330, 372n. 10, 374nn. 19, 21, 27, 375n. 38, figs. 39, 41 inventory, 326, 340 –71 last will and testament of, 331– 40 Bonarelli, Matteo, 320, 322, 325, 326 –27, 329, 330, 372nn. 9, 10, 374n. 21, 375nn. 38 –39, 40, 43 Bonarelli, Olympia Caterina, 330, 334, 335, 336, 338, 339, 340 Bonifaccio, Giovanni, 71n. 256



Bonini, Filippo, 85 Borghese, Scipione, 112, 123, 146, 147, 149 –50, 157nn. 7, 12, 170, 177n. 27, 227, 240, 241, 244nn. 15–17, 248n. 64, 283, 320 busts of, 165, 178n. 40, 320; first version, 169 –70, fig.20; second version, 170, fig. 21 (see also anecdote and works under Baldinucci, Filippo, Vita; Bernini, Domenico, Vita) Borgia, Cardinal Gaspare, 292 –93 Borromini, Francesco, 45, 52, 112, 151, 264, 269n. 34, 273n. 81 Boschini, Marco, 99 –100 Carta del navegar pittoresco, 99 Bouhours, Dominique, 268n. 22 Brauer, Heinrich, 11 Bramante, Donato, 52 Brunelleschi, Filippo, 67n. 177, 165 Bruni, Antonio, 281, 283, 308n. 28 Statua di bronzo di N.S. Urbano VIII, 283 Bruno, Giordano, 86 Buonarroti, Michelangelo, 75, 81, 101, 125, 126 –28, 130 –31, 132, 138n. 27, 140n. 79, 165, 168, 170, 171, 172, 179n. 43, 180n. 50, 196n. 21, 198n. 66, 243n. 6, 249n. 75, 257, 270n. 52, 273n. 82, 302, 305, 307 imitatio Buonarroti, 12, 28, 37, 48, 52, 53, 81, 84, 94, 101, 128 –30, 132, 153, 161– 62, 164– 65, 168, 170, 171, 172, 177n. 14, 178n. 34, 182, 185, 187, 191, 242, 253, 256, 257, 259 – 60, 261– 63, 264, 270nn. 46, 49, 52, 291, 303 Rime, 296 vite of, 84, 115, 165, 185; Condivi, Vita, 48, 52 –53, 81, 132, 161– 62, 172 –73, 175; Vasari, Vita del Gran Michelagnolo Buonarroti, 115; Vasari, Vite, 34, 36, 37, 52, 178n. 31, 257 works: Conversion of Saint Paul, 165; Crucifixion of Saint Peter, 173; cupola of Saint Peter’s,17, 20, 38 –39, 68n. 200, 52, 85, 88, 257, 271n. 64; Faun, 165, 178n. 31; Last Judgment, 101, 127, 291; Night, 127, 139n. 56; Porta Pia, 173, 180n. 50; Risen Christ, 126, 127, 168, 170, 179n. 43, fig. 22; Saint Anthony Beaten by Devils, 172 –73; Sistine ceiling, 52; tomb of Julius II, 52 Buonarroti, Michelangelo, il Giovane, 296

