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Presentation
It was in this villa that Gian Lorenzo Bernini began his career at a very young age, thanks to the protection and patronage of Scipione Borghese. The gallery is dedicating an important critical contribution to him, which began with the exhibition “Bernini scultore [Bernini the Sculptor]” mounted on the occasion of the museum’s reopening, and proposed again twenty years later with the extensive exhibition dedicated to the great sculptor and main protagonist of the Baroque.
The Galleria Borghese, which has the most important collection of marbles by Bernini, is the ideal place to examine the artist’s entire production, covering the full span of his very long career. Here the visitor can follow the methods and times required for his monumental sculpture and the creation of that special artistic language currently defined as Baroque, in which space and volume, light and colour merge in a representation of imaginary and spectacular resemblances.
The exhibition mainly focuses on sculpture, from his apprenticeship with his father Pietro to the last works in marble, but it also looks into aspects related to the profession of the sculptor, with a focus on the preparatory sketches, the restoration of ancient works, but also Gian Lorenzo as a painter. The busts show his skill in portraiture and the relationship with Louis XIV is examined. The individual sections were entrusted to specialists in Bernini’s work.
On the occasion of the exhibition, the statue of Saint Bibiana was moved to an “open work site” for restoration, visible to visitors in the portico in the months immediately prior to the exhibition of the statue in the main hall, the Salone.
The exhibition, presented with Fendi as an institutional partner, is curated by Andrea Bacchi and Anna Coliva. The catalogue is published by Officina Libraria.
Artist
1598
Bernini is born in Naples to the Florentine sculptor
Pietro Bernini.
_________
1606
He moves to Rome with his father, who has been commissioned
to execute the Assumption of the Virgin in Santa Maria Maggiore,
living with Pietro in a house across from the basilica and
remaining there even after the latter’s death in 1629.
_________
1611-1614
Not yet adolescent, he begins to take his first steps
as a sculptor on the worksite of the basilica’s Pauline Chapel,
assisting his father, who had become a top artist in the Rome
of Paul V Borghese.
_________
1615-1620
He works with his father on several marvelously executed works
(Bacchanal: A Faun Teased by Children), puts himself to the
test in a ‘minor’ genre like putti and independently carves his
first important works for Cardinal Maffeo Barberini, the future
Urban VIII (the St. Sebastian) and Paul V’s cardinal nephew
Scipione Borghese (Aeneas and Anchises).
_________
1621-1622
He becomes the portraitist of the new pope, Gregory XV Ludovisi,
but continues to work for Scipione Borghese, carving the first
of his two famous groups with a mythological subject (The Pluto
and Proserpina) and several posthumous busts of Paul V.
_________
1622-1625
He carves the Apollo and Daphne, the incomparable
peak of his technical virtuosity.
_________
1623-1644
Maffeo Barberini is elected pope with the name of Urban VIII
and immediately decides to use Gian Lorenzo – who executes
several portraits of him – for all the major artistic undertakings
of his papacy, from the Baldachin to his tomb, both of which are
in St. Peter’s. Bernini lives near the basilica between 1630 and
1634, but in 1643, by then a rich man, he moves to a large house
on via della Mercede.
_________
1632-1637
Having already executed many busts of popes and important
prelates (Alessandro Peretti), with the Scipione Borghese and
Costanza Bonarelli he inaugurates his exceptionally modern
new formula of the ‘speaking likeness’.
_________
1644-1655
After a brief pause – to which the artist responds with
an autobiographical work practically unique in the history
of sculpture, Truth Revealed by Time – with the papacy of
Innocent X Pamphilj, Bernini’s career continues its string
of successes (the Four Rivers Fountain).
_________
1655-1667
With Alexander VII Chigi, Bernini is again the absolute
arbiter of the Roman art world, the Cathedra and the
Colonnade putting the seal on his decades-long work
redefining St. Peter’s Basilica. As always, he executes
a portrait of the new pope, and is sent, almost as if on
a diplomatic mission, to Paris, where he is commissioned
an equestrian statue of the Sun King, Louis XIV.
_________
1667-1669
During the papacy of Clement IX Rospigliosi (whom
he unfailingly portrays, albeit only in painting) he begins
to oversee the execution of the Angels on Ponte Sant’Angelo.
_________
1670-1676
Clemente X Altieri is the seventh pope immortalized by Bernini,
who is now over seventy years old and begins to sing his own
praises in a biography, which, however, will be published,
by Filippo Baldinucci, only after his death.
_________
1676-1679
In his last years he is bound by a close relationship of esteem
and friendship with Christina of Sweden, to whom he wills
his last work, Salvator Mundi.
_________
1680
Bernini dies in Rome.
Setup
Bernini
Installation View
Bernini
Installation View
Gian Lorenzo Bernini
Sleeping Hermaphroditos Roman marble of the second century CE
Parigi, Musée du Louvre
Gian Lorenzo Bernini
Sleeping Hermaphroditos Roman marble of the second century CE
Parigi, Musée du Louvre
Gian Lorenzo Bernini
Apollo and Daphne
1622-1625
Marble
Gian Lorenzo Bernini
Apollo and Daphne
1622-1625
Marble
Bernini
Installation view
Bernini
Installation view
Bernini
Installation view
Bernini
Installation view
Gian Lorenzo Bernini
1619
Damned soul
Marble
Embassy of Spain at the Holy See, Rome
Gian Lorenzo Bernini
1619
Damned soul
Marble
Embassy of Spain at the Holy See, Rome
Bernini
Installation view
Bernini
Installation view