Patronage of Urban VIII of Gian Lorenzo Bernini

With the pontificate of Urban VIII (1623–44), Bernini entered a period of enormous productivity and artistic development. Urban VIII urged his protégé to paint and to practice architecture. His first architectural work was the remodeled Church of Santa Bibiana in Rome. At the same time, Bernini was commissioned to build a symbolic structure over the tomb of St. Peter in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. The result is the famous immense gilt-bronze baldachin executed between 1624 and 1633. Its twisted columns derive from the early Christian columns that had been used in the altar screen of Old St. Peter’s. Bernini’s most original contribution to the final work is the upper framework of crowning volutes flanked by four angels that supports the orb and cross. The baldachin is perfectly proportioned to its setting, and one hardly realizes that it is as tall as a four-story building. Its lively outline moving upward to the triumphant crown, its dark colour heightened with burning gold, give it the character of a living organism. An unprecedented fusion of sculpture and architecture, the baldachin is the first truly Baroque monument. It ultimately formed the centre of a programmatic decoration designed by Bernini for the interior of St. Peter’s.

Bernini next supervised the decoration of the four piers supporting the dome of St. Peter’s with colossal statues, though only one of the latter, St. Longinus, was designed by him. He also made a series of portrait busts of Urban VIII, but the first bust to achieve the quality of his earlier portraits is that of his great patron, Scipione Cardinal Borghese (1632). The cardinal is shown in the act of speaking and moving, and the action is caught at a moment that seems to reveal all the characteristic qualities of the subject.

Bernini’s architectural duties increased after the death of Carlo Maderno in 1629, when Bernini became architect of St. Peter’s and of the Palazzo Barberini. By this time he was not only executing works himself but also having to rely on assistance from others as the number of his commissions grew. He was successful in organizing his studio and planning his work so that sculptures and ornamentations produced by a team actually seem to be all of a piece. Bernini’s work, then and always, was also shaped by his fervent Roman Catholicism (he attended mass every day and took communion twice a week). He would agree with the formulations of the Council of Trent (1545–63) that the purpose of religious art was to teach and inspire the faithful and to serve as propaganda for the Roman Catholic Church. Religious art should always be intelligible and realistic, and, above all, it should serve as an emotional stimulus to piety. The development of Bernini’s religious art was largely determined by his conscientious efforts to conform to those principles.

Under Urban VIII Bernini began to produce new and different kinds of monuments—tombs and fountains. The tomb of Urban VIII (1628–47) shows the pope seated with his arm raised in a commanding gesture, while below him are two white marble figures representing the Virtues. Bernini also designed a revolutionary series of small tomb memorials, of which the most impressive is that of Maria Raggi (1643). But his fountains are his most obvious contribution to the city of Rome. The Triton Fountain in the Piazza Barberini (1642–43) is a dramatic transformation of a Roman architectonic fountain—the superposed basins of the traditional geometric piazza fountain appearing to have come alive. Four dolphins raise a huge shell supporting the sea god, who blows water upward out of a conch.

Bernini’s early architectural projects, however, were not invariably successful. In 1637 he began to erect campaniles, or bell towers, over the facade of St. Peter’s. But, in 1646, when their weight began to crack the building, they were pulled down, and Bernini was temporarily disgraced.