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index Caffà, Melchiorre, 249n. 73 Caglieri, Liborio, 68n. 185 Calcagni, Tiberio, 81 Campanella, Tommaso, 38 Canossa, Ludovico da, 161, 176n. 9 Capello, Bianca, 208 Capponi, Vincenzo, 65n. 133 Capucci, Martino, 33, 99 –100 caricature, 191, 263, 288 Carracci, Annibale, 26, 35, 98, 100 –101, 112, 113, 125–32 passim, 137nn. 9, 14, 138n. 27, 139n. 60, 255, 257, 262, 271n. 61 postille to Vasari, 120 works, Farnese Gallery, 125 Cartari, Carlo, 22 –23. See also Bernini’s biographies, genesis Castelvetro, Lodovico, 214–15 Castiglione, Baldassare, 285– 86, 309n. 43 Cortegiano, 161, 285– 86 Ceasar, Julius, 38, 98 Cecilia, Saint, 229 Cellini, Benvenuto, 95, 196n. 39 Vita, 83, 95 Cesarini, Virginio, 31, 278, 280, 298 bust of, 280, fig. 34 Carmina, 66n. 161, 298 Cesi, Federico, 280, 298, 299, 306 Charles I, king of England, 112, 137nn. 9, 14, 155 Chambray, Roland Fréart de, 105n. 21, 130, 131, 140n. 79 Idée de la Perfection de la Peinture, 130, 140n. 79 Chantelou, Paul Fréart de, 16, 105n. 21, 121, 122, 130, 131, 133, 136, 170, 201, 223, 276, 286, 295 Journal, 16, 78, 79, 81, 101, 105n. 21, 111, 112, 121–32, 201, 286, 304–5; anecdotes in: Bernini’s name day, 223–24; Louis XIV and stolen portrait, 204–5, 219nn. 15–16; Paul V, encounter with, 122 –23, 138n. 30, 177n. 30; anecdotes regarding Bernini’s works: Louis XIV, 124; Pedro de Foix Montoya, 78, 124, 174, 210, 212 –18 passim, 221n. 44; Thomas Baker, 124: art theory in, 121–22, 125–26, 127: Bernini’s art theory in, 16, 130 –31; on beauty, 125; on moto, 305; on portraiture, 123–24, 127, 201, 203, 219n. 7, 305; on the paragone, 124, 305;



on vivacità, 127, 305: Bernini on modern artists, 101, 125–31, 286; Annibale Carracci, 101, 125–31 passim; Correggio, 125; Giulio Romano, 125; Mantegna, 125; Michelangelo, 101, 125, 126 –27, 129, 130, 131, 140n. 79; Poussin, 131; Raphael, 125, 286; Titian, 125: Bernini on ancient sculptures, Belvedere Torso, 129; Pasquino, 124–25, 129, 139n. 41; Venus, 127; Bernini’s works, Louis XIV, 124, 126, 201, 208 –9, 220nn. 33, 38, 305; Louvre, plans for, 201, 203, 204, 245n. 29; Saint John, drawing of, 122, 123; Saint Paul, drawing of, 122 –23: Bernini’s voice in, 121, 122; editions of, xvii, 122, 138n. 27; factual basis of, 131; quotation, use of, 79; textuality of, 130 –31; themes in, Bernini as absolute author, 277; Bernini’s intimacy with power, 276, 286; Bernini’s universality, 277; God as author, 245n. 29: topoi, selfcriticism, 124; son outstrips father, 244n. 18; typography of, 122; italics, 122, 138n. 27; underlining, 122 Charles, V, emperor, 86 Chéron, Jean-Charles-Francois, 182 medal commemorating Gianlorenzo Bernini, 182, fig. 23 Chiaro, Francesco, 71nn. 255, 266 Chigi, Flavio, 121 Christian archaeology, 229 Christina, queen of Sweden, 25, 30, 39, 44, 47, 49, 70n. 230, 74, 76, 92, 93, 94, 107n. 106, 112, 133, 137n. 14, 182, 187, 194, 195n. 3, 198n. 61, 199n. 77, 248n. 56, 258, 263, 275, 294 (see also Bernini’s biographies, genesis of ) and Baldinucci, 44, 47, 49 and Bellori, 93 mirror design for, 44, 69n. 224, fig. 11 as Truth, 44, 69n. 224 La Vie de la Riene Christine faite par ellememe, 73, 93 Ciampoli, Giovanni, 277, 278, 290, 292, 293, 294, 306, 307 Poetica Sacra, 290 –92, 293, 294 Prose, 306 Cicero, 198n. 61, 279, 287 Cigoli (Ludovico Cardi), 138n. 27, 301 Circignani, Niccolò, 247n. 52 classicism, 131, 194

