BERNINI, GIOVANNI LORENZO

The greatest sculptor and architect of the Italian baroque; b. Naples, 1598; d. Rome, Nov. 28, 1680. A child prodigy, Bernini learned the rudiments of his art from his father, Pietro, a Florentine late mannerist sculptor. In 1605 the family moved to Rome, where Bernini remained, except for a six-month sojourn (1665) at the court of Louis XIV in Paris. He was named architect to St. Peter's, where for more than 50 years he directed vast enterprises in the area of the Vatican (see st. peter's basilica). Throughout the city he renovated and designed churches, squares, chapels, tombs, palaces, and fountains; he invented the full baroque portrait bust; he officiated in a gamut of civic undertakings from the planning of illuminations, carnival floats, fireworks, and catafalques to the presentation of operas and comedies for which he created the costumes and stage machinery. Bernini was one of the last of the "universal men." He gave Rome its baroque character and Europe a new sculptural style that reigned for several centuries.

Bernini's early reputation was made with three lifesize marble groups (1618–24): "Aeneas and Anchises," "Pluto and Proserpina," and "Apollo and Daphne," as

well as with "David," executed for Cardinal Scipione Borghese. He divided his attention equally between antique sculpture and contemporary painting; his astonishing craftsmanship delighted in technical feats of realism until then considered outside the realm of sculpture. The Roman Curia, notably Popes urban viii, innocent x, and alexander vii were Bernini's principal patrons. Among his achievements in St. Peter's are some of the most opulent expressions of the Ecclesia triumphans: the "Baldacchino" (1624–33); the decoration of chapels and nave; the "Scala Regia" (1663–66); the "Cathedra Petri" in the apse (1657–66); and the design for St. Peter's Square (1656–67). As in all Bernini's churches, S. Andrea al Quirinale (1658–67) combines architecture, sculpture, and ornamentation to form an indivisible unity whose purpose is to illumine the mystery of St. Andrew's salvation. So, too, in the Cornaro Chapel (1645–52, S. Maria della Vittoria), with the altar of St. Teresa in ecstasy (see teresa of avila, st.), and in the Altieri Chapel, with Bl. Lodovica Albertoni (1671–74, S. Francesco a Ripa), a theatrical setting is used to transport the faithful to the realm of exultant mystical reality. A fervent practitioner of the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola, Bernini summoned every resource of his stupendous baroque rhetoric to deny the barrier between the real and imagined, the better to celebrate the spirit of 17th-century

Catholicism.

See Also: baroque art; church architecture, 7.

Bibliography: Sources . f. baldinucci, Vita di Bernini (Florence 1682), ed. s. s. ludovici (Milan 1948). p. f. de chantelou, Journal du voyage en France du chevalier Bernin, ed. l. lalanne (Paris 1930). See also the Vitae of g. baglione (1642), l. pascoli, 2 v. (1730–36), and g. b. passeri (1772). Literature . e. benkard, G. L. Bernini (Frankfurt a.M. 1926). l. grassi, Disegni del Bernini (Bergamo 1944); Bernini pittore (Rome 1945). v. martinelli, ed., Bernini (Milan 1953). a. muÑoz, G. L. Bernini: Architetto e decoratore (Rome 1925). r. pane, Bernini architetto (Venice 1953). m. reymond, Le Bernin (Paris 1911). m. von boehn, Lorenzo Bernini, seine Zeit, sein Leben, sein Werk (2d ed. Bielefeld 1927). r. wittkower, G. L. Bernini, the Sculptor of the Roman Baroque (New York 1955).

[r. m. arb]