Gian Lorenzo Bernini

Gian Lorenzo Bernini (also written Gianlorenzo; 7 December 1598 – 28 November 1680) was an Italian who worked as a sculptor, architect, painter, and city planner. His wide-ranging skills across different art forms mark him as a uomo universale, or Renaissance man. Although he was a significant architect, he is best known as the foremost sculptor of his era, widely recognized for inventing the Baroque style in sculpture.

One scholar compared him to Shakespeare in drama, saying Bernini may be to sculpture what Shakespeare is to drama: the first sculptor across Europe whose name instantly brings to mind a specific style and vision, and whose impact was extremely strong. He also painted, mostly small oil canvases, and worked in theater—writing, directing, and acting in plays, mainly Carnival satires, while also designing stage sets and machinery. Additionally, he created designs for decorative objects like lamps, tables, mirrors, and even coaches.

As an architect and city planner, Bernini designed secular buildings, churches, chapels, and public squares. He also produced large works that combined architecture and sculpture, such as elaborate public fountains, funerary monuments, and temporary structures made of stucco and wood for funerals and festivals. His broad technical skill, endless inventiveness, and exceptional ability to work marble made him a worthy successor to Michelangelo, far surpassing other sculptors of his time. His talent went beyond sculpture to consider the environment where his work would be placed; art historian Irving Lavin called his ability to blend sculpture, painting, and architecture into a unified whole the "unity of the visual arts."

Bernini was born in Naples on 7 December 1598 to Angelica Galante, a Neapolitan, and Mannerist sculptor Pietro Bernini, who was originally from Florence. He was the sixth of thirteen children. Recognized as a prodigy by age eight, he was constantly encouraged by his father. His early talent earned him admiration and favor from powerful patrons, who called him "the Michelangelo of his century." Specifically, Pope Paul V, after seeing the boy’s skill, famously said, "This child will be the Michelangelo of his age," a prophecy he later repeated to Cardinal Maffeo Barberini (the future Pope Urban VIII), as recorded by Bernini’s son Domenico in his biography. In 1606, Bernini’s father received a papal commission for a marble relief in the Cappella Paolina of Santa Maria Maggiore, so he moved his entire family from Naples to Rome, where he continued training Gian Lorenzo seriously.

Several works from around 1615 to 1620 are generally considered by scholars to be collaborations between father and son. These include *Faun Teased by Putti* (Metropolitan Museum, NYC), *Boy with a Dragon* (Getty Museum, Los Angeles), the *Aldobrandini Four Seasons* (private collection), and the recently discovered *Bust of the Savior* (1615–16, New York, private collection). After the Bernini family arrived in Rome, word of Gian Lorenzo’s great talent spread, and he soon caught the attention of Cardinal Scipione Borghese, nephew of Pope Paul V. The cardinal spoke of the boy genius to his uncle, so Bernini was brought before the pope, who wanted to verify the stories. The boy improvised a sketch of Saint Paul, impressing the pope, which began the pope’s interest in him.

Once in Rome, Bernini rarely left the city, except for a five-month stay in Paris serving King Louis XIV (which he did against his will) and brief trips to nearby towns like Civitavecchia, Tivoli, and Castelgandolfo, mostly for work. Rome was his city; Pope Urban VIII told him, "You are made for Rome, and Rome for you." It was in 17th-century Rome, amid its international religious and political power, that Bernini created his greatest works. His art is often seen as a perfect expression of the assertive, triumphant, yet defensive spirit of the Counter-Reformation Catholic Church. Bernini was certainly a man of his time and deeply religious, especially later in life, but he and his work should not be reduced to mere tools of the papacy and its political-doctrinal programs—an impression sometimes given by earlier scholars like Rudolf Wittkower, Howard Hibbard, and Irving Lavin. As Tomaso Montanari’s revisionist book *La libertà di Bernini* (Turin: Einaudi, 2016) and Franco Mormando’s anti-hagiographic biography *Bernini: His Life and His Rome* (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011) argue, Bernini and his artistic vision kept a certain freedom from the mindset and customs of Counter-Reformation Roman Catholicism.

Under the patronage of the extremely wealthy and powerful Cardinal Scipione Borghese, the young Bernini quickly rose to prominence as a sculptor. His early work for the cardinal, as an assistant in his father’s workshop, likely included small contributions to decorative pieces for the Villa Borghese garden, such as *The Allegory of Autumn* (formerly in the Hester Diamond collection, New York). Another small garden ornament (in the Galleria Borghese) also dates from this period.