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index Clairvaux, Bernard of, 38 Clement IX, 24, 41, 112, 114, 137n. 9, 190 Clement X, 24, 85, 276 Clement XI, 31, 32, 248n. 56 Clouwet, Albert, engraved portrait of Sforza Pallavicino, fig. 6 Colbert, Jean-Baptiste, 87, 112, 121, 122, 130, 131, 305, 309n. 41 Mémoire du traitement fait par la maison du roi à M. le cardinal Chigi, 121 Comanini, Gregorio, 247n. 52 Figino, 238 concettismo, 181, 184, 193–94 Condivi, Ascanio, 48, 71n. 252, 161– 62, 185 Vita di Michelagnolo Buonarroti, 40, 52, 81, 86, 115, 132, 165, 172 Contini, Domenico Filippo, 64n. 116 Contini, Giovanni Battista, 25 Copernicus, Nicolaus, 280, 298, 299 Copertino, Giuseppe da, 32, 120, 272n. 77 Cordier, Nicolas, Sant’Agnese, statue of, 245n. 30 Correggio, 125, 128 Corsican Guard, 103 Cortesi, Paolo, 176n. 7 Cosimo III, 27 Counter-Reformation, 14 Cropper, Elizabeth, 280 Cureau de la Chambre, Pierre, 18, 91, 97, 102, 105n. 7, 163 “Éloge de M. le cavalier Bernini,” 18 “Préface pour servir à l’histoire de la vie et des ouvrages du Cavalier Bernini,” 18, 90 –91; frontispiece, fig. 4 Dante, 86, 185, 237, 247n. 50, 275 Danti, Vincenzio, Trattato delle perfette Proporzioni, 268n. 29 Dati, Carlo Roberti, 310n. 59 decorum, 287, 204, 205, 208, 210 and courtiership, 186 – 87, 192 –93 defects, 48, 89, 286, 289, 310n. 59. See also Bernini’s art theory under Baldinucci, Filippo, Vita; Bernini, Domenico, Vita; see also Bernini, Domenico, Vita Delbeke, Maarten, 292 Democritus, 301 Diacono, Paolo, 289 Diocletian, 238, 247n. 52 Dominici, Bernardo De’, Vita de’ pittori, scultori ed architetti napoletani, 36, 244n. 18 Donatello, 52



D’Onofrio, Cesare, xiv, 11–12, 13, 17–18, 19, 28, 37, 50, 54, 74, 84, 111, 122, 212, 257, 321 Duquesnoy, François, 101, 131, 280 ekphrasis, 53, 88 enargeia. See under rhetoric Enggass, Catherine, 114 Epicurus, 301 Erasmus, 179n. 47 esteem. See money exemplum, 33, 34,131, 171, 232, 236, 270n. 46 expression, 172, 180n. 50, 231–33 Euripides, Hippolytus, 287 Fabbrica of St. Peter’s, 29, 88, 114 Fagiolo dell’Arco, Marcello, 251, 322 Fagiolo dell’Arco, Maurizio, 251, 322 Farnese, Clelia, 208 Farnese, Mario, 206 Favoriti, Agostino, 24, 54, 298 Febei, Francesco Maria, 54 Fedini, Domenico, 245n. 28 Fehl, Philip, 54 Félibien, André, 130, 329 Entretiens, 130 Ferrata, Ercole, 249n. 73 Festus, Sextus Pompeius, 289, 310n. 59 Compendium of De verborum significatione, 289 Florence, San Lorenzo, 224 France art theory in, 130 –31 cultural hegemony of, 103, 132, 154 nationalism, 35 opposition to Bernini, 45, 131, 276 places: Louvre, 87, 154, 201, 276, fig. 24; Palais du Luxembourg, 131; Saint Germain, 204; Versailles, 190 Francis I, king of France, 95, 196n. 39 Fraschetti, Stanislao, xiv, 1, 10, 11, 315, 317, 318, 322, 330 Frey, Carl, 81, 132 Fonseca, Gabriele, bust of, 14, fig. 3 Fontana, Carlo, 39 Fontana, Giovanni, 138n. 27 Fulvio, Orsini, 289 Gadamer, Hans-Georg, 206 Galante, Angelica, 321, 373n. 11 Galilei, Galileo, 31, 38, 55, 198n. 66, 280, 292, 293, 298–99, 300, 301, 305, 306, 307

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index works, Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi, 56, 198n. 66, 292, 293, 305– 6, 307; Saggiatore, 280 Gassendi, Pierre, 90 –91 Gaulli, Giovanni Battista (Baccicio) portrait of Gianlorenzo Bernini (engraved by Westerhout) 20, fig. 5 portrait of Sforza Pallavicino (engraved by Clouwet), fig. 6 Geertz, Clifford, 144 Gellio, Aulo, 286 Genette, Gérard, 144 Ginzburg, Carlo, 134 Giordano, Antonio, 244n. 18 Giordano, Luca, 244n. 18 Giotto, 36, 185 Giustiniani, Vincenzo, 170 Goldberg, Edward, 29 Goldstein, Carl, 8 –9 Goltzius, Hendrick, 248n. 62 Gould, Cecil, 122 Gracian, Balthasar, 194 Gregory XV, 42, 147, 245, 267n. 11 bust of, 42, fig. 8 Gregory, Saint, 175 Gronovius, Fredericus, 195n. 3 Guarini, Alessandro, 38 Guglielminetti, Marziano, 81 Guidi, Alessandro, 238 –39, 248nn. 56, 59 Guidiccioni, Lelio, 55–56, 300 –301 Ara Maxima Vaticana, 55 dialogue with Bernini, 12, 56, 300 –301

imitation (mimesis), 48, 99, 159 – 65 passim, 170 –75 passim, 176nn. 5, 7, 9, 179n. 47, 206, 210, 215, 242, 244n. 21, 256 –57, 266, 288, 291, 300 Christian mimesis, 99, 160 – 62, 165, 171, 172, 173, 229, 232, 233–34, 235 copy versus original, 161, 170, 174, 189, 214–16, 212n. 53, 324 filial imitation, 160 – 62, 171, 175n. 4, 176n. 6, 179nn. 12, 45 selective imitation, 48, 89, 162 – 63, 168, 176n. 13, 323 ingegno (general), 53, 55, 69n. 219, 71n. 247, 161, 171, 176n. 9, 226, 257, 270n. 48, 307 Innocent X, 55, 85, 93, 112, 137nn. 9, 14, 144, 151, 186, 187, 275, 285, 293 Innocent XI, 25, 31, 85, 92 –93 Innocent XII, 92 Innocent XIII, 32 Irenaeus, Saint, 160

hagiography, 34–36, 120 –21 Harris, Ann Sutherland, 277 Haskell, Francis, 276 Heinse, Wilhelm, Ardinghello, 207 Hess, Jakob, 6 Hibbard, Howard, 4, 111, 121, 322 Hippolytus, 245n. 31 Hollanda, Francisco de, 184, 198n. 66 Holt, Elizabeth Gilmore, 13 Horace, Epistles, 176n. 7

Lancellotti, Secondo, Farfalloni degli antichi historici notati, 247n. 52 Lanzi, Luigi, 100 LaRochefoucauld, Francois de, 199n. 77 Lavin, Irving, 4, 14, 16, 251, 288, 296 Lawrence, Saint, 224, 230 –31, 232, 237, 238, 239, 245n. 31, 247n. 50 feast of, 223, 224 Leclerc, Sebastién, frontispiece, “Allegoria dell’arte di Gian Lorenzo Bernini,” fig. 4 Lejeune, Philippe, 37, 82, 133–34 Leo X, 309n. 43 Leonardo da Vinci, 183, 277, 290 Leone, Ottavio, 40 Leporeo, Ludovico, 283 Lionne, Hugues de (marquis de Berny), 50, 70nn. 229, 242 Lipsius, Justus, 198n. 61 De Constantina, 247n. 54

Jesuits, 14, 26, 30, 83, 84, 238, 280 John, Saint, 224 Johnson, Samuel, 194 Julius II, 52, 187 Julius III, 52 Kallab, Wolfgang, 6 Kauffmann, Hans, 225 Keazor, Henry, 329 Kris, Ernst, 6 –7, 8, 9, 10, 100 Kurz, Otto, 6 –7, 8, 9, 10, 100

Ignatius of Loyola, Saint, Vita Ignatii, 83 illusionism, 15 imitatio Barberini, 55 imitatio Buonarroti. See under Baldinucci, Filippo, Vita, themes in; Bernini’s biographies, themes in; Bernini, Domenico, Vita, themes in; Bernini, Gianlorenzo; Buonarroti, Michelangelo



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index Livy, 71n. 253 Lomazzo, Gian Paolo, Trattato della pittura, 237–38 Longhi, Roberto, 99 Louis XIV, king of France, 39, 42, 44, 50, 70n. 241, 76, 105n. 21, 85, 86, 112, 114, 124, 126, 137n. 14, 149, 149, 151, 154, 155, 156, 158nn. 15, 21, 27, 182, 187, 189, 201, 204, 209, 219nn. 6, 15–16, 220nn. 33–34, 258, 269n. 37, 272n. 75, 276, 305, 309n. 41 bust of, 201, 203– 4, 208, fig. 25 (see also Baldinucci, Filippo, Vita, anecdotes in; Chantelou, Paul Fréart de, Journal, Bernini’s works) equestrian statue of, 63n. 100, 76, 86, 87, 104, 131 (see also works under Baldinucci, Filippo, Vita; Bernini, Domenico Vita) Lucretius, 301 Ludovici, Samek, 29, 114 Ludovisi, Alessandro, Monsignor, 146, 147, 157n. 7 Lyons, John, 135 Maderno, Carlo, 114, 245n. 30 Maderno, Stefano, 229 Magdalen, Mary, 328 Manuzio, Aldo, 115 Maratta, Carlo, 131 Marder, Tod, 4 Martial, 203 Malvasia, Carlo Cesare, 9, 10, 34, 120, 206, 207 Felsina Pittrice, 27, 92, 100, 120 Mander, Karel van, 248n. 62 Manni, Domenico Maria, 61n. 58 Mantegna, 125 Maratti, Carlo, 249n. 75 Marino, Giambattista, 34, 44, 53, 69n. 180, 71nn. 255–56, 54, 87, 193, 281, 308n. 28 Per la statua di Daphne, 281 Marot, Jean, engraving of Third Project for the Louvre, fig. 24 Martinelli, Valentino, 318 martyrdom, 229 –30, 234, 236, 237, 238 –39, 242 Mascardi, Agostino, 12, 33, 91, 98 –99, 134, 135, 141n. 99, 277– 80, 281, 283, 286 – 89 portraits of, 277, 278, fig. 33



works: Dell’arte historica, 33, 91, 98 –99, 134, 135, 141n. 99, 279, 287– 88; Discorsi morali, 278, 279, 280 – 81, 286 – 87, 289; Pompe del Campidoglio, 278; Prose vulgari, 278, 280; Silvae, 278 Masaccio, 36 Maximian, 247n. 52 Mayer, Thomas F., 37 Mazza, Tommaso, 38 Medici, Antonio de’, don, 208 Medici, Cardinal Ferdinando de’, 208 Medici, Francesco de’, grand duke of Tuscany, 208 Medici, Giovanni Carlo de’, 321, 372n. 10 Medici, Leopoldo de’, prince, 26, 27 Medici, Lorenzo de’, 52, 165, 178n. 31 Melan, Claude, 40 Melion, Walter, 248n. 60 microscope, 300, 306 mimesis. See imitation mirror as artist’s tool, 231, 232 as revealer of truth, 44, 69n. 216 as tool for self-knowledge, 172, 173, 246n. 36 money, as expression of esteem, 42, 93, 107n. 106, 124 Montagu, Jennifer, 16, 327 Montanari, Tomaso, xiv–xv, 18 –20, 22 –23, 24, 28, 54, 111, 292 Montoya, Pedro de Foix, 78 –79, 124, 105nn. 22 –24, 174, 212 –18 passim, 221nn. 44– 46, 56, 222nn. 62 – 64, 68, 71 bust of, 174, 212, 215,180n. 58, fig. 27 (see also anecdotes regarding Bernini’s works under Baldinucci, Filippo, Vita; Bernini, Domenico, Vita; Chantelou, Paul Fréart de, Journal) Motta, Raffaelle, 67n. 177 mythology, 290, 291, 294 Naudé, Gabriel, 279 nepotism, 85, 86, 92, 93 novelty, 160, 204, 242, 257, 261, 264, 266, 301, 307 Oliva, Gian Paolo, 14, 50, 61n. 62, 70nn. 229, 241– 42, 83, 112, 137n. 14, 138n. 27, 188 oratory, 8, 9, 60n. 33, 186, 271n. 63 epidiectic, 8, 9

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index panegyric, 8, 9, 55, 73, 89, 91, 102 Orpheus, 281, 283 Orsini, Paolo Giordano, 285 Ottoboni, Pietro, 112 Ovid, 293, 295 Fasti Sacri, 293 Paige, Nicholas, 120, 135–36 Pallavicino, Sforza, 14, 33, 48, 54, 55–58, 72n. 268, 82 – 83, 94, 112, 137n. 14, 186, 188, 193, 194, 256, 262, 268nn. 22 –23, 275, 277, 290, 291, 292, 293–94, 295, 298 –300, 301– 4, 305, 306, 311n. 79 and Gianlorenzo Bernini, 14, 292, 302 and Pier Filippo Bernini, 23–24, 57 portrait of, fig. 6 works: Arte della Perfezion Cristiana, 56, 57, 301– 4, 305, 306; Discorso intorno al seguente poema, 294; Fasti sacri, 293–94, 295, 311n. 79; Istoria del concilio di Trento, 66n. 161, 293; Lettere dettata dal Card. Sforza Pallavicino, 153, 66n. 161; Trattato dello stile e del dialogo, 55, 298; Trattato sulla Provvidenza, 56; Vita di Alessandro VII, 86 Panofsky, Erwin, 17 Paris. See France Pascal, Blaise, 192, 193 Passeri, Giovanni Battista, 36, 68n. 189, 97 Vite de’ pittori scultori ed architetti dall’anno 1641 sino all’anno 1673, 6, 85 Pasquini, Bernardo, 25, 64nn. 116, 121 Paul III, 52 –53, 138n. 27, 165 Paul V, 30, 112, 122, 123, 137nn. 9, 14, 138n. 30, 147, 152, 158n. 16, 195n. 9, 253, 257, 259, 261– 62, 271n. 58 Paul, Saint, 165 Pelagius II, 245n. 31 Perini, Giovanna, 10 Perrault, Charles, 127 Pesco, Daniela del, 121, 130 Petrarch, 33, 162, 171, 176n. 9, 179n. 45, 283 Phidias, 295, 311n. 84 Pico della Mirandola, Cardinal Lodovico, 20, 31 pietra di paragone, 44 Pignatelli, Stefano, 24, 293 Pilliod, Elizabeth, 9 Plato, 38 Plautus, 182, 186, 277 Pliny the Elder, 7, 33, 203 Natural History, 33 Plutarch, 33, 98, 286, 287



poetry (general), 60n. 33, 244n. 21, 275–307. See also under individual poets anti-marinism, 54 paragone with sculpture, 283, 285 sacred poetics, 289 –96 Poliziano, Angelo, 176n. 7 Polygnotos, 203 Pommier, Edouard, 5 Pope-Hennessey, John, 322 portraiture (general), 40, 174, 191, 203, 214–15, 222n. 59, 245n. 24 and eroticism, 206, 207, 208, 209 limitations of, 201, 203, 205, 210, 212 –14, 215, 216 –17 linguistic and notional roots of, 206 as memoria, 218 ritratti parlanti, 138n. 36, 320 ritratti rubati, 204–7, 208, 220n. 21 Poussin, Nicolas, 101, 130, 131, 279, 329 Poussinistes, 131 Pozzo, Cassiano dal, 277–78 Preimesberger, Rudolf, 251, 258, 265, 289 –90 Previtali, Giovanni, 98 Ptolemy, 301 Pygmalion, 324 Pythius, 184, 186 Quintilian, 134, 135, 172, 179n. 47, 197n. 52 Institutio Oratoria, 134, 176n. 7, 197n. 52, 223 quotation, 134–36 Raimondi, Ezio, 280 Raphael, 27, 34, 35, 36, 37, 101, 128, 125, 129, 130, 131, 161, 176n. 13, 259 – 60, 261, 270nn. 44, 46, 271n. 54, 286, 291, 309n. 43 Rasponi, Cesare, 334, 335, 338, 339 Reni, Guido, 9 Reymond, Marcel, 11 rhetoric, 172, 208, 213, 279, 291, 298. See also oratory dictum ( factum), 212, 213 elocutio, 291 enargeia (evidentia), 12, 134–35, 228 (see also vivacità under art theory) inventio, 291 occasio, 212 paradoxon schema, 213 peripeteia, 213, 216 provocatio, 212 –23

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index Ribadeneira, Pedro de, 83 Ridolfi, Carlo, 65n. 139 Riegl, Alois, 10 –11, 13 Ripa, Cesare, 248n. 62 Iconologia: “Ingegno,” 44, 69n. 219, fig. 9; “Costanza,” 248n. 62 Roberti de’ Vittori, Carlo, 24, 299, 300 Romano, Giulio, 125 Rosa, Salvator, 54 Rossi, De’, publishers, 40, 69n. 210 Rossi, Mattia de’, 24, 64n. 118 relazione on cupola of St. Peter’s, 20, 28 –29, 88 Rome Pantheon, 35, 131 Saint Peter’s, 20, 52, 114, 145, 181, 268nn. 20, 22 –23, fig. 37 San Giacomo degli Spagnuoli, 215, 218 San Lorenzo fuori le mura, 245n. 31 San Lorenzo in Damasco, 245n. 31 San Lorenzo in Fonte, 245n. 31 San Lorenzo in Lucina, 245n. 31 San Lorenzo in Miranda, 245n. 31 San Lorenzo in Panisperna, 245n. 31 Santa Bibiana, 229 Santa Maria Maddalena delle Convertite, 328 Santa Maria Maggiore, 30, 32, 229, 321 Santo Stefano Rotondo, 247n. 50 Vatican Palace, 49, 249n. 75, 269n. 43 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 82, 223 Rubens, Peter Paul, 98 Rubenistes, 131 Rubin, Patricia, 7 Ryle, Gilbert, 144 Sacchetti, Franco, 185 Salazar, Philippe-Joseph, 135 Salvetti, Domenico, 334, 335, 338, 339 Sarpi, Paolo, 293 Sarto, Andrea del, 27 Savignani, Emilio, 29 Savoia, Cardinal Maurizio de, 278 Scaevola, Mucius, 71n. 253, 223, 227, 236 –39, 240, 243, 244n. 16, 247nn. 50, 52, 248n. 62 Scagliero, Giuseppe, 289 Scannelli, Francesco, 97 Scarlatti, Alessandro, 25–26, 64nn. 117–18, 30 Scarlatti, Cosimo, 64n. 118 Schlosser, Julius von, 5– 6, 7, 11, 17, 121



Schudt, Ludwig, 16 Schütze, Sebastian, 54 science, 280, 298, 299, 301–2 and faith, 280, 298 –300, 305 Scribner, Charles, 111 Scolari, Caterina degli, 26 sculpture, 229, 239, 241, 242, 279, 281 inferiority to painting, 101, 131, 132 restoration of antiquities, 240, 279 – 80 theory of, 131, 305– 6 (see also art theory) Segneri, Paolo, 238 Seneca, 160, 162, 171, 176n. 12, 195n. 3 Epistole, 176n. 7, 179n. 45 Sibonio, Emilio, 24 Silva, Michel de, Bishop, 286 Silvestre, Israel, engraving of View of St. Peter’s, fig. 37 Sobotka, Georg, 11 Socrates, 38, 246n. 36 Sohm, Philip, 10 Soussloff, Catherine, xiv, 1, 10, 12 –13, 14, 28, 52, 129 Spear, Richard, 9 Spierre, Françios, 69n. 210, 295 Sangue di Christo, engraving after Bernini, 295, fig. 38 Stanic, Milovan, 121 Stoicism, 182, 192 –93, 195n. 3, 198n. 61, 199n. 77, 238, 239 Strozzi, Leone, 172, 224, 227, 235, 240, 242, 244nn. 16 –17 style, 10, 11, 15, 27, 28, 97, 126, 176n. 4, 273n. 81, 298 Summers, David, 256 Tansillo, Luigi, 86 Tasso, Torquato, 247n. 50, 275 Cataneo overo Degli idoli, 237 taste, 93, 238, 239 – 40, 268n. 22, 323, 324, 326 Terence, 182, 186, 277 telescope, 299, 300 Tesauro, Emanuele, 194 Tessin, Nicodemus the Younger, 325, 327, 330, 375n. 38 Tezio, Caterina, 23, 68n. 193, 112, 194, 317, 324 theater, 16 Tiarini, Alessandro, 206 Tietze, Hans, 6 time: as devourer, 287–88; as revealer of truth, 44, 69n. 224, 144, 156, 285–87, 288

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index Tintoretto, 67n. 177 Tirio, Massimo, 287 Titian, 86, 125, 128, 197n. 57, 291 Tomasi, Maria, 31–32 Torriani, Orazio, 180n. 58 Totti, Pompilio, Ristretto delle grandezze di Roma, 269n. 33 Tuscan school, 27, 28 typography: (general), 113; italics, 115; quotation marks, 115

Vasari, Giorgio, 27, 33, 34, 37, 70n. 252, 86, 87, 100, 101, 182, 183, 185, 257 study of, 5– 6, 7, 8, 9, 11 Vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architettori, 34, 36, 52, 115, 127, 165, 176n. 12, 186 Veronese, Paolo, 67n. 177 virtue, 228 –29 heroic or saintly, 26, 237–38, 279 poetic celebration of, 287, 290, 295 Vitruvius, 184

Urban VIII, 12, 41, 52, 54–56, 92, 112, 129, 132, 137nn. 9, 14, 147, 246n. 40, 253, 257, 259, 260, 261, 262, 263, 267n. 11, 269n. 43, 270n. 49, 271n. 61, 276, 278, 285, 290, 292, 293, 294, 298, 309n. 36, 311nn. 71, 80, 321, 324, 372n. 10. See also Barberini, Maffeo as author of the Baldacchino, 55–56 as creator of Bernini, 55 tomb of, 283, 285, 309n. 36, fig. 36 (see also Baldinucci, Filippo, Vita, works) Vangelisti, Vincenzio, 137n. 11, 145 Vannini, Ottavio, Saint Apollonia Throwing Herself into the Flames, 247n. 52



Weibel, Walther, 11, 14 Westerhout, Arnold van, 69n. 210 engraved portrait of Gianlorenzo Bernini after Giovanni Battista Gaulli, 20, 40 fig. 5 Winckelmann, Johann Joachim von, Geschichte der Kunst des Alterums, 5 Wittkower, Rudolf, 4, 11, 225, 322, 325 Woolf, Daniel R., 37 Zeuxis, 177n. 14, 203, 289, 310n. 59 Zuccaro, Federico, 184– 85 Zucchi, Jacopo, 83, Treasures of the Sea, 208, fig. 26